What an exceptional day of riding. Some of the day was on a busy 4 lane with good shoulders, but once we were off the 4 lane we were in the forest with small farmhouses - some modernized, some run down, and some abandoned. Looked for, but didn't find, an old lady smoking a corncob pipe. Little narrow roads, little traffic, up and down over ridge after ridge after ridge, along little streams, shaded by thick trees, chased by farm dogs (mostly, actually all, just glad to run along side us for a little while). Agriculture was all small fields for hay, a few little plots of vegetables. Looks like hard to make a decent living, but real pretty.
Nothing much to take a picture of, but the overall effect of delightful riding and pleasant surroundings was quite exceptional. For those from Boulder, think 70 miles of old Apple Valley Road with a few more trees and more abandoned house and for sale houses.
We finally did our first "tour" of something today: ate lunch at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (really!). Took a 20 minute tour of the old hospital (in the picture). Peaked at 2600 "patients" (inmates?) in 1967 and was down to 141 when it closed in 1994. Thanks to the Thorazine that they used to dissolve in the coffee and sneak to the people.
Note the rather tired looking riders - interesting, that we all are getting to look a bit bedraggled.
Second flat tire of the ride today. And, a weird mechanical: the glue holding my cadence magnet must have loosened in yesterday's deluge, the magnet came off and was strong enough that it jumped to and attached itself to my chain and was then pulled into the derailleur. Took more than a little while to find the little tiny magnet, and sort out what happened! No power readings today and until I get the magnet glued back on.
Although billed as 9000 feet of climbing today, it only read (and felt like) 6000 feet on my Garmin.
7.8 hours, 122 miles/201 km, 99 pulse, 16.0 MPH (tailwinds again).
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