SO WEIRD!

You'd think that I'd get used to it. After all - this makes 4 Rides this season and 9 in the past 2 so you'd think that I'd be used to the weird conflicting feelings of joy, relief, sadness and exhaustion that fill me on the Sunday of a ride weekend.

You'd think that - but you'd be wrong. Way wrong.

It's hard to come back to the ranch (after a great morning of hiking - more later) and see the bare spot on the grass where the bike room tent was...w/ a few sliced zip ties and a valve nut or two mute testimony to the efforts of 5 guys to make sure 180 bikes were ready. It's weird-n-painful to realize that the cleaning lady came by and transformed room 512 from the nerve center of the whole weekend back into a plain ol' hotel room again.

It's just weird. It's like the circus has left town...again...and even though it was great and you can still feel the excitement and passion and sweat and tears in the very air...it's.....still.....more than a little sad.

Hell, maybe it's just me.

Anyway - the aforementioned circus has for damnsure left town and by now the various players have re-scattered from Las Vegas to Denmark and everywhere in between. 'Cept us. "Us", in this particular case is Lin, Pablo, JD, Maggie and my-own-bad-self. We had a great day here today - we hiked out to the Natural Bridge, we drove up to Dante's View and hiked up to the viewpoint, we hung by the pool, we drove Artist's Canyon @ sunset and then drove down to Stovepipe Wells for dinner. Nice, nice, nice.

Tomorrow we all head home save for Pablo. (Repeat after me "he's here on a research project for school!") and before you know it........this 5th Death Valley Ride to Cure Diabetes for the West Michigan Team will be a fond memory.

But we all know that it'll forever be more than that - a LOT more! It was a statement of 200+ people's drive to cure diabetes and have a special, bonding, powerful time while doing so. It was Katie crossing the finish line, Chris poundin' out 90+ miles (mostly by himself), it was Pablo and John and Pete and Rob and Steve and JD and Linda and Nick all riding so well and showing the JDRF world that our Team doesn't hafta be the biggest to make the most noise! It was Maggie and Becky rockin' it out @ the top of the Pass at the #1 break point too!

Damn I love you guys!

So proud of everyone.
So happy for everyone.
(So tired)

I hope to see all of you @ the big party next month, I hope to see all of you online soon as we share pix and stories of this weekend and the whole dang season.

Let the wild rumpass begin!

Coach Mike