My first camping trip is in the books. As I stated in the last post, I had my first trip to Brown County with the camper and pulled Anne along with me in the new experience. After 40 mph winds on the way down there, I was pretty stressed after the 4 hour drive getting there. That broke me into driving a house on wheels pretty quickly. Once we arrived at The Last Resort park in Nashville, I was totally stoked at my ability to back the camper into its spot. I had to nail it since it was a cliff drop off on the back side. Dropping a new camper off a cliff would not have been smooth. Once we settled we headed out on a ride in the afternoon. I am always amazed how much I love the area, even in the early spring when it is still a little dirty out. The ride was a little tough for me and I was thankful I played the girl card by bringing CiCi along with the easier gear ratios. The hills are a major work over for me right now and with such steep grades, the new 53/39 may have had me push instead of pedal. It was super sweet to finish the ride and walk into the camper and have everything ready for us when we were done.
Day 2 of riding, or as I say, day 2 of my reintroduction back to real training, was perfect! It was just warm enough and sunny enough to spotlight the red buds in bloom. It was cool to have a lazy morning start around the camper before heading out. Anne made us a great cup of air pressed coffee, she got some bike work done (in above pic) and after a hot breakfast we headed out on about a 4.5 hour ride. I was amused the whole time how all three of our bikes above did not have matching wheel sets (seen in the pic above). I don't know why this seemed funny since I'm usually such a stickler to detailing a bike to a tee, but since the day was so nice I didn't even obsess over it. The evening was spent refueling and hanging out around the campfire and was reminded of how much fun I had as a young girl when we camped every weekend.
After a good nights rest, since I finally decided to turn the heat on, we woke up for our final day of camping and riding. We had a time line to work on so we had to get up and get going. Don, Anne, and I headed out on a 2.5 hour trek for one last view of the overflowing creek beds and hills. I was super stiff in the morning, but I was happy to loosen up and pedal comfortably along after a short warm-up. I was surprised how good I felt after the previous days of riding and finished wishing we had more time to keep going. Don finished off the ride in Brown County State park by taking us up the famous Horseman's camp ride. It was my first time climbing this historic hill and it was super tough. For those who think we don't have hills in IN, come and ride this! It has a grade that compares to some of the climbs in the tour de france. I was doing okay until I realized there was drool hanging out my mouth because I couldn't expend the energy to wipe it off. How's that for girlie? I can't wait to do it again and improve my time on it.
That was it, we hitched up and headed home. This time in the pouring rain. More excellent practice. Anne returned to her family and me back to work. Hopefully the next trip will be just as great and a little less challenging for hauling. We will find out soon, we are heading to Columbus, IN this weekend for our first race of the year.
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