July 15th The ride begins

July 15 40.7 miles 3:17.14 hours/minutes/seconds

Day one of the ride to San Diego. We left Fauntleroy about 1:15 PM. We made a left out of the church parking lot, which meant we had to climb a hill. The first hill was followed by another hill. I was already wondering what I had gotten myself into 5 minutes into the ride. I wsa panting like a dog and my heart rate was way up. Several people passed me going up the second hill, which was a bit disheartening at the outset of the ride. My solace was most of the people passing me by were 20 or more years younger than me. It could be a long ride with people passing me on hill climbs.

Once the road leveled out and we got out of Seattle traffic and on the bike path, I caught up to some of the folks who had initially passed me at the start of the ride. I dropped my cell phone, shortly before we entered the bike path. Of course, I did not have the new plastic protective case on it when I dropped it. The phone came up and the battery went flying. I was able to retrieve all the parts and put it back together. The fall took a nice piece out of the glass front and a piece out of the metal rim around the glass front. I had taken the protective case off to put a new battery and had not put it back on since it was so hard to take off. Lesson learned. The good news is it appears the phone still works.

The bike path was great to ride on. No traffic, aside from other bikes and walkers, and no traffic signals and no hills. It may have been a bit boring, but it was safe. I could ride on such a path all the way to San Diego. At the end of the bike path, it was back to “city” riding, cars and traffic lights. The 15 miles or so of the ride I rode with Al, a member of the church where we stayed in Seattle. He is avid cyclist. After worship several people encourage him to join us. Turns out he had ridden much of the ride we were doing the day before with his wife. Al is a defense attorney. He defends people facing federal prosecution. He has been an attorney for 40 years. His wife was a college professor. She has retired and Al is making plans to retire in the not to distant future. They have grown children and three grand-daughters. Al was a very pleasant riding partner, and he was very caring when I had my crash about 5 miles from the church. My pedal or buckle on my cycling shoe caught a high curb, that was painted black and not very easy to see in the late afternoon soon. I went flying off my bike on the concrete sidewalk. My bike has some cosmetic damage, but is otherwise fine. I too have some cosmetic dings, bumps, scrapes, and a swollen right ankle. I am worried that my ankle and sore wrist might be a problem on tomorrow's 60 mile ride. I am icing the ankle and the wrist with the hope that by morning the swelling will be down on my ankle and the wrist/thumb won't be as stiff.

We are staying at the Urban Church in Tacoma, WA. The church is very large right down and as luck would have it ¾ of the way up a very steep hill with 4 traffic lights. I had to stop at one traffic light. Thankfully I was able to clip out and get around the corner a bit so as to have level ground to start up when the light changed. I did a little cross traffic jay walk with the bike to reach the front door of the church, in order not to have to stop on the hill again.

Right after I arrived at the church a homeless woman, who appeared to have some mental health issues as well came to the front door looking for the jacket she had left at the church earlier in the day. I explained to her that I did not work at the church and did not know if anyone from the church was availabe to look for her jacket. She started to walk up the stairs and then promptly turned around said, “they can keep the coat,” and walked out of the building. One of the other cyclist in out group carried my bike downstairs, while I waited for ice for my ankle and my luggage so I can go to the Y down the street to shower.

The Y was small, but nice. The shower felt good after a rainy, wet, ride that included my crash. After showering, I returned to the church to wait for dinner. The kitchen we had access to was tiny, which made it difficult to prepare dinner. For dinner we had baked potato with chilli. I am on breakfast, laundry and whatever Allen needs us to do.

After dinner several of us played rummy. The funny thing about our rummy game was that myself and Sarah were the only people who knew how to play rummy and I did not do the best job explaining the rules, which for interesting play. Lights out was at 10 PM. I got to sleep on the couch because of my mini accident. I slept much better than the past two nights.