A friend from college, Mollie Marrable, is working at a summer camp nearby and we made plans for us to spend the night there tonight. It'll be where William and I part ways since I'll be heading northeast, while he continues east.

While we were wandering around inside the George Washington Carver National Monument we overheard that there was a big storm on the way. We trotted back out to our bikes and started pedaling as fast as we could, but by the time we reached Diamond we realized making it to the next town would be a close call. We pushed ourselves even harder down the road to Wentworth, and arrived just before the storm hit. 

There, standing on the covered porch as the rain gushed out the downspouts, we had a decision to make. The camp, our final destination, was only eight miles away. We could sit here for another hour, or five, depending on how long the rain lasted, or we could ride through the downpour.

Surprisingly, up to that point in my bicycling career, I had never ridden in the rain and thought it might be fun. Besides, we reasoned, even if we get wet, we'll have a dry place to stop which, we hoped, had a washing machine and a dryer. The decision was made... we're riding.

There was a county map in the Wentworth grocery store where we were holed up and upon careful inspection, we found a shortcut on a backroad which would shave off a little distance.  Excellent!

With waterproof panniers, a good waterproof rain jacket and rain pants, and an accurate map, it probably would have been excellent. With none of those, as was my case....   

...it was an Adventure.

Another of those memories that remains firmly burned in my brain is the initial part of this ride. We started riding through the downpour and, for some reason, I didn’t realize I was going to get so cold. Who would’ve thought that water evaporating on skin could cool a person off?? Not this college graduate.

What I REALLY remember, though, is the weight. It was like I was riding between two lines of people who were attaching weight to my racks as I passed, slipping lead ingots into infinitely large panniers. My pace became slower.....  then, even slower......  and still slower yet.  It felt like I had an elephant in my panniers.

At least we had that shortcut so we could get there faster.

Only, the shortcut turned into a sloppy gravel road about halfway down it. 

Then, the gravel turned to mud. Then, deeper mud, and finally to a squishy muck that came up to our ankles. We verified that it came up to our ankles by having to push our bikes through it, listening to the loud sucking sound with each step. Fortunately (?), we were able to wash some of the mud off when walking through even deeper calf-deep water. 

We finally realized that we needed to cut our losses and backtracked to the main road. 

Riding through the gusting wind and rain I had to concentrate on the road ahead of me, and I didn’t realize that William was no longer behind me until I stopped at an intersection and found myself all alone. I waited a few minutes until I started getting too cold, then rode the last few miles to the gates of Camp Soaring Hawk where I waited an hour for him to show up. I didn’t know until he caught up that he’d had another flat.