joy of love: day 24

where you fell in love

Where did I fall in love?  On a 400 mile bike tour.  Yep.  Back in the day of being young and having free summers I was an avid biker.  My “lil sis” from high school got me into it and we did all kinds of rides together.  But in 1994 we, for the second time, joined about 3000 other bicyclists for a week traveling to small towns in Ohio.  You bike about 50 miles a day, set up a tent in the next town {carried to the next town by four semi trucks}, sleep, and move on the following.  One day during the week you stay for two nights and could do an optional 100 mile ride that day.  We always took the day off.

But back to the story.  The day I met Rich, Liz and I didn’t get up on the sunny side of the sleeping bags.  I can not remember what we got upset with each other about, but we rode separately at some point.  I came into tent city, this day at a small college campus, and pulled off to the first open spot I found.  Now, I was no slacker back then and the 50 miles only took me about two hours.  It was about 9/10 am and already pretty darn hot.  I looked over to see a very nice looking guy in cut off shorts and a tank top drinking coffee.  I thought that was crazy as it was so hot.  Anyhoo, being the horribly shy person I was, I did something so out of character.

I asked him what time it was.

I knew what time it was.  I had a clock on my bike.

He answered and then said “you didn’t just come in from the ride did you?”

“Um, yep.”

He was taken back that I had done it so quickly.  The reason he was already at the next town was because he was the “sag” driver for the day.  He was riding with a group and each day one of them took a turn driving a vehicle with all their stuff to the next town so they didn’t have to dig through the MOUNTAINS of bags thrown off the semi trucks.  We talked for a bit and then I said I had to go find my stuff and see if my friend had made it in and biked off.

 

Borrowed from Google Images This is what the bags look like once they are off the trucks. That is a pretty mild image... must have not been at the beginning of the day.

Now I knew where he was setting up camp but he was lost like a fish in the sea of 3000 bikers looking for me.  Once I showered, sent up the tent and made up with Liz we casually walked back to his spot.  Not there.  We did this all day.  He was never there.  Now once we moved to the next town there was no way I’d find him again.  But night fell and still no sign of him.  Strange.

Later I found out that one of the guys he was biking with had to drive all the way back home because he had to get his dentures.  He was much older than Rich but in amazing shape… he was Rich’s mentor and friend during a tough time in his life.  Rich meanwhile was worried he would never find me again either.

Both of us wondering after only a 10 minute or so conversation.

But then it happened.  One more time Liz and I walked by where he was camping and he was there.  Finally.  We talked for a while and agreed to bike together the next day.  And that was history.  We never separated again.  I can still clearly remember the last day of the tour when we were packing our cars to go home.  We, of course, exchanged phone numbers but I only had some scrap pink paper – I think it was my parking pass.  Rich carried that in his wallet till just recently.  He was worried about it completely falling apart.

And that, my friends, is not only where I met my husband, but where I fell in love with him.  Since I can’t give you a picture of that day, I have a picture of his bike shoes.  We still bike, but not as much and we have sold our sweet road bikes for more “Mom and Dad” friendly versions.  Some day we hope to do that bike tour again with all our children {Josh has done it twice, when he was 6 weeks old and again when he was one}.