The Ride - May 1

We left Camp Wood this morning under cloudy skies and temperatures in the 70’s.  It was pretty humid from the beginning with a slight breeze.  The clouds hung around until about Noon when we were 64 miles into our day.  After lunch it had cleared off and warmed up.  We were all good to Del Rio,TX where we turned NW and hit the wind.  A cold front was moving in and the temperatures dropped from 93 at about 2pm to 68 by 6pm.  The high tomorrow is supposed to be only 63ish.

Here is a picture of the deer fences we have see through all of Texas.  You can see they are about 9 feet tall.  Some of the ranchers raise the deer for paid hunts.

Here is what it is like to be on the bike riding across the Texas.  First, to fully appreciate this description you need to jump in your car and do not turn your A/C on.  Then find a road that has the rumble bumps along the right edge of the road and drive on them for a mile – that is what it feels like to ride on chip sealed roads on a road bicycle. 

Now, you are on a road bicycle riding on the shoulder of a highway in Texas, say US 90, and you are three weeks into a six week ride.  Your bum is a little tender, your legs ache and the palms of your hands are sore from the road vibrations.  Thousand Foot Crutch is playing on the IPOD and you have just filled your water bottles and had a couple of cookies for energy.  You start pedaling.  Shannon is in front and Kyle is behind you.  You think this is rare as they are usually both about 50 yards in front of you.  The road vibrations cause to you change your grip on the handlebars.  You have now ridden about 5 minutes - time to eat a few pretzels.  You reach in your food pocket to grab a couple when oh crap (filtered) a gust of wind hits you from the side.  You drop the pretzels and grab the bars to keep from getting blown off the road.  A few minutes later, it is time to drink something.  You have water or Gatorade.  You grab the bottle as you start to roll downhill (as you shouldn't need to pedal, its downhill after all) and then wham (filtered) you get hit by a wind gust head on and are almost stopped in your tracks. 

Now its time for some more snacks.  You grab a few more pretzels and put them in your mouth just as you smell roadkill.  30 seconds later you roll up on it and this one is bad and you almost lose your pretzels.

You also find interesting things to take pictures of, people honking and waving at you and deer jumping across the road in front of you.  About every 3 miles the SAG vehicle is there with more water, snacks and words of encouragement.  You share what you have seen...or hear what you missed and then start pedaling again. 

Repeat the above steps for about 8-10 hours each day. 

Today, we figure we saw a road kill every mile for the first 40-50 miles and one every 1.5 miles the rest of the day.  Yep, we are in Texas.

By the end of the day – your bum is sore from the road, your wrists ache from the bumps, you are sunburned (even with sunscreen applied regularly), you are sweaty, hungry and exhausted and then you realize you have to go up one more hill to get  to the RV. 

Is it worth it?  Yes, without a doubt.  If living with PD is half this bad, then living with PD sucks and we need to find a cure or better treatments. 

Thanks for following us on our adventure and for your support.  Now go out and get 10 friends to donate $5 to help us raise our goal of $1 million.  Trust me, those with PD and their caregivers will be forever grateful.  How do I know, I have met some of them during the last three weeks and they are so appreciative of what we are doing and I know they would love to tell you thanks personally.