Play and Marg ride

Friday we hit Yankton and the play, The Women. It is really a good comedy about women and their relationships. The all women cast was pretty good. Yes, this is the play that is out in movie form so now I want to see the movie! The bummer is that we were kind of rushed on Friday night and then the play didn't get over until almost 10:30pm. We had to hit the groc story for bananas and kiwi for the Margarita ride on Saturday. So once back at the Clubhouse we both crashed!

Saturday we were up early to get ready for the ride and drive to Vermillion. I fixed breakfast, scrambled eggs, brown rice, little butter and Parmesan cheese on top. We loaded up and headed out to rain / fog crap. We all decided we would rather have rain than wind. Arrived at Pros Bar in Vermillion the launching pad for the Marg ride a little after 7:30am for registration packets. Of course the usual Lane Hogs were there helping get things going. Not sure what time we rolled out for sure but it was after 8:00am. Some riders optioned to wait out the rain a bit before starting but we didn't. Our group consisted of three people, me, Kris, and Kono. I had the ipod speaker going playing tunes, by the way it worked great and we absolutely LOVE IT! I will have to post pictures of the contraption on the bike later. We took off from Vermillion and headed west, one down hill and then all flat to begin with. We were singing along to the tunes and going at a nice easy pace. I had told Kris that I would ride with her since this was her first EVER BIG ride so whatever pace she felt good at going is what we rode. Kono hung with us for the first five miles and then took off which was fine and in fact we told her our intentions and if she wanted to hang with us or go her own pace that was all fine. So we make it to Meckling after crossing the roughest railroad tracks ever! They were bad. A couple people crossed after us and pinch flatted. Anyway Ron was helping support our little group so she was there with Daniel and the dogs. We stopped and had a banana. YUP, I had a WHOLE banana there...UGH! If you read this blog you know I have such LOVE for bananas......

Anyway, we headed out again and made the water stop half way into the ride. We were greeted by Biking Brady honking Fordzilla or the great almighty Steve (whatever name wins the name the van pole), Mrs CDV and kids. We had not met Mrs CDV before so we had to chat about Disney! We took off again for the last half of the ride and of course the next half hour was spent talking Disney! Both of us were doing fine and singing to music as the miles clicked away. Couple more stops for us to refuel with Gu, Kiwi, and change the batteries in the speaker. We had the speaker volume pretty high the first half of the ride so we burned through 4 AA batteries in about 1 h 45m of ride time which with our stops I am guessing it was more like 2-2 1/4 hours. So not bad. As we turned the corner to head to HWY19 Kris could see the hill we had to climb to get back into Vermillion. I had told her about this hill before and I have walked up the hill in my youth as I was not able to bike up it. I told her to do what she could and if she needed to walk don't worry about it. You see this was her first ever 30 mile ride. The furthest she had ridden was 20 miles and since that time we really didn't have the time to get back out on the bikes to put in a lot more miles. Plus this was the first ride since she turned 50! Anyway I took the lead and headed up the hill. As I am almost to the top a rider passed me and it was Cycling Cathy, you go girl! I made it to the crest and pulled off to cheer another group of riders chugging up the hill. And to my surprise Kris was still pumping up the hill and not walking. She was getting tired but the hill was not going to beat her! She did a really great job! She was so sure she was going to have to walk up the hill and I really think she surprised herself! She later told me she just put her head down, kept pedaling and didn't look up the hill.

We got back to Pro's Bar and loaded up on the Mexican food. Both of use made taco salads and then had our margarita. Kris had a couple drinks out of hers before she spilled in on the table. No harm. We ended up drinking beer after that or I guess I had motor oil (Guinness) as they called it. We sat with some FAB members, Mr Mayor, Tammy and Jody, then they all took off for Sioux Falls. Then our table filled up with the biking bloggers. CDV, Biking Brady and Mrs Biking Brady, Hammer, Cycling Cathy, myself and Kris. What a great and fun group of people. Lots of bike chatting and laughing. We were invited over to CDVs house for a gathering of FAB, MS150, Lane Hog, riders. Unfortunately we could not stay long. We had to be back in Yankton to pick up Kris's moms TV stand she had finished down there. We did get one beer in, saw their Disney pics and family pics from their busy summer before we headed out. Of course we had to have some food to go with us on the road (Mrs CDV, I need the recipe for the tortilla wrap thingies!)

Once in Yankton the TV stand was picked up, we got back to the Clubhouse and cleaned the place up and tried to fix the toilet that had been running and singing to Ronnie and Kono when they got there Friday night (good thing we turn the water off to the place when we leave!) The toilet had different guts in it then I have seen before and also the shut off valve by the toilet had dripped some water so I decided that it would be good to call a plumber next week to have him replace the guts and valve. We are also in need of a new kitchen faucet so Kris suggested that since he was going to be there to fix those items to get a new faucet and have that installed also. Calls were made and all owner parties agreed. We packed up and headed to Sioux Falls. Our intentions were to hit the German fest but you might have guessed it....toooooo tired! We also stopped at two places to look for a new faucet. One of our friends is in Brandon taking care of her grand kids and she said she would take the faucet back to Yankton with her on Sunday for the plumber to install. No new faucet yet so have one more place to look this morning!

All in all it was a great weekend. Get this, Kris had a great time on the bike and started talking about riding this next year and maybe getting a different bike to ride. I think she might be hooked!

BIG THANKS to the Lane Hogs and all the Vermillion area bloggers to make this a fun event! You sure do meet some great people in the biking community!