Friday, April 9, 2010

CNC Spring 2010 Thursday - Friday

One thing is for sure my first Spring CNC ride will not be hard to forget. I had decided to camp. I found a site with access to electricity and once allowed setup my REI Hobbart 6,. I really liked this tent and it was not too hard setting it up for the first time. I had taken it down once but it was setup when I got to the MS Tour for Cure in 2009 Tim and the crew had it setup already. The wind made it a challenge but I did OK and set it up solo. I then had a nice dinner with Leah , Jeff and Wayne. Went to bed about 10:30PM. The wind was really blowing but the tent was handling it well. With all the noise and movement of the tent I took me a while to fall asleep. At 1:37 AM I was awakened when it started raining. It seemed to be raining pretty hard sometimes but again the tent did well. At 4:07AM I was awakened again by a BIG noise, the back and both walls to sides were pushed into touching me then suddenly the tent collapsed on top of me. I do not know what the wind was but is seemed to be ten time bigger then the wind that had been blowing and that was a good wind before. I sat there for a few minutes trying to understand what had happened. There were several people walking around looking at the damage and asking everyone if they were OK. I got my keys and my iPhone and headed to the van. I was raining but not to hard at the time. It rained heavy and lightly until about 4:30 AM then it slaked off and almost stopped. I went back to my campsite to see if the tent had just collapsed and if so could I get ti back up so I could start cleaning up and getting things to start drying. There must have been two dozens tents down and a Pine tree that just barely missed landing on a camper in their tent. I quickly discovered that several of the tie down points and several other attachment points were tore off and there was a split across the top above one of the doors. The tent was destroyed. I still set it back up as best as I could so I could unpack it and pack everything back into the van and just go home. Several of my friends came by and asked if I was OK and if there was anything they could do. I stated I was just doing home since I had nowhere to stay and someone suggested I just go up and camp indoors. I have no idea why I did not think of this but I did not shock maybe. I also stated at how upset I was that I had lost my tent and that I did not know how I was going to do the MS Tour because I could not get another tent. Well several people told me that since I had an REI tent I could just take it back and they would exchange it. I find this hard to believe but several people have told me this so I am hopeful.

I got everything packed back into the van and went to find the indoor camping place. Once there I unpacked what I would need to Indoor camp and everything that I wanted to or need to get dried out. This was no small task. Once setup and with everything spread out to dry I assumed it was way past the 10AM departure time we had set the night before but checking my iPhone I discovered it was just 9:03 AM so I got dressed for cycling in some pretty wet gear and rode Turtle back down to the meeting point for 9:45 AM. Turtle had spent the night safe and dry in the van - sometimes I think she is smarter than I am. Jeff got there a little before 10AM and we found Leah and Wayne leaving the coffee shop and we were shortly on our way. By running the Bionx on level one the whole ride I was able to conserve enough power to have battery power for all but about 4 miles. I did well, when we got back to town before we had to slow for driving through town I was averaging 15.8 mph, pretty good for me. It was a good ride but it was a bit cold and it did rain on us three times once hard enough to get us a little wet. I did clear off for about the last 17 miles or so. I rode with Leah, Jeff, Wayne and Chris.

After the ride I came back to the indoor camping place and cleaned up, got a shower, took my drugs, straightened up some of my stuff and then rode Turtle down to meet Leah, Jeff and Chris for dinner It was a good meal and a nice time.

So what do you think, A Day to Remember???

My GPS data is HERE

My pictures are HERE

You will notice that the last of my picture are fuzzy or out of focus - as near as I can guess my trusty little HP Photosmart R967 is one more victim of the weather event of this trip. It just stop focusing. Everything else seems to work but it is a auto focus only camera so if it will not focus it is not much use. I also lost. these just disappeared, the power supply for my iPhone, tooth brush, empty insulin bottle, and maybe a cellphone. My S-Cam DVR was water logged and I am pretty sure it is ruined. The GPSs seem to be fine.

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