A Million and Twenty

This year's autumn color is so amazing, I was going to run a Wordless Tuesday and a Wordless Thursday in addition to tomorrow's Wordless Wednesday. But then a couple of simply amazing things happened, and I'm itching to share.

We were without Internet access throughout most of the last five days, except when the phone had signal. I expected my blog would reach a million views while we were on the road. Without signal. I expected to miss the moment.

We were still a few dozen hits away when we pulled into the Fort Lewis College parking lot. I kept hitting the refresh as we signed in, picked up our rider packets and dished up quesadillas with zukes, cukes, onions, 'maters, mangoes, guacamole and cheese. The counter climbed one notch at a time until it hit 999,988. The next update was 1,000,001.

What a thrill!





Saturday we climbed a portion of Coalbank Pass and then Florida Road in support of the Fort Lewis cycling team, last year's national champions. Tom Danielson began his road cycling career at Fort Lewis, and he set up a scholarship fund there to help rising young cyclists. The ninth place overall 2011 Tour de France participant and highest placed American returned to his roots to ride the Fall Blaze last weekend. And pose for hundreds of photos and sign tons of autographs. His wife supplies him with a permanent marker for such appearances so T-shirt signatures won't wash off.

I was slowly climbing Coalbank when the Garmin Cervelo rider and a posse of about 30 more riders whizzed by. In less than half a minute, this mini peloton left me solo once again. The adrenaline surge forced me to pedal as fast as I could, but I couldn't get anywhere near their pace. The road curved, and they were out of sight. When the road straightened back out, they appeared to be about a mile ahead of me. But the adrenaline continued to explode in high dosage.

I rode with Tommy D for 20 seconds!

What a thrill!!!

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