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The theme of the day is: "We must be on the espresso, ice
cream and beer tour" Following yesterday's "duff" day I
felt pretty rested. Yesterday I made sure that I didn't even get on the bike
cause I really needed the rest. Seven days of riding mountains and long
distances really tired me out. This morning we woke up to a
beautiful sunny day. Compared to last week, the mileage was fairly short,
67-miles. At the 10-mile mark the route took us on to a very nice bike path
that ran parallel to the road. It the path when up and down and curves here
and there. The path ended at the 19 mile mark, just in time
for coffee. At right in front of us was a drive in espresso stand. The
brightly painted yellow stand was already swamped with riders. The
entire group of us must have hung out and relaxed for more than 1/2 hour
before moving on. The women that operated the stand was heard to say
that she could go home now, because she's already done a day's worth of
business. The picnic stop was at the 30 mile mark in the town
of Stevensville. The end of the ride was only 37 more miles, but you
could feel the temperature starting to warm up. Before the
town of Hamilton, I came across a building that formally was a church and
now was a ice cream store. It had a wonderful gazebo out side attach to a
raised deck. Just as I was getting there a large number of riders were
just leaving. I sat outside almost by myself, but within minutes more
riders showed up and swamped the place. It was getting pretty
warm by the time I got into Darby. Dinner was at Bud and Shirley's, a
high point! It was the most unusual buffet that I've ever been to.
You name it, they had it, salad, pasta, pizza, chicken and lots of it.
We're having breakfast there in the morning, I'm look forward to it.
The tour briefing was held out in the town square. On the way back to the
school, several of us stopped at one of the saloons and emptied several
pitchers of beer. It was truly an espresso, ice cream and beer type of
day. Oh so much fun, I hope that we have more relaxing days like
today.
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