Day 16 – Home again | Cycling Over 60

Day 16 – Apr 22, 2015

As my father use to say when we were getting home: “home again, home again, jiggety jig”.

I awoke early at around 6:30 a.m. and started breaking camp. Fortunately, it had not rained last night and my tent was only damp from the morning dew but still needed a bit of drying. I didn’t want to have to break out my cooking gear for coffee so I made it using just the warm water from the restroom. My body was moving pretty slow due to the last few days of hard biking so I didn’t really leave the campsite until almost 8 a.m.

I had noted that this area has been getting a bit of rain of late and the lake was almost full again. I continued out of the park to the connecting rails-to-trails bike trail just outside the park.

Gag… the trail was in such awful shape due to all the recent rains! I had almost wished I had taken the highway to Weatherford! But so be it … I continued on the trail as best I could even having to walk my bike thru some of it. This was a bit humerus as while I did NOT walk my bike on the hills yesterday, the sand on the trail forced me to today! Needless to say it was slow going the 1st half of the 18 mile ride to Weatherford. All during this time, the rain clouds were filling the sky.

When I finally emerged off the trail in Weatherford I heard someone shout “Jon!”. I turned around and there were my friends Jeremy and Lynn Main (they purchased the house where Mrs. Jordan’s kindergarten use to be off of Oak St). What a surprise!!! The met me with a coffee and kolache … such perfect timing as I was thinking of where I wanted to grab a bite to eat in Weatherford. We sat and chatted for about 20-30 minutes as I rested and scarfed down the treats 🙂

As I road away from the trail entrance the clouds were getting darker as it started to sprinkle. I continued thru Weatherford to the 1st Monday grounds and onto the Weatherford bike trails onward to the Bankhead highway where it crosses over I20 onward to Aledo. This route I know well having traveled it many times before. Wild flowers along the way were really opening up and the dark clouds faded to a lighter gray.

After passing thru Aledo, the winds picked up and were against me once again. It really makes climbing those hills oh so much more difficult but that wasn’t going to get me down. I was too close to home now as I could now see the skyline of Fort Worth!

My route continued through Benbrook where I caught the Fort Worth bike trails. The trails were all so beautiful with all the wild flowers blooming. Not much longer now as I am now in such familiar territory.

One more big hill on Oakmont Blvd going towards Bryant Irvin Blvd as I pressed onward towards home. That hill to0 was conquered! As I approached the last block from my house, my good friend Ron Shaw was there filming my arrival (can be seen in .MOV file here CO2TX_Day16_Arrival) while other good friends, Steve and Happy Johns, sneaked over to my house and greeted me with a “Welcome Home” sign on the front door!

One final surprise was on the dining room table was a “congratulations” balloon, card and an iced down bottle of champagne along with a massage gift certificate from my daughters!!! Of course I had tears in my eyes!

Done: Over all miles is right at 800 over 16 days. I’m finally home.

Final thoughts? Number one is the support, care and love that everyone has shown towards me on my quest. IT doesn’t get any better than that! As to other profound things to say … I need to take some more time to reflect and I’ll try and post more about that.

A dream, turned into a reality and is now a memory.

Love to all and a big “THANK YOU” for all your support.

Jon.

Today’s runkeeper stats: