Day 29 - Harrisonburg, VA to Ashland, VA

I hope you'll not be too upset if there aren't any pictures from today. I took some and will try to share all the pics as well as those taken by other riders at some point. For this post though, I think it's important for me to talk about something other than the ride.

We're getting ready for the run into Williamsburg tomorrow. It's hard to believe we've got less than 100 miles left in this 3,400 mile journey. Being on the bike for that long gives one the opportunity to think and reflect.

First, I want to thank Mary for all her support, encouragement, and love... and for giving me the opportunity to not only leave for a month, but to get in all those training miles beforehand so I was prepared for the challenge. She's put up with a lot of nonsense from me over the years, but this was something different. I was going to spend a considerable amount of time and money to do something without her. She did tell me that she had to let me go, because if she didn't, I'd be grumpy all summer. But she knew that this was important to me and she's been there with love and encouragement every step of the way. I guess that's what a best friend does...

Ed and Olivia have been supportive as well... I think Olivia knows I'm on a bike ride! Seriously, they've helped their mom or at least have not driven her completely insane in my absence. I'm sure they'll enjoy hearing new "suffering is good for you" and "you should never give up" speeches based on my experiences from this ride.

A special thank you goes to my colleagues at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The faculty and staff of the Aviation Institute and the NASA Nebraska Space Grant program have been fantastic. They've kept everything moving in the right direction and accomplished a lot in my absence. I genuinely appreciate everything they've done so that I could not only be gone for a month, but also so that I didn't have to worry about things back at the office.

I'd also like to thank the folks at Bike Masters and Team Kaos for all the rides leading up to this effort. The group rides and training rides provided a good foundation. A number of people also joined me for extra miles over the last few months. I know those extra miles helped prepare me physically and mentally for thirty straight days on the bike. A special thank you goes to Dave at Bike Masters who "got me into this." I'm glad he did and I'm sorry that we weren't able to finish the ride together.

As for today's ride, it was great. Virginia is a spectacular place to ride a bike. The weather was beautiful and the rolling hills provided lots of great scenery. The best thing today though was the variety of people I rode with along the way. My fellow riders have certainly made the last month that much more enjoyable.

Well we're all tired and ready to do something other than ride our bikes, but we've got 90 more miles to go tomorrow. We'll ride to a certain meeting place and then ride as a group to the beach where we'll take pictures, etc. Tomorrow night we'll have one last dinner to celebrate the end of the tour and then people will begin to go their separate ways. It will be an interesting couple of days.