Cliff’s Notes of Little Rock to Cincinnati
In light of the scarcity of new blogs, I hope to cover many of the events, planned and unplanned, of the last few weeks.
We rode through Arkansas and enjoyed the hot springs of Hot Springs. The town is certainly worth visiting and spending a night in. Little Rock treated us well with the all-you-can-eat crayfish, wine, and beer. There was a heck of a storm when we were there and we saw the destruction of a tornado north of town as rode out the next day. It is certainly humbling to see the power of nature in its full force. I remember being nervous during the storm while I was in the gym the night before.
We rode through part of Mississippi on the way to Memphis, a straight stretch of highway for about 40 miles with a headwind. Not very memorable except when we turned off the highway and went through the first rolling hills we had seen in a while. *See Libby’s blog for Memphis fun on the day of arrival* The Memphis Global Health Day was a success – Lenore gave a great lecture and we had a fair number of interested medical students in attendance. After this, we spent some time in Memphis. Some people went the Civil Rights Museum and were nicely pushed out after the 5pm closing time. Travis and Brian had decided to attempt to conquer the King Kookamonga in under an hour. This is a 12lb hamburger with 6lbs of meat and 6lbs of toppings, including a bar-stool sized bun. I am sorry to report that the challenge was not completed but I must say that it was a valiant attempt! After this, we went to a Redbirds Minor League game and hung out in the grass behind left field.
*Jenn’s/Justin’s blog describes the West Tennessee Strawberry festival in Humboldt,TN*
From Milan (a short distance from the festival, a detour from our route due to flooding) we rode to Nashville on the Natchez Trace which was a top 5 best ride for those who were fortunate to not be on support that day (not me). Libby and I marked the route though and made sure to run to the sights along the trail. There were two beautiful waterfalls that were short jogs from the main road – the water flowed so smoothly over the sheet rock and fell straight down from overhangs. The road was smooth and we were fortunate to find a picturesque water stop overlooking great farmland, a few silos, and a barn in the distance. Libby and I could not have set it up better – there was a large downhill immediately following the break! We racked the bikes out of town and drove a short distance into town to meet with Vanderbilt students for dinner. With our off day the next day, many riders went out that night to some bars with great music to relax after the day on the road. We slept in for the first time in weeks the next day and then most of the riders went out into town to explore and see what the city had to offer. There was still significant flood damage and six of the riders went out to help our hosts with their volunteer effort. Jody, Lauren, Josh, Roshan, Andy, and myself first went to one house to help move a enormous pile of trash into a dumpster – the owner of that house even let a few of us drive a large tractor with a frontloader and backhoe. We finished that job and drove out to a house which had had water up to the top of the basement. We spent the next four hours tearing everything out of the basement – everything! We pulled out every wall and ceiling down to the 2x4s and cement supports. Sadly we couldn’t help more but we did what we could with limited time. We did have a lot of fun with the work and the owner of the house was very happy that we had come to help.
From Nashville, our next major stop was Louisville. We stopped at Mammoth Caves on the ride in between – they truly are enormous and would be amazing to explore for several days and take some of the longer tours. We even heard about tours that require harnesses and climbing! We stayed a fairgrounds building that night after eating with a local Lions Club – modest accommodations but warm enough and dry. The ride to Louisville was moderately hilly but the riders were lucky to have the strongest tailwind we have seen on this trip. I helped Bryce give a talk to the University of Louisville College of Medicine students as the riders were sweating it out in the hills. We finished and drove to our accommodations before all of the riders arrived. We were fortunate to be provided with a wonderful dinner by our hosts – friends of Chris’.
From Louisville most of us were excitedly anticipating Columbus but we needed to go to Cincinnati first! We rode out 20 miles the next day and got stuck in severe thunderstorms! Riders huddled under overpasses and in gas stations (see twitter note from under an overpass) to let the rain pass. After checking the radar on our handy smart phones, the support team for the day decided we would not be able to make it all the way to Aurora. We drove to a lunch spot and waited out the rain. After the red Doppler areas passed us, we were able to ride 40 miles in to the city and church we were staying at for the night. We gave our general presentation to some of the church congregation that evening after they had provided us with a delicious lasagna dinner. The ride from Aurora to Cincinnati was supposed to be an easy 35 mile jaunt the next day and we were all excited to have a pseudo-rest day. The day was restful as expected until mile 34 or so when we ran into a incredibly steep uphill all the way to the medical school – almost a perfect short day! We had journal club that night with local medical students and discussed oral rehydration therapies in developing regions of the world. After the discussion, we split into small groups for home stays with several of the medical students.
**More to follow…
~ Jeff