After the snow from last weekend followed by a warm week, our Saturday group opted to stay out of the hills again. The plan for today’s ride was a big loop south, through the Crab Creek area. Despite the dreary conditions we had a strong group of six. The ride was supposed to be about 85 miles. We set out with a great pace on Dodson road all the way down into Crab Creek. This is a cool area that I haven’t explored much. We figured it was a good time of year to be there because the gravel road would likely be sandy and not much fun in the summer. There were big basalt cliffs almost like Palisades, with a lot of bird life around the water. This was pretty much the highlight of the ride, from there it was onto Beverly Burke road and a 12-15 mph slog the rest of the way back. I’m not sure if the wind shifted directions slightly or it was a slight up hill grade, or we went too hard on the way out… or all of the above, but it sucked. The only thing that got me through was knowing we would stop in George for lunch. Ahhh but that was not to be. Nope, not for this cowboy, by the time I got there I could see I didn’t have time and would have to skip lunch, leave my buddies, and keep truckin’ to make my [wife imposed] deadline. The tentative plan was my lovely wife was to pick me up 15 miles south of Ephrata on her way home from kid’s bball game to save time (and my legs). I messaged her to confirm I would make it there right on time, knowing that I would have to go hard to pull that off. Easier said than done 80 miles in. As I get to the pick up point I am right on time, only to find that my lovely wife is not there. My choices at this point were either to continue the final 15 miles home or curl up and die. I could’ve went either way but I opted to continue. It was slow going, I was cramping bad and crabby. Just outside of town, low and behold, look who decides to show up, my lovely wife. I had just hit 100 miles. I tried to gather my jumbled thoughts and explain why I was crabby, but it just didn’t quite come out as it had played out in my head earlier. She took me home, made me a giant sandwich and chocolate milk and I forgot I was crabby.
Making good time with thoughts of Crab Creek and blue skys dancing in our heads.
Rolling through the thriving metropolis of… I can’t remember, but it was quite memorable.
You know what they say: where the pavement ends the fun begins.
This is it, as good as it gets. I was too crabby to take any pics after this.
