The Ride of a Lifetime - Aug. 21, 2009
Posted in The Kids
My darling daughter turned sixteen yesterday. Ever since her fifteenth birthday she’s been talking about doing some kind of physical challenge on her sixteenth birthday, and she wanted to do it with me. So, over the last year she came up with all kinds of interesting ideas: hiking part of the
Now, if you’ve ever lived in or even just visited
Over the years, the trail has expanded with additional trails reaching the
Let me add a little background information here for you. Colleen and I are not athletes. We are not athletic. In fact, even though we exercise fairly regularly, I wouldn’t even consider us in very good shape. Oh, and our bikes are old Wal-mart specials bought on clearance several years ago. My bike is at least eight years old. Hers is probably about three years old. We trained a little bit for the ride, but because of life getting in the way, we didn’t train as much as we should have. We also didn’t get new bikes for this endeavor. We just went with what we had.
The day before the big trek, we did little to prepare for the day. We were probably a bit too relaxed about it all. I was busy making Pierogies, a cheesecake and muffins for the birthday dinner. The kids did some of the cleaning, and my hubby very sweetly helped with some of the cleaning and recovering our dining room chairs. I had a ministry meeting, and Colleen had babysitting in the evening. We really didn’t take the time to think about the pending ride at all. We didn’t even print out a map. If it hadn’t been for my dear husband putting a couple of jugs of water in the freezer for us that night, we would have been woefully unprepared for our adventure.
On the morning of the big day, we overslept and took our own sweet time about hitting the trail. We fueled up on blueberry-oatmeal muffins, strawberry smoothies, fruit and a vitamin. The cooler was packed with four gallons of ice water, the leftover muffins, and a bag of apples, plums, and nectarines. I was afraid to put our refillable water bottle in a backpack. They just didn’t seem very stable. So, I grabbed a small wooden crate my husband had made, emptied it out, and strapped it to the carrier on the back of my bike. The box was small but held our water bottles, cell phone, bandanas, Ibuprofen, and mini first aid kit perfectly.
The boys (Tom and Jared) served as our Pit Crew. They packed the cooler, some tools, a compressor, a larger first aid kit, Tom’s laptop, and a camera into the van. By the way, the laptop was for navigational purposes since it was holding the maps hostage and refused to print them. Therefore, the maps had a battery life of two hours. No pressure.
As we left the house an hour later than originally planned, we realized we didn’t even know where we were going. Did I mention we were probably a bit too relaxed over this whole thing? No one had taken a good enough look at the online map to note where the trail actually began. We spent a significant amount of time driving around downtown
We finally found part of the trail in an industrial area and decided to just hop on there. I wasn’t beyond coming back and riding a section we missed. I just wanted to get going before it got any hotter. So, the Pit Crew unloaded the bikes, and Colleen and I hit the trail.
The beginning part of our adventure took us through an industrial area, and the trail itself didn’t seem right. We’ve been on many parts of the Pinellas trail. There are signs everywhere. There are “Rules of the Trail’ signs, mile markers, and even speed limit signs. The only signs we saw were stops signs when we came to a street we had to get across. We’d probably ridden about a mile when we crossed US 19 and picked up the actual trail. Yes, you read that correctly. We had ridden about a mile that wasn’t part of the original trail. Now, we hadn’t realized this right away. When we came to the first mile marker sign, and it had a number one on it, two things dawned on me. One, we must have been very close to the trailhead when we started. And two, if we had just traveled only one mile, it was going to be a very long journey. I needed to make peace with the idea that I might not make it to the end. When we reached mile marker two, two things dawned on me. One, that the trailhead had been back at US 19. And two, we just added an extra mile to our trip. It was going to be a very long journey.
Our adventure wasn’t as grueling as I thought it was going to be. The Pit Crew helped a lot. Not only were they ready when we needed them to refill our waters and add air to our tires, they kept us distracted. We never knew where they were going to show up next, and we caught glimpses of them so often that we started calling them our stalkers. It became a fun game spotting them at different intersections.
In the beginning of my story, I told you that there are no good hiking trails here in
In spite of the overpasses, the trip was fun. We took breaks at various parks along the way. We cheered every time we passed a mile marker and every time we crossed a city’s boundary line. We almost got lost in
Yet, we did survive the trip. All thirty-four miles of it and all nine bridges. And we had the time of our lives! My dear daughter and I talked about anything and everything under the sun. We talked about the past. We talked about the present. We talked about the future. We talked about school. We talked about books. We talked about guys. We talked about talking. We talked for five hours! And we were still talking at the finish line.
Reaching the end was exhausting and exhilarating. I’d never done anything like this. I never thought I could. My daughter knew we could do it, but I think even she was surprised that not only did we finish, but we were still able to walk afterwards.
I wanted my daughter’s 16th birthday to be unforgettable for her, but the time we spent together on that trail will live in my heart forever. My dear Colleen is such a precious jewel to both her father and me. She’s a joy to be around. She’s a wonderful helper and often lends a hand even without being asked. She’s tenacious when she wants to reach a goal and rarely falls short. We are blessed to have her in our family. And even though I cannot move today without some measure of pain shooting through most of body, I am still thrilled and honored that she chose to take this adventure with me. Thanks, Colleen!
Thank you for stopping by! I hope you enjoy the slideshow of our crazy adventure. By the way, when was your last adventure?
Betty
Grace and peace be yours in abundance. 1Peter1:2b
Comments
Aug. 22, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Posted by 2boysmom
That was amazing and what an awesome memory you will have! I have to admit - I probably would have given up.
Congrats! You'll definitely get the "Mom of the Year" award!
Aug. 22, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
Very fun. I think it's really sweet she wanted to do something with mom on her birthday. :)
-Dusti
http://kimmelkids4.blogspot.com/
Aug. 23, 2009 - Congratulations!!!
Posted by karen0317
What a wonderful adventure!! I loved reading every word of it. I know this will be a most memorable birthday for both of you. Colleen sounds like a beautiful girl. What a joy!
Aug. 25, 2009 - WOW!
Posted by IllinoisLoriH
What a wonderful thing you and your daughter got to do together! I really enjoyed reading about it, and viewing the slideshow. A picture is worth a thousand words!
God Bless,
Lori (aka Plans4You)
