It's all about the timing

On Wednesday Maine Winter Sports took a group of athletes down to Katahdin to make the trek up. I have lived in Maine for over five years now and hadn't yet gone up. I was more than excited to see this trip on the schedule this spring. I closed off two days of work to making sure I had nothing in the way of putting me at the top of that mountain.
Despite these efforts I never got there. I misunderstood the timing of it all, not realizing that we were going to leave the evening before the two days chosen. Bummer! A couple hours later departure and I would have been there. I guess it wasn't meant to be this time around. Something tells me there will be others opportunities.
After realizing I was going to miss out on a great four to five hours distance adventure workout, I decided I needed to create one on my own. Since there aren't any mountain big enough around here for a four hours hike, I decided on going on a bike adventure. This would be a great opportunity to check out some new territory in Aroostook County. Out came the Maine Gazetteer and my highlighter and with the help of David, I mapped out a nice long loop that would wind me around down towards Ashland and then slowly wind back up to Caribou.
Back pockets packed with food, water, money and phone, I started off. It was beautiful riding. The farmland in this area is gorgeous and very inspiring. About an hour in however, I spotted some pretty dark clouds rolling my way. I was not looking forward to hitting this storm on my bike, but I pedaled into it anyways. I did stop under the eve of an old abandon gas station for a couple minutes, hoping I could wait just a few more and have the worst of it pass. I realized quickly that wasn't going to happen, so back on my bike I went. The rain started to fall and things got pretty dark. I kept pedaling dreaming for warm, dry places and before I knew it my route took me left, away from the storm! Blue skies were in sight! I pedaled faster and quickly drove myself away from the storm. I couldn't help but think of what amazing timing I had. The pavement was very wet were I was now riding, but the storm was quickly moving in away from me. Crisis averted! Well maybe it wasn't a crisis but four hours of cold, wet riding was anyways.
So while the timing didn't work out for one adventure, it helped me stay dry and happy on another.
Happy 4th to you all! Hope you can all get out there and have an adventure of your own. Cheers, BethAnn

P.S. I apologize for not having any pictures with this post. I took many great shots during my ride, but forgot to put the memory card back in my camera before I did so! Lesson learned.