Little Remembers of Big Times: Sunday ride

We ended Saturday night with a big group talk and discussion over the Cadillac mountain climb the next day. The group was quite apprehensive for some reason, maybe because the word mountain was involved. It was a 3.5 mile climb. I couldn’t quite imagine that. I knew I had to go for it, I had kept up with j this far and I wasn’t going to quit now!! So the next morning, I ate my blueberry pancakes and ate my bacon and drank my water and I was ready. The climb was a turn off the Park Loop Road and we decided to do the mountain and enjoy the rest of the day. We were about 28 miles away from 100 miles total and I really wanted to make sure we got that in. J, Mike and I took off. Tara decided on a spa/ pool/ shopping day. We planned ahead of time that the guys would climb as hard as the could and I would meet them at the top. The waited for me at the turns but oddly we were not going up. hmmm. When will it start? Pretty soon I saw the guys ahead with the map. We missed it. We then planned to save it for last. Great! Hardest climb last, perfect. sigh. We had 15 miles around to get back to the turn for the climb. Oh my. Amazing ride. The best smoothest road. Amazing views. Sandy beach, rocky beach, Coves, bridges, islands, boats. A. ma. zing. We get to the turn off and take it on! The guys get ahead and we just keep going and going. It was hard. I decided the next tour I take will be in Florida. I decided I need a new bike seat. I also decided that J was now the only reason I was going to keep going. I didn’t care for myself anymore, I just wanted to see him. And I did. 27 minutes later, I was at the top. Mike 21. John 23. I took a 2 minute break and at a few power gel bites. Cried out to Jesus a few times. And I promise he told me that I had chosen to do it and I had to just keep going. We hit 97 miles at the top. We went all around the summit and studied down below, we saw where our hotel was, we saw the island where we had been the day before and we could pick out several places where we had ridden that day. It was an amazing accomplishment. My first mountain. I took it a bit easy on the way down. There were some serious turn backs that I wanted to make sure I could actually turn back. It was very overwhelming to see what I had climbed. So we hit 100 miles at the bottom and returned to town with grins. Got back and laid in the grass a minute. So grateful for my health. So grateful for my marriage. So grateful to have gotten to accomplish that feat with my J. So grateful to know the one who made such a glorious place. And so grateful for the grandparents who let us come.