Tour d'Italy

Gary and I ventured to Italy this weekend for camping and cycling. Yep – that’s Italy, TX. Italy is about an hour south of Dallas. We drove down Friday after work and camped out at the high school (where the bike rally was to begin on Saturday morning). The weather was not *too* bad. It was a little hot setting up the tent, but it cooled off somewhat before it was time to try to sleep. Gary was none the less surprised to wake up in the morning and see me actually under the covers. I actually got a little chilly with just the sheet and I was glad I also brought a light blanket.

The good parts of our ride on Saturday:
- We managed to set a record distance
- The route was good – the last 2/3 was quite flat
- The people working the rally were very nice
- It was nice to be able to camp out and use the showers in the school

The bad parts:
- Being awoken at 6am with music blasting from the loud speakers and announcing the pancake breakfast was about to begin in the school.
- The pancake breakfast was a little disappointing
- Although the advertised distance was 28 miles (which was a stretch for me), the actual distance ended up being 31 miles – even more of stretch. I was *really* ready to quit at 28 miles.
- I got a flat tire on the road. This was the first time we’ve had to fix a flat actually on the road. We’ve previously always been at our car or there was one time I had to take the SAG wagon back because we didn’t have a spare tube anyway.

Overall, it was fun… but gosh were my thighs tired!! :-)