Head Wind - Bad, Tail Wind - Good

Jake is still battling the flu and is staying home another day from school. The 'projectiles' have stopped so that is good, but his stomach still has pains and he's super weak. I slept in the bunk above him to keep an ear on him and for the second night in a row he did a little 'sleep talking'; funny stuff. It's been some time since he was that sick.

Yesterday afternoon I met up with Dale and Jim Jones (not my brother) for a 3hr ride. We threw out a couple route choices and it was decided to head south of Pleasant Hope (I did remind them of the 25+mph south winds) over east toward Walnut Grove then hop the tailwind back home via Morrisville. The first three miles or so were straight into the wind I it really sucked as I intended for this an easy spin ride, but that was not going to happen as it took decent effort just to move forward. Going east across Hwy Y wasn't bad, but the south drop to/thru Pleasant Hope was brutal; it's pretty hilly and throw in the headwind and it was plain mean. When we reached our furthest south and turned west on CC/BB it was a big relief to be done with the breeze. BB over to Z is a fun and challenging road and by the time we reached Z Dale and Jim headed back to Bolivar while I wanted to grab some extra miles so I kept it going west. Turned north (sweet tailwind) up JJ, back over to Morrisville and tailwind city back home to Bolivar. 56.5 miles just a tad over 3hrs and 4085ft of climbing - nice.

***Picture to the right shows Dale's 'Flanders' jersey in honor of this weekend's race. Not sure what happened to my camera to take such a weird lower shot, but I promise Jim's wheel is not that much out of true.***

Taking today as a rest so at lunch Ira and I cut the floor tire for the bathroom remodel. The afternoon is supposed to hit near 80* so I figure most of it will be with Ian and Deb in the backyard playing baseball (from now on all 'b-ball' references are to baseball and not basketball - season shift), doing some yard work, and mortor'ing tile.

Looks like Friday might be a mtb trip into Arkansas...