Woke up around 8:00 am, cooked breakfast the usual oatmeal with peanut butter and peculated organic coffee. We listened to the weather forecast and thunderstorms were to move in around 11:00am so we wrap it up and get on the road ASAP. I take one last look at the radar in motion on my phone to get an idea of how intense and large the thunderstorms we will be riding into and it looks like the storms are going to get here sooner that 11:00 am. We head out and within 45 minutes a few sprinkles come down, pull off to suit up, batten down the hatches and turn on lights. I hope my new rain suit works as well as the new Ortlieb panniers purchased for this trip. So we ride a few miles and it is still light rain, then we hear thunder off in the distance, sooner than later it downpours.
We continue on because its still a warm 74F and I'm sweating inside my rain-suite, it's supposed to be breathable but I think I'm sweating faster than it can breathe. By the way, when it says breathable I'm not too sure what that really means "Do rain suites really have their own respiratory system?". The other thing is how is it able to wick away moisture from your skin and excrete it to the outside of your rain suite when the outside is at 100% humidity and then keep you dry inside. My only solution to this is create another layer in you rain suite that is made of Silica, these are the tiny packets you find in packing material for shipping electronics that absorb moisture.
We rode 5 miles in heavy rain and now lightning is more frequent and closer, I'm counting the seconds between the strikes and the thunder they are about 2.5 to 3 seconds and then one less than 2 seconds and finally one that is about 1 second, now this gets me really moving and accelerate to get out of this stuff. After high tailing it out for about 5 miles the storm moved on and is light rain.. We pull into a rest stop at the Pharr Mounds mile 287 rest stop and try to dry off. I take off my rain suite and strap it to my bike, drink water and check the weather radar. Looks like another round of bad thunderstorms is headed our way, about 45 minutes out so we high tail out of there. The winds started to pick up and the thunder getting loader and more frequent again. the the rain gets real heavy, then wind picks up with very intense gust of winds blowing me around on the bike. Thunder and lightning once again hitting with in 1/3 of a mile from me, then all of a sudden a real cold gust of wind hits me and then its warms up again for about 5 seconds and another colder gust of wind hits me. The temperature dropped from 74F to 54F all in a matter of 15 seconds, the rain gets more intense and all I have on is short sleeve bike shirt and shorts. I kept moving just to keep warm and did not want to stop in the rain to suit up because everything is all wet anyway makes no sense to get more stuff wet. So after biking about another 10 miles I wait up for Bill and George and they were not too far behind me, they are shocked that I'm still in my shorts and short sleeve shirt and its 54 degrees. We regroup on what to do next, the next campground is at the Parkway Visitors Center just north on Tupelo, MS at Mile 266 so we make a bee line to this destination. We arrive, still raining and I'm soaked and chilled to the bone. We get inside the Visitor's Center to warm up and I head straight to the bathroom for a blow dryer, but no blow dryer, this sucks.
George and Bill were contemplating on the camping option, George makes the executive decision to get a hotel which is only two miles off the Trace at the "Americas Best Inn". So we get back on the bikes and make a b-line to the hotel with in few minutes we see commercialism overload, restaurants, stores, strip malls and of course Walmart. This is the nice thing about the Parkway, it has no signed advertisements, commercialism or houses, the Federal Government owns a minimum of 144 yards on each side of the Parkway. The hotel owners see us soaked in the lobby and brought us extra towels. We change in to dry clothes and the first order of business is beer, we have not had a beer since the night before we left. We run over the Walgreens and pick of a 12 pack and head back to the hotel. Next order of business is where to eat, so we pick Ryan's, it is an all you can eat buffet. We watch the weather forecast, throw a load of wash in the washing machine and head over to Ryan's. While we were eating George is interested in purchasing a stove and food to cook, he has enjoyed the food we have prepared every night, we both have been giving him samples. George lives off from a jar of Peanut Butter and Combos, Power bars also he has 3 bags of microwave popcorn, in which you can pop in on a stove pan, but he has not requested us thus far. So we walk over to Walmart, pick up a Coleman stove, gas, lighters and food such a Knorr's Alfredo, Mac and Cheese, Tuna packets and a few other dry food packets that you can just add water. We get back to the Hotel and watch more weather and drink 11 of the 12 beers. I try to update my Day 1 blog since I have time to do, but it's more difficult that it seems when you are doing it on your smart phone with 5 beers.
 |
| Just started raining. first time I'm trying out the rain suite |
No comments:
Post a Comment