The Best and Worst List - A work in progress

It was the best of times it was the worst of times. Oh! Wait that line has been used already. The Good, the bad, and the Ugly. Used as well. Ok How about? The Terry Wiechert "Top Ten List". No too close to David Letterman. So how about just a list of what was great and what wasn't so great about the last 9 weeks. I have been talking to lots of the coast to coast riders and have been hearing ideas but everyone on this trip has seen something different and done different things. Part of that is becuause we all past the same point at different times and part of it is because we all take our own perceptions into every thing we do. So this is really my list an not some body elses list of what was great,not so great and maybe just so. Check back to this list as I am going to continue to work on this list.

Best Ride:

I think that the Needles highway/Iron Mtn ride into Mount Rushmore was the best ride. The ride was very challenging but not a killer. We saw unbelieveable scenery, the weather was perfect, and the ride took us past Mount Rushmore which is probably the best known American Icon. There were so many great days that this was a really hard pick. I will elaborate on this choise later.

Worst Ride:

I am going to give this spot to the day into Spokeane whch was hot and we had terrible head winds. We only had a couple of days with bad head winds and this one seems to stick in my mind, I just hate head winds and here was a day riding past not much for scenery with relatively busy roads into the wind.

Best Meal:

A lot of the riders liked the Elks club which was in ____. However I think that they are selecting the Elks club because of the people who were our hosts. They were absolutely the best. They were so freindly and welcoming, you just wanted to hug them. I thought the food was good but not outstanding. My favorite was the Chapati restaurant in the Achibald House in Northfield. It was an Indian restaurant which had the best Gulab Jamun. Of course I like indian so it was really my ticket.

Worst Meal:

Hands down it was the rolled turkey in Grand Coulee. Although there was a lasgana night that I walked out on which looked pretty bogus. However as I walked out I cannot comment on it. Reports have it that the night I went to the hospital with a bee sting was pretty bad as well.

Best Breakfast: I just said that people were picking the Elks club for the fellings for the people and not for the food. Well now I am going to go 180 and pick the best breakfast as the breakfast we had in Niagara Falls in the Minolta tower. The food was pretty much all the same. Bacon is bacon. Scrambled eggs are scrambled eggs. However the view and the atmosphere were unbelieveable. You were in another world upthere looking down on the whole world.

Worst Breakfast: Ya we ate a lot of green eggs and ham this summer but let me tell you about this one. The breakfast at Star Lake was unbelieveable. The scrambles eggs really did have greenish tint and had the texture of jellied foam. The ham was floating in this yellow greenish soup, making it quite chewie. There was one toaster and 70 riders so forget having toast.
Best Camp/School
Worst Camp/School: hands down Ennis was the worst school. They kicked us out of the gym. Kicked us out of all of the rooms in the school leaving access to only the foyer. They couldn't turn on the hot water. I run some extremely complicated oil processing plants and let me tell you there is ZERO excuse for not having a hot water system running. Camoping was on an extremely limited piece of ground as the school is on a hill. Cannot use the athletic field behind the school. Might make some tent peg holes. Ya We felt real welcome here.

Best thing About this trip:

Well this is kind of the one big question. I think that there are really four things which have all come together to form a near perfect storm. The first is the organization. Greg is hitting on all cylinders. He never misses a bet and everything has been executed in near perfect form. The second has been the riders themselves. What a great group! To a person they are all great people. I am so pleased to have had the oppertunity to meet and ride with every one of them. The third thing is weather which has been so good and has propelled the rides into the exceptional catagory. The fourth is the route which has taken us across America on basicly back roads. We have seen the very heart of rual America.

The Worst thing about this trip: No to name names but three sectional riders by the names of Jack, G (he is too cool to have a name), and Gary show up and act like total asses the entire week. On Saturday the tried to wreck me. The antics of thes clowns was insane. Greg should up a warning on his web site when these guys show up. You ya I have heard about what great club riders they are and how they are such great riders. Maybe somebody should tell them about how to act in public.

More later