Ben DID IT!! He retired!

Today was Ben's last day at work! He has retired! The Hospice House had a party and he came home with oodles of snacks for his bike trip, tools for the bike, books, gag gifts, and lots of cards and love. They will miss him. Blue Ridge, his office, had a nice lunch on Tuesday and the oncology section had a party today. They also gave him lots of gifts, food, cards and love. I know it was hard for him but after 25 years practicing oncology, he is ready for a change.

Tomorrow morning, I will drive him to meet a friend, Jack, and they will go on to Pittsburgh where they will start their bicycle ride on Saturday. He is not wasting any time!

My saviors for the day.

Randy rode 40 miles and Kurt 20 with me. I couldn't have done it without them!! Thanks guys.

Burnsville Metric

Ben, Eugene, Kathy, Eric, Kurt, and I before the start of the Metric.

Burnsville Metric Century

The Burnsville Metric (62 miles) is a ride we have heard about for years so decided to go when several of our cycling friends signed up. When we registered a month or so ago, I did not know I would be sick for two weeks before the ride, and have no training rides for three weeks before. Oh well! We got up at 5:15 am, ate, loaded our bikes and Eugene's and the three of us headed for North Carolina. We met another car load and had a quick breakfast (I ate at home) and then it was Burnsville (a total of 1.5 hours away).

The day was spectacular, the wildflowers were everywhere and over 300 riders started the ride at 9 am. I rode with Randy, another friend we met over there, since my group from Bristol was just too darned fast for my decreased level of fitness! He is a great rider and much younger :-) but he put up with me for 40 miles. That was when we finally managed to catch up with the others at a rest stop. Then Kurt rode the rest of the way with me as Randy took off with the fast pack. He deserved it after those first 40. I had to stop before the last hill into town to eat something and then we rode in. The others had been at the car for 30 minutes or so. We ate lunch in town and headed for Bristol.

We stopped to look for my cyclometer which flew off the bike on a rough section of pavement at the beginning of the ride. The only thing we found was the remains of a crushed piece of electronics. I guess it was run over by a car after it flew off. Well, I had the Garmin and I have another Cateye at home that I can mount on the bike as backup.

All in all, it was a great day. I wish I had been in better condition but that will return now that I am riding again. The friends were great, flowers awesome, and the weather perfect. We heard some people talking about how cold, rainy, or foggy it has been in the past. We did not even have to wear arm warmers at the start. How nice is that!

Wellmont Foundation Support

I returned home from the Volunteer Appreciation Lunch at the hospital this afternoon to find an email from the Wellmont Foundation. They are the ones who have helped me with letters, publicity, and other multiple details for each of my other two bicycle rides. I had asked them to make some changes on their sites to reflect my new ride. BINGO! All is done! Their links look really good and I am so glad to have everything in place on my new website.

To see what they did, check out my links on the right sidebar.

Peas, spinach, and corn

It was a gorgeous day today in Bristol, and Ben was off after making rounds. We went down to our garden and the peas, though sparse, were up so I planted the second crop. I also put in four rows of corn, the first of three (hopefully) crops. The spinach is doing well both at the farm and at home. I even picked a few asparagus today. It was a good day. Wish I could get over my bronchitis and cold.

Shameless Theft of Graham's Picture

Morgan visiting

We visited Knoxville before Morgan came here for the week. There was an Easter Egg hunt at their church and I got this picture of her there.

You thought this blog was going to be all about my ride but it might have some other important things in my life including my grand daughter and family!

A change in blogs

For the past two plus years, my wonderful oldest son, Graham, has hosted my website. However, due to circumstances beyond the control of both of us, I needed to move the site to a new location. I have hated to do this because it was so easy to use his site, post pictures and for readers to find it.

...so here I go with this new site. I will see how it goes.