I can’t tell the whole toilet seat incident story, because I have sworn an oath to myself to not say anything derogatory about one of the team on my blog, but I can say that at 4 AM, I found my way into the women’s restroom, and when I went to sit on the toilet in the semi dark bathroom, I fell all the way into the toilet, because one of the men had used that toilet during the night and had left the toilet seat up. I managed to not scream, but I was so furious, I was never able to fall asleep again, and I was REALLY tired. Grrrrr.
I had 2.5 hours to contemplate the situation. The door to the mens room was only about 3 ft from the door to the women’s room, so it would have taken a little more effort to walk all the way to the mens room, right? I came up with schemes to get back at the offender—pepper spray on the mens room doorknob at night was one of them, but that might affect some of the other guys, so I had to rule that out. In the end we all know who did it. In the morning when I asked the guy I thought had left the seat up to please put the seat down when using the women’s toilet during the night, he feigned innocence. More Grrrrr.
Now that I have that off my chest, I can talk about today’s ride.
Thankfully, the wind eased up, finally, so for the majority of the day, there were just a 5-6 mph head or cross winds, which are doable without too much struggling. Toward the end of the day, it picked up a little, and also, toward the end of the day, there were a few hills thrown into the mix. I’m a wimp, so both of them together wore me out.
We spent the majority of the day in rural areas with very little traffic, and just a bit of time on busier roads that connected the rural roads. It was wonderful!
Pretty early in the day, we crossed over into Virginia (Yay!) We were on such a rural road, that there was no ‘Welcome to Virginia’ sign, just the Suffolk County l, Virginia sign. Ed, Jon and I were at the back of the group, and the guys up front all breezed by the sign, so they definitely did not notice it. We took note.
Chippokes State Park was our destination for the day —our second and last tent camping night of the trip. (This is so cushy!). I was thrilled that the campground had a laundromat, as I had hand washed kits 2 nights in a row, for lack of laundry facilities. Also, it had nice, clean, hot showers. After gathering around a big campfire to get warm, roast marshmallows and make smores, we turned in pretty early.
For days, I had been hearing that it would be 40 degrees tonight, and I was worried, because my sleeping bag is only rated to 40, and that is a survival rating, not a comfort rating. I went to sleep dressed in long tights, long sleeve shirt, socks and my Patagonia R1 hoodie, and I was super comfortable all night long. In fact, it was the best night of sleep I’ve had on this trip.
Please consider donating to the cause I am riding to raise funds for. I am riding in honor of my Aunt Betty who died of MS, but I meet people almost every day who have MS, and sone of them are bright young people in their 20s. A cure needs to be found for this disease, and it takes money to make that happen.
Living Our Bucket List 