Today is the first ride since May 17th. So far May has been a month to forget and get over. First I spent 3 days in the hospital and then on May 19th I got the call from my sister no one wants to get. My Mother was taken to the ER early May 19th and shortly after that moved to hospice. My wife quickly got clothes together, made arrangements for our niece and then started the drive to Ohio. The drive went as planned for one day but I think we got some food poisoning and the drive Monday May 20th turned into a disaster with my wife throwing up numerous times as we drove on I-30 from Texarkana to Little Rock and I-40 to Nashville. After that slowed down then she experienced diarrhea for several days. This all made for interesting traveling finding restrooms in the most unusual places. We took one exit to a place called Dancyland (I think) to find a truck stop hidden behind a hill. This was the only buildings we saw and it came in the nick of time. The people were friendly and helpful.

The drive sadly turned into going to my Mother’s funeral. After we arrived in Zanesville I also developed some problems from the same food poisoning but near as severe as my wife’s. As we visited with family and friends the problem slowly left us and we were able to attend the funeral and begin the drive back home on Saturday. fortunately the trip back did not include food poisoning and the side effects.

So my goal for today’s ride was to just get my legs turning the pedals. Early this morning (6:40 AM) I rode my mountain bike to the dentist so I found out the legs still knew how to turn the pedals. This was a 6 mile round trip leaving me with some reserve to go on my longer ride to Huffman and back. Catching up on some chores delayed the ride start to 11:58. The temperature was a nice 87 to 89 for the ride but the wind was not so nice at 23 mph from the SE. The clouds hinted of some possible rain somewhere but the weather radar was offline so I wasn’t sure where or if I would run into any. The ride ended up at 31.33 miles at a 14.6 mph average speed. I did not see any rain or clouds threatening to drop some.

One thing I did see that was very unusual happened while I stopped at the Huffman Chevron. I heard a train whistle and expected to see a freight train coming out of the trees and from behind some buildings on my right across FM1960 but instead an Amtrak passenger train appeared. There were two engine type cars followed by 4 passenger cars. Looking through the windows I did not see many passengers though I could be mistaken due to the distance I was from the tracks. I don’t remember seeing a passenger train here before. This reminds me of the time when I was a Cub Scout and my Mother arranged for our Pack to ride the last B&O Railroad passenger train to leave Zanesville, Ohio. We rode to New Concord, OH about 12 miles to the east and got off to drive back to Zanesville. This was in 1950’s.

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