So I just got done
with my EuroTrash for the day. That was pretty much the most depressing thing
I’ve ever had to write about. I had obviously heard about the arrests earlier
in the week as well as some of the other details, but I’ve really only been
seeing, thinking, and working on one thing: the Giro. Then, when I had to go
and do a little research for ET…the magnitude of the whole thing became painfully
clear.

It’s funny how
most bike racers comment all the time that they figure pretty much everyone
in the big-time Euro peloton is on drugs. I’ve always wondered and usually ask
people what they think, but I sure as hell don’t know. I mean, I hope not, but
if I ever found out that everyone was on it, it probably wouldn’t surprise me
too much, at least that’s what I thought.

To get this whiff
of what the whole truth might be is unsettling. I know it doesn’t matter what
I think, not in the least, but it’s depressing. I know I’m trying to be a pro
bike racer, and I know I’m a long, long way from being good, so I guess I’m
first and foremost a fan of riding my bike as well as a fan of cycling in general.
I love watching, reading, working on pro bike racing stuff. I’m a dorky fan.
I know names, numbers, stupid facts, about just about every rider. Ivan Basso
is probably my favorite rider, I think Chris Horner is a huge bad ass. I thought
Lance Armstrong was unbelievable. I don’t really play favorites, I think they’re
all unbelievable, because I have a pretty decent idea just how far away from
that level that I am – a long, long, long way.

To find out though
that Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich are already being linked in the investigation
is depressing. There are rumoured to be 200 riders/athletes’ names that go with
the blood samples the investigators found. TWO HUNDRED! If those were all bike
racers, that would probably take out at least half of the ProTour riders.

I don’t know, again,
it doesn’t really affect me in any way directly. Then again, I guess it does,
because I just had to write an article about something horribly negative, something
that will make people not want to read about or have anything to do with bike
racing – I posted it at the top of PEZCyclingNews.com – right in the middle
of all of the Giro fun and happiness – there’s a black spot and I wrote it.

I didn’t especially
want to, nor did I really think it was my job to come to any conclusions, so
I quoted from just about every newssource I could find. At one point I had decided
that I didn’t want to write about the whole topic, but then I realized how dumb
that would be when what could be the biggest doping scandal in the history of
sport is unveiled and I was too timid to write about it because it was ‘depressing.’

Yeah.

Their world doesn’t
change my world, that’s for sure. I still want to be a pro bike racer. I could
climb up on my soapbox at this point and say, well I’m not doping and bla bla
bla bla, but whatever. I like bike racing because it’s hard. I like bike racing
because I love seeing the slow, steady improvement that I’m getting day by day,
week by week, year by year. I love, for once in my 23 years, knowing that I’m
working hard for a goal, and I’m going to get to that goal at some point in
the next decade.

I guess that’s
all I have to say about that.

This was a pretty
dumb post I guess, because once again, my voice doesn’t matter in all of this.
It’s some big deal over in Europe and it has nothing to do with me. Right? That’s
the attitude to take.

I think I’m finally
starting to wake up. I had a complete melt-down sleepwise yesterday. I got home
around 130ish I think…it might have been 2, but I didn’t end up going to bed
until 3, then I managed to get up around 9 and worked till about 230 and then
passed out till almost 7. When I finally woke up, it took about 30 minutes just
to stand up. I think I was drugged.

Yeah, so Tri-Peaks
was a hoot.

Stage 1 – Crit
– The first 30 minutes was hard. There were like 10 turns in the 1 mile course,
I had some course previews from Jacob and Reid and they sounded a lot like this:
straight to a left, then a windy straight to a left, left, right, left, right,
left. Or something like that. The first lap was funny, because the 150 man field
hadn’t had a chance to lengthen to single-file proportions just yet, but it
was to come as we went through 47 different turns – sure enough, by the second
lap, it was one looooong line.

There was a narsty
crosswind section that was uncomfortable, but I liked it more than the final
corner and the ensuing sprint to stay attached to the line. There were a couple
of times when I looked down and saw that we were 14 minutes….18 minutes…24
minutes into the race and I could have cried. It wasn’t horrible though. I stayed
upright, stayed in the field, and finished 52nd. I think there were something
like 60ish people in the field and 10 people up the road at the end.

Stage 2 – 92 miles
– Three climbs…it was pretty hard. The first climb was very uncomfortable.
I started it last wheel, because I couldn’t hold position at the front to save
my life and gave up with about 3k to go, and the field was spread out shoulder
to shoulder, so I said to hell with it and resigned myself to last wheel. The
climb pitched hard four times for about a minute a pop, and then there was about
5 other minutes in there. Each of the pitches was ridiculous. I was going about
as hard as I could just to hold my spot, and my spot was last wheel, so there
was nowhere to drift to. I made it over alright and then sighed contentedly
on the descent, only to find out later that the break of 20 went up the road
around the time I was getting my breathing, heart rate, and life back in fine
order. The second climb was better – a more constant grade, about 9 minutes,
no problems there. The third climb was cool, because I started it probably 10th
wheel, I moved up right at the perfect time and had a pretty easy go of it.
The last part was hard, because Aerospace decided to go really really hard on
the front, I think it was that guy Pedrag. Anyways, so he’s sprinting on the
front, and I’m waiting my obligatory 10 seconds before the pace gets to my spot,
which was about 30th by this point as I was doing a fantastic job of drifting,
and yeah, so it gets really fast and I start to go faster and then decide not
to. It was ridiculous fast. I didn’t know how far the top was, and I was pretty
certain going that fast for more than a minute was impossible, sure enough,
the top was right there, and all was well.

After that, it
was a long, slog to the finish. I might have been top 10 at the finish. I moved
up at the end and tried not to get dropped, so I ended up towards the front.
That was cool.

Stage 3 – More
of the same. The first climb was way harder than the day before, though it was
the same climb. I think we hauled up it a solid 40 seconds faster. It hurt badly.
Reid wrecked up the climb. Poor guy. He never had a chance to catch back on.
We were hauling crazy like over the top of the climb and then through some rollers
right after. I couldn’t believe how fast it was. There was this short section
of cross-wind where I thought I was about to get dropped. It took me about 10
seconds to cover a three foot gap. It was all I could do to hold on. It was
funny that when the pace let up a fraction, the guy behind me hopped in front
of me…Tim Johnson.

Yeah, that was
probably a smart move. I was about to fall into a ditch and die at that point.
The best part was looking behind me and seriously, no one had been dropped.
That depressed me. One of the things that gets me through hard races sometimes
is seeing other people get dropped, but at this race, I realized that I was
the person about to get dropped. It tickled my self-confidence something special
to come to that realization.

There was another
climb, it was hard, and then we headed for Mt. Nebo and its excessively steep
slopes. It was 4k and every bit as steep as everyone said. There were probably
around 10 switchbacks and the grade was well over 10% at all times (except for
a little breather in the middle).

I’d like to say
that I started Nebo with the field, but I didn’t. We made this left-hand turn
on the road that went to Nebo – about 2 miles or so from the climb, and all
of a sudden, what was a headwind was this wild little cross-wind, and the fast
people at the front went REALLY fast and the whole field shredded into 20 little
groups. I of course started this little section last wheel, but I was feeling
it, and was moving up through the groups thinking I would be onto the main group
in a second, then I came up over this little rise and saw group after group
after group and then far in the distance – the field. The field was very small
at this point, but still, holy crap, in the span of a mile or something the
field got all nuclear meltdown and stuff. It was wild.

That was pretty
much when my race ended. I sat up, and rode slowly to the climb and rode even
slower up it. There were Cokes and Gatorade at the top, that’s about all I have
to say about the 20 minutes of Nebo. I wonder how fast Stevic and Bajadali went?

Anyways, so it
was a hard weekend, I felt ok for the most part. I had a weird feeling of good
legs for most of the weekend, but I was worked mentally. All I could think about
was sleeping, not riding my bike, or drinking cold Cokes. Then again, there
wasn’t much else to do during the race, it was either climb and go really hard,
or sit in the field and do absolutely nothing for an hour or so until the next
climb.

Up next…heading
up to Raleigh on Friday for the NRC crit up there. I don’t really want to drive
six hours to Raleigh, but I do want to do a big-time crit at some point. After
that, it’s down to Savannah for three days of the GA Cup over Memorial Day weekend.
I’ll get in a solid five races over the weekend and then it should be time for
a little break before I head up to Ohio for awhile.

I just realized
that I’m not even halfway through the season yet. Three months through a seven
month season (March-October). There’s still a lot of racing to go.

I finally made
it back to Athens at around 7 o clock last night. We took the long way home…
Yeah… Um… We left Stone Mountain around 430 and it was all trafficky – crazy
traffic. I have ridden back and forth from Athens to Stone Mountain about four
times, so I have a pretty decent idea of the back roads to Athens, so I figured
we’d try that to see if it was faster…an hour later (which is how long it
takes to get to Stone Mountain) we stumble back onto 78 right at Monroe, which
is HALFWAY to Athens. It was awesome. I got so lost it was not at all funny.
Found some new roads though…rather get lost in the car going 60 than on my
bike doing 15.

Then of course
we had to go watch Lost, and since I don’t have TV, the house of choice for
yesterday’s viewing was Jamila’s brother Siraj’s place. They have a big ol TV
and an XBox360 to boot. I love me some Lost, but that XBox was calling out my
name. Elliott got kicked off of American Idol, I don’t care, just as long as
that horrible girl Katherine, or Catherine doesn’t win. She looks all scheming,
like it’s supposed to be hers or something. Shooooot.

Lost was killing
me last night. That show is, um, addictive. I hate Jamila for drawing me into
the web of her ‘programs.’ Just kidding, but not really.

We went to this
Japanese fast-food place last night, Choo-Choo. It’s quite excellent. I had
what amounts to probably my fifth pound of red meat for the week. I like me
some steak.

Needless to say,
lots to do, little time to do it before leaving for Arkansas. Reid probably
hates me. ET Thursday set me back a bit, but it wasn’t so bad, I rattled it
out in two hours this morning, which is good time for me, it usually takes forever.

Anyways, lots more
to do…shower, shave, wash bike, deposit money, yada yada yada. If all goes
well, I’ll be done in…forty minutes…right.

Hopefully there’s
wireless wherever we’re going in Arkansas.

They changed the
course for the hard road stage at Tri-Peaks, they took out the big ol climb
in the middle up Mt. Magazine, which means I might just have a chance of staying
up front until the 5000% finishing climb. We’ll see…have to get there first…and
my legs have to wake up at some point as well…

I think I want
do Superweek…for a week or two…I wonder if that would work…

Alright, no more
thinking, lots to do, shower time.

Holla.

So I’m stranded
in Stone Mountain at the moment. Reid dropped me off here on Sunday and the
plan was to go up to Athens on Sunday, but that didn’t work out, cuz it got
late, then yesterday, it was tv show time – 24, Grey’s Anatomy, and Prison Break,
so there was no budging. Maybe I’ll get up to Athens this evening. Not like
it really matters…I can do my work here and ride my bike here just as well
as I can up in Athens. I do like staying at my own house though, but I’m really
not all that picky. I don’t know if I’m whining or just commenting.

While waiting for
CorVos to load up the pics from the Giro today so that I could edit them and
be done with my work for the day, I was roaming around the internet and went
to check on my favorite place, Heidelberg, the newspaper there, the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung,
has a sweet little WebCam
that I check on daily…today it got me to thinking about going back.

So it was going
to be one of those days when I plot my evil plan of returning to Heidelberg.
I googled a little and found this huge website for apartments and rooms for
rent in Heidelberg…150 euros a month I could be hooked up over yonder in a
room the size of a closet, but how cool would that be? There were even a couple
of rooms for a 100
euros.

That would be quite
the room. I’d probably be renting a room the size of a bath-tub, or one with
dirt floors and no windows, but whatever.

I guess I’d need
to get a passport first. I lost my passport sometime after I got back from Cuba
last year…there’s probably some happy person rolling around with my identity,
hopefully it got them into the country now, sounds like it’s going to get harder,
what with the National Guard patrolling the border.

Anyways, so I wonder
if I could pull it off, if only for a month or two, go back to Germany. I don’t
want to do anything in particular. I just want to ride my bike, walk around,
ride the train some, and race, and take lots of pictures. It’ll be my junkie
fix. I can’t believe how badly I wasted my bike practice time in Heidelberg
the winter of 03. I had a 5k climb, 10 minutes from my apartment and I rode
up it a grand total of what, 5 times the whole year? Now I drive an hour and
a half to go to the mountains. Ridiculous.

I guess it goes
without saying that I’m feeling a bit restless.

I’m not going to
Germany…it’d be cool though.

Maybe I’ll ride
from Atlanta to Athens here in a little bit. That could be fun. I don’t quite
remember the route, but I imagine I could figure it out. I think some long bike
practice would be good for me. This whole racing and resting thing is killing
me. I’m already looking forward to the end of season training camp, and then
the winter. There has to be some point where I’ll get in some solid training
again…maybe in August? I’ll go consult the authoritative calendar of mine.

I’m leaving for
Arkansas here at some point, either tomorrow or Thursday, but most likely Thursday
I guess. Tri-Peaks should be a hoot. It’s been a few weeks since I had my head
kicked in hard-core. It’s good for the CNS. Ha. You know what is good for the
CNS though…cake and steak…lots of it.

Jamila’s sister,
Nadia, got a cake for the Madre for Mother’s Day…it’s calling to me from downstairs…it’s
killing me….I want it bad…Tubby wants to get tubbier.

As for steak…there
was a big-time grilling on Sunday and there is red meat aplenty. I had a couple
steak fajitas last night, they were gourmet: tortilla, steak, red pepper, lettuce
(stolen from a salad), and salsa. I had a steak omelette this morning. Steak
is good.

I’ve also been
eating MASS quantities of these sugar-free fudge pops…good lord…one of em
has 40 calories, but I think I’ve had close to 20 in the past two days, so they
do add up after awhile.

Emma is hangin
out with me in Jamila’s room. She’s technically not supposed to be inside, but
since no one is home, no one will know, right? We’re a shifty little duo.

Another weekend,
another race…This weekend it was up to McMinnville, Tennessee for the Highland
Rim Classic. 110 mile road race, 2.5 mile uphill TT, and a crit. It was just
me and Reid for the weekend, and we lucked out with an awesome place to stay
in Chattanooga with Reid’s fiancee’s sister, Suzie. She lives up there in a
really cool house. Chattanooga is cool. But yeah, it was a good time staying
there and not that bad of a drive up to McMinnville each day.

So yeah…the road
race…I rolled off the front about 200 meters into the race and started the
early break. Easiest thing I’ve ever done. There were seven of us I think and
we rolled it pretty steady. The field chased for a bit, but we kept rolling
perfectly, and eventually we had at least two minutes before the base of the
climb. We rode the climb steady and kept on rolling over the top, and then we
got caught by a bunch of really fast people. Basically all the big, bad strong
people came across to the break a little after the climb. We kept rolling it
steady, but apparently the field didn’t like it that there was a break of 12-15
up the road, so the break was eventually chased down.

As the field was
sitting up as well as the break, I had a light bulb flash in my little head
– this is the perfect time to go again! So I went again. I put my head down
and went kinda hard, but I was already not feeling all that hot for some reason.
Anyways, so when I looked back, I was hoping to see a group coming up to me,
which would be a lovely way to keep the day rolling. Instead, it was little
Scottie Weiss. I’ve heard so many stories of how incredibly strong Scottie is,
but Saturday was the first time I’ve been directly exposed to it. He came up
to me and we started working, and it was very very very obvious from the first
minute that I was in 100-feet over my head.

I tried to go pull
for pull as long as I could, but I was having a long, slow come apart. After
about 20-minutes, I realized that I wasn’t going to be pulling anymore, it was
ridiculous. We put in at least 2 minutes into the field during that time, it
was super cool, but I was done. I realized that I could sit on from there, but
I figured that would be major low-class, but in retrospect I probably should
have sat on as long as possible. I was already pretty much ruined for the day
at that point, but staying with Scottie for as long as possible was the best
option, but I didn’t take it, because I ‘felt bad.’ Whatever.

So I sat up, no
I didn’t get dropped, I mean, I would have been dropped eventually for sure,
but not at that point…I figured I’d go back to the field and ride easy for
awhile, but at this point, there were only like 20 riders in the field, tops.
A few minutes later, there were only 12 of us in the lead group behind Scottie.
A few minutes after that, there were 10 I think…and I missed that split. This
all happened right around the end of the first lap…

So I needed some
water badly, but I was still racing like hell to stay in the race. The water
was on the car in the parking lot and I’d have to pull over and pick it up –
15-30 seconds, but I couldn’t stop, cuz my race would be over, but then again,
my race was about to be over anyways, cuz I had no water left. It was a bad
situation, so I opted for the half-ass version of the two – miss the leading
group, sit up and ride easy. I just about quit at that point, because I figured
it was no use. I was cracked after 55 miles, I had no water, and there was no
way I could stay with the leading group over the climb the second time.

Hayden got me to
stay in the race though, and I’m thankful for that, it was good stuff. We had
a nice time riding easy for the next 30 minutes or so I think it was, before
we hit the climb again and people started catching us and then it was back into
a paceline for the rest of the race. I finally got some water a little while
after that – there were people handing out water on the long, horrible highway
home. I stopped for about 4 liters of water. I was all goose-bumped, cracked,
salty, and my heart rate was a good 40 beats above normal. I downed two-liters
immediately and started to feel a bit better.

I was miserable
though…I hadn’t eaten jack, didn’t feel like I could…it was bad.

Wow, this is a
long, dumb, boring story. Long, long story short…I finished 16th, died a thousand
deaths, suffered like hell, and rode the hardest race of my life. Seriously,
it was stupid hard. I don’t often get into breaks, but I basically rode a break
for 110 miles and nearly 5 hours on Saturday. It crrrrrracked me.

For the future…I
like breaks, but I need to eat eat eat and drink drink drink, especially when
I’m going so much harder. I was eating about the same as normal, but I was going
way harder than normal. The first couple of hours I averaged about 290 watts
I think, which means I was rolling through calories, and I was eating next to
nothing – and I think that’s why my race ended up being a miserable experience.
I’ll figure it out.

It’s cool though,
I started the early break and the winning break…getting dropped from a move
you start though isn’t exactly a happy thing… I guess I have to look at positives
right?

So yeah, post-race,
I was done. I figured I could just go straight home and be happy with the weekend…In
retrospect I probably should have. The TT that evening was hard. I was cracked,
but then again, everyone in that race had worked like hell just to finish, so
it was probably the same for everyone. I went as hard as I could and got crushed.
I was 15th, 1:50 behind Trent Wilson. He took 1:50 out of me in 2.5 miles! Ouch.
I went as hard as I possibly could, but it definitely wasn’t fast. Reid rolled
a damn fine TT to take 9th. He rocked me for 50 seconds too.

I don’t exactly
know what happened there…I went 15 watts harder average wise compared to last
year, and went 40 seconds slower. I’m maybe 2 kilos heavier than last year…but
yeah…that’s a lot. Conditions were basically equal, same exact course, same
everything, except I was cooked, but again, everybody rode the same race beforehand,
so that’s not much of an excuse.

The crit wasn’t
any better the next day…I messed up. I got caught behind a wreck early and
didn’t take a free lap when I should have and ended up not catching back on.
I was in a little group with Chris Harkey for 20 minutes trying to chase on,
but it didn’t seem like we were going anywhere and I was suffering, and I just
wasn’t feeling it, so I pulled out, only to watch him catch back on probably
five laps later.

Ouch.

Yes, yes, I learned
a few lessons this weekend.

I’m tired as hell
now. I’m going to lie in bed all day and play with Emma since I’m in Stone Mountain.
It’s not all that often that me and my dog get to hang out…

It’s off to Arkansas
sometime around mid-week. Tri-Peaks should be a hoot.

So it’s been a
full week since I wrote last…I haven’t done much since then. I rode on Monday
and Tuesday, didn’t feel all that hot, then Jacob and company left for the Crit
World Series of the World and I went to bed for the next two days…I rode on
Friday again and felt completely, utterly, without a doubt, like dog shit. Odd.
I rode again Saturday morning, and felt pretty crusty, but I decided I’d race
anyways, I mean, what’s a 40 dollar entry fee?

I sucked ass in
the race. I actually raced pretty close to the front and followed people into
moves and made a cheeky little attack after a prime, but I was just kidding
myself, cuz I didn’t have jack. I was pretty much done after a lap of that…no
one could tell though, because a group bridged up to me and the field chased
them, it wasn’t that I completely gave up or anything.

I was still actually
pondering a decent finish until someone fell over in front of me on the last
lap. That scared the living ghost out of me, and I rolled in thanking my lucky
stars that I didn’t end up chewing pavement. But yeah, I felt narsty. Nothing
there.

Other than that,
I didn’t do much over the past seven days…I did a lot of sleeping, and wondering
what the hell was wrong with me. I strayed from the proper recovery process
though when I took two days completely off. I needed to keep riding, even if
it was easy, and even if it was only for a little while. That was a dumb mistake,
I’ll try and not do that coming up.

I should get some
opportunities to keep working on my recovery process here over the next month.
It’s big race time, hopefully I’m going fast.

I mowed the lawn
yesterday. That was probably the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I actually
DID something. That was kind of a big deal for me.

Depressing.

I’m done with ET
for today, I’ve got some stuff to do now…More later…

Well, I guess that’s
that. I just finished my EuroTrash sitting in Andy’s living room here in Asheville.
The Tour of Shenandoah finished yesterday afternoon and I managed to get to
the end of it. I remember when I started the race, I just assumed that it was
a given that I’d finish, I mean, how hard could it be? Haha, that’s some funniness.

But yeah…I finished
33rd overall, basically half an hour down. Ouch. I’m pretty happy though. I
rode hard, suffered a lot, and hung in there. I can’t ask for too much more
than that.

Anyways, quick
recap time… I think I last checked in after Stage 4.

Stage 5

Probably the hardest
race of my entire life. I suffered like a miserable dog the whole day – seriously,
right from the line. I somehow ended up off the back like 5 miles into the race
when a few people up ahead managed to drop themselves on a descent. I thought
that was bad, then we hit dirt road and the hills and the twistiness just got
even better. People were flatting everywhere and Priority was just killing it.
It was a spectacular scene. I caught back on shortly thereafter, Andy took a
long while to get back on – he flatted and had to wait a long while for the
SRAM man to get to him – not his fault, there were 48000 others who had flatted
before Andy.

So at this point,
an hour still wasn’t done, there was a slight pause in the punching and then
it started again. At one point, Andy mentioned that I should counter a move
as it was being brought back, and I will forever be grateful that I did not,
because almost immediately after that we headed into a horrific section of hills,
narrow and winding roads, and very, very, very fast racing. It was straight
up Spencer, WV style. I thought that it might be hard racing on roads like that,
but I had no idea how hard. Even with only about 70 riders, the field was completely
strung out single file after the first descent in the long, long line of hills
and downhills. It didn’t take long before groups started splintering all over
the place.

I ended up back
in the main field a long, long time later, and probably only because DeCanio
had some sort of fire brewing in him. He was raging. It was cool. We had some
sort of group sort of working, but apparently the group up front finally sat
up and we got in the caravan and all was right in the world.

I even contested
the sprint at the end. There were a dozen up the road from some other break
that went at some point during the chaos, so I was looking at BEST at 13th.
I started the sprint, um, third wheel…finished it twenty guys back or something.
I stood up to sprint and then sat right back down. It was humorous.

Seriously, that
day was so hard.

Stage 6

TT…I had visions
in my little head that I would ride hard, but after 1k I pretty much gave up
the ghost and rode what felt like tempo the rest of the way in. Jacob pointed
out, that what I thought was tempo, was probably my threshold at that point…330
watts. I was dead. My legs were not cooperating, I wasn’t having much fun, and
certainly not when Andy came FLYING by 8k into the 23k TT. He beat me by 3:30,
Bookwalter by, um, yeah, 6 minutes.

Funny fact: Andy
averaged the exact same wattage as I did: 330 watts. For some reason, he went
hella faster. Of course I know why…he’s smaller, more aero, better position,
probably wiser use of his watts, etc etc, but still, it’s rather comical.

Stage 7

I actually felt
ok. Probably because the day before was more or less an off-day with just under
36 minutes of real effort. I felt ok, but definitely not spry. The course was
basically a mountain and then a descent…that’s an exaggeration, but it was
a big ass hill followed by a long downhill, and that was pretty much it. We
went really hard up the hill every time and then recovered on the downhill.
I didn’t do anything, just rode in with the group, and so I finished my first
ever real bike race.

All in all I came
out ok…I feel alright, except for the head cold I picked up on the last day…so
I guess I’m not feeling all that hot. I can deal with it though, as long as
it gets the hell on in the next couple of days. I’m sucking down Zicam, Airborne,
and Emergen-C’s like candy.

I think I’m going
to drive back to Athens now. Only 2.5 hours until this trip is officially over.
I just need to drive slowly, no tickets… Then I’m going to bed. Maybe I’ll
ride when I get home…that could be fun…just downtown…for the scenery.