I’m home again and living under a solid roof for which I have a whole new level of appreciation. All the joys of tenting in nature are a great treasure, for sure, but after day upon day of wet conditions, it tends to lose a little of its luster.

As soon as I stopped my car in our driveway, I started dragging gear out to dry.

For those of you who may have been following along and watching the weather at each of our destinations, it should come as no surprise that precipitation dominated our activities to varying degrees for 6 of the 7 days. The visible difference in flooding of the Cannon River from the first day to our last was shocking. As we crossed the river on a concrete bridge near our last rest stop of the trip, we paused to watch large trees racing downstream.

One particular beast showed up with the root ball sticking out of the water on the left and very large limbs rising out of the water on the right as it rapidly flowed broadside toward us on the bridge. I regret that I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture because it was an incredible sight. The thought crossed my mind that we probably shouldn’t have been standing there as it slammed into the legs supporting the bridge with an impact we could feel. In an instant, the current forced the root ball end downstream and spun the full-sized tree in line with the flow and the tree scratched its way under and continued in the flow.

We hung around at that rest stop extra long while the mechanics rescued me from leaking tires.

That’s my bike on the stand being expertly repaired. (Steve: I thought my bike was “tubeless-ready,” but Joseph discovered it was plain old tubeless, much to my surprise. They had two new tires available and fixed me up since the old ones had too many tiny holes [and one mosquito-bite-looking bump.])

As they were finishing, Luther noticed the highway officials were closing the road at the bridge behind us. What a year for us to be riding around rivers that were overflowing so dramatically.

Despite the wetness, this year’s trip still offered up the most precious reward of all: meeting new people and horsing around with old friends. There was an uncharacteristic number of people dropping out early, partly due to the constant threat of storms, but for other reasons too. One pulled out because of a death in the family. Some suffered the consequences of their two bike wheels not remaining in contact with the ground at all times.

I’m pleased this year to be one of those who made it all the way to the end. I’m hoping to have inspired a few new readers, including the twins, Maggie and Kathleen, Tom from Atlanta and Kim in Winnipeg. A special shout-out goes to a pair of kindred spirits who I immediately fell in love with. I met them one at a time and in different memorable ways: CJ and Amy, I hope we might discover a way for you to come experience Wintervale in person someday.

I’ve explained to Cyndie that I have invited practically the entire tour over to see our place. The next best thing will probably be for them to read about it here.

No sooner than I had finished spreading all my stuff out in the partial sunlight, more rain started to fall again. I hustled to get it all into the garage.

It really doesn’t need to be said, but… the grass needs some serious mowing. Unfortunately, I may need to wait another day before starting on that project.

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