The school went out of their way to accommodate us. As it was supposed to rain that evening (and it did) they closed down their gym for us so we could sleep inside. They warned us that there might be brown recluse spiders on the gym floor that night, so most of us set up our tents inside the gym and slept with the safety of our 1 mm thick nylon protective barriers. I made sure I zipped up my tent every time I got out - and checked my shoes before putting my feet indie them. But the night went quietly by (best part was the gym was so big you could not hear anybody snore!).
Then the next morning instead of using their gym for their morning workout (5 am) they made the students work out outside. We are talking a serious workout at 5 am!!!!
The school is obviously steeped in tradition and there are memorials to their fallen students in the various wars all over the campus.
There was one plaque that was of interest dating from the civil war which proclaimed a Confederate victory of routing the North in one of the battles that took place in Lexington.
While I lost Russ as my ride buddy, Kyle returned to do the last two days of riding. Our logistics got screwed up slightly as Russ was supposed to transport Kyle back to Lexington at the end of the ride. So Kyle and I improvised and drove his truck to the end of the Santa Fe trail and then rode back to meet the crew at our last overnight in Arrow Rock.
We encountered a detour with a bridge that was being rebuilt but Kyle insisted that we could walk our bikes across (instead of taking the detour that added a grand total of 3 miles to our ride). Well here is what we encountered when we got to the bridge.
Kyle suggested we "sweet talk" the crew and just keep walking over the bridge. So he snapped the above picture.
The crew was just about to take a coffee break and didn't seem to mind us. But just as the past us they said "not sure how you are going to get down on the other side as it is a 15 foot drop". "But there is a 12 foot ladder that you can use but you have to throw it back up on the bridge if you use it".
We got to the other side and there was indeed a 15 foot drop - and yes the ladder was about 2-3 feet too short!. Somehow Kyle got the ladder in place and I handed our bikes down to him. We then tossed the ladder back up onto the bridge and navigated ourselves out of the rubble.
All this to save 3 miles. But it added to our story and we have now become folk lore to all future riders on the Santa Fe Bike Trek!
It was a short ride to Arrow Rock and camp was in a State Park.
There was no food at the park - but the local Lutheran Church (about 10 miles away) went all out and provided us a complete turkey dinner (turkey, stuffing, masked potatoes, homemade biscuits and gravy.
Here is the crew just before we left for dinner. As there were 40 of us, a bunch had to ride in the back of our support truck
The dinner was unbelievable!!!! To top it off, the women at the church baked about 15 pies. All sorts... pecan, butterscotch cream, pumpkin, boysenberry, etc. You name it there was a pie made out of it. There was so much pie that most of us had 2 slices. Some guys went back for 3rds and 4ths. One of the riders from last year's ride told us to stay away from the boysenberry pie as it was not that good. Of course that is the pie that we all hit first. Backfired on him!
I can assure you there was not a crumb left on the plate.
Better yet we went back there for breakfast - and someone made homemade cinnamon rolls (yummmmmy). Not those doughboy refrigerated things. We are talking homemade!
Made the last day's ride even harder (stuffed!).
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