Day 3: Plans Interrupted

June 8, 2021

Fordsville to Rough River Dam State Park

Day 3 did not go as planned but we both had an adventure!

I didn’t sleep at all last night, one: I still didn’t feel well and two: I was stressing over the short 18 mile but very hilly ride we were going have today. As usual Peter woke annoyingly perky. When he checked in on me I gave him the bad news…there was no way I could ride today. We decided to check with Pastor Joe to see if he knew of someone that could take me to Rough River Dam Resort State Park Lodge. As luck would have it Joe had a truck and said he would be happy to take me, he also mentioned that there was a health clinic near by if I wanted to get checked out.

It was settled Peter would ride and I would meet him after a quick visit to the clinic. Tomi, Joe’s wife, took me to the clinic when it opened at 8:00. As it turned out when I explained my symptoms to the receptionist she checked with the nurse who came out and recommended I go to the emergency room at the Ohio County Hospital in Hartford which was 18 miles away. So Tomi proceeded to drive me to the hospital where she graciously waited for me to get 2 bags of fluid to help me with my dehydration. Upon being discharged the Dr. strongly suggested that I take it easy for a few days, stay off the bike and then I could slowly resume riding.

I talked to Peter when I was leaving the hospital and he informed me the dining room at the lodge was closed and if we wanted to eat anything tonight I needed to stop and pick up something, which I did. Four hours later I was back at the church and feeling much better. Joe loaded my bike in his truck, I got all my stuff and I was finally on way to meet up with Peter.

While I was having my adventure, Peter was having his…

Peter took off about 7:30 and headed straight to The Diner for his usual hardy breakfast: country fried steak with gravy, home fried potatoes with gravy, 2 large biscuits with gravy, 2 fried eggs which sat in the extra gravy, baked apples and 2 large glasses of sweet tea. It was fortunate Peter ate such a large breakfast because as it turned out he didn’t get any lunch. After devouring all but one biscuit Peter started his short 18 mile ride to Rough River Dam Lodge. It was another beautiful ride and no rain. Along the way Peter ran into another West bound cyclist, John, who had his wife driving along supporting him and carrying all his gear…“Jeff would not approve”.

According to Peter the hills today weren’t too bad, they were longer and slightly steeper…and would have literally killed me in my condition. He made good time and arrived at the lodge around 10:30, got checked in and immediately went to the pool for a swim and of course he FaceTimed me from the pool to see how I was doing. After his swim he did laundry which was quite the process. First he got all his clothes together and threw them in the tub, squirted body wash all over them, turned on the shower, then he got in and jumped up and down on them. After getting all his clothes rinsed, he rolled them up in a towel to get the water out and hung them out to dry…I know this too much information but that’s what he did. Peter was then able to get in a 3 mile hike before the rain started.

The rain had just stopped by the time I arrived and Peter came up to the lobby to help me get my bike and stuff down to our room. Finally…back together again!

For the next several hours we worked on figuring out how to get me back to Aberdeen. We had a back up plan which was very involved but we were hoping to find something more direct. We called cousin Doug, (who tried to rearrange his schedule to come get me but couldn’t make it work) he suggested that I try to rent a car. It was a great idea and it literally took 30+ minutes, of talking to someone, to find out there were no “one way”rentals. Peter then called his neighbor Joe and he didn’t hesitate a second to make the 7 hour round trip to come get me…I was blown away by his generosity.

Now we are relaxing on our balcony looking at the lake and reflecting on this day and how blessed we are that God has placed such amazing people in our lives.