02/16/08 - Warm Saturday

The weatherman originally called for upper 50's but everyone woke up to that and the morning weather update called for 70's!! I went to 29 dreams to meet some of the guys for breakfast, I had to be back by 2PM or so. I wasn't going to ride with them but they said their first leg was to Sylacauga. I thought to myself, What harm could it do? We went to Sylacauga to see a place known as gravity hill where an optical illusion causes you to think your rolling up hill. Some of us saw it others did not. After that I was going to break off, My GPS showed a route eastward to take me toward home, the ride leader said he was going to turn left too so I said I'd stick with them a little longer. Well his left was about 20 miles further southeastward down 280. We went through a small town called Goodwater. When I was a kid I actually had a pen pal from Goodwater. His name was Dan Box and I met him at church camp. I guess the whole idea of having a pen pal is completely lost on this generation replaced by instant email from any place on earth. But they miss the thrill of getting a piece of paper mail from someone far away, too bad. Anyway, not much in Goodwater, I blinked and we were past it. From there we took an awsome road that meandered through Clay county. Finally we stopped again and I broke off. I thought I could go through Mt Cheaha on my way home, and I did, but when I got there the GPS was telling me I'd have to hit the interstate to get home by 2:30. So despite the fact that I hate doing it, and it was the last thing I wanted to do on a beautiful spring day, I had to jump up on the superslab and run flat out for an hour to get back home in time. Its amazing how far away from home you can get just lazily rolling down the road on a bike. My little quick trip to 29 dreams wound up setting me back about 240 miles on the odometer. But the weather was beautiful, and you don't get that real often in February.