It's been interesting traversing the country and most of my writing has been about culture or food, which is my favorite topic, but today I'm going to jot a quick note about weather. Most days that's what guides us across the country.
Every morning, we wake up and the first thing we do is grab our phones to look at several weather apps. First to determine the temperature and secondly to look at the weather. When you travel in a car, you don't care what the weather is...you are in a comfortable, climate controlled environment. But on the bike, it's a completely different story. Weather dictates how we dress, what time we leave and what roads we take. If it's raining we spend all day dodging the clouds and following blue sky. This is the storm we were dodging.
Today was a day to dodge rainstorms. We left Cookeville, Tennessee early this morning and have avoided rain all day. We did hit a couple of small rainstorms but it's so warm that we dried quickly. All of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee are in torrential rain storms. The forecast for the week looks grim.
We arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas at 6:00 pm, rode on a cool bridge over a beautiful river to find the historical downtown which wasn't that simple. We stopped at a McDonalds, to either wait out the storm or to find the downtown, a hotel and hopefully, a beer. It was sprinkling a little and we opted to keep going and headed toward the Stone Brewery (you knew we'd find one) however, in the blink of an eye, the heavens broke loose and we were in a torrential downpour. But the Brewery was in sight, so we kept going only to find it CLOSED! A couple of blocks away, we sloshed into a Shell Gas Station in what feels like a seedy side of town and with our trusted GPS found the historical district. It was only about 1/2 mile away, 10 minutes to the promised land, so like real pioneers, we headed out.
What a difference 10 minutes makes! Of course we aren't in rain gear - it's a hassle to put on and we've avoided the storm all day and by now it's too late for gear. For those of you who don't ride, rain gear is a rainsuit made of waterproof material that usually includes pants, jacket and rain boots. Also, those of you who ride with Randy, understand that he rarely stops to put on rain gear. He's of the theory that we can out-ride the rain. His theory worked today until we reached our destination.
I writing this from the Flying Saucer, Draught Emporium, in Little Rock's historical downtown, (yes, of course a brew pub) waiting out the downpour. Funny thing about this storm; we've been dodging it all day but tonight Mother Nature got the best of us. It's the very end of our day - and now I'm soaked to the bone. We only rode 1/2 mile and the rain soaked through my jacket, two t-shirts, my jeans and my gloves. I could feel the rain dripping down my helmet into my back. It was raining so hard that I couldn't see in front of me.
The best thing about dodging the rain is that you find fun little country stores, restaurants, under freeway overpasses and places like the Flying Saucer to wait out the storm. You meet lots of fun people this way. Tonight, we met a nice couple who felt sorry for us and shared their table. (the restaurant was packed)
We've just checked the radar and we have about 30 minutes to blue sky. I can see the sunset in the distance and a little blue sky. Then we'll make a mad dash to our hotel which is just 10 minutes away. Even if it rains more, I'm already soaked, so who cares!
Like a good ride captain, Randy just checked the weather radar again and Oh my stars, Randy just told me that next two days or riding will be in the rain!
I'm not going to trust Randy's theory tomorrow. I've learned my lesson, tomorrow I'll be in full rain gear. Mother Nature won today, but not tomorrow!
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