Ride #50, 212 miles.
In memory of Frank, two years since his passing.
I woke up to a chilly 53F. I had planned on heading to town for some tacos first, but decided to wait until the temperature rose a little bit and I made myself breakfast.
I left about 9:15am. I was feeling good. I was thinking about what today meant and looking forward to a longer ride. The colder air woke me up and I was riding a little fast on the back roads. I was about 8-10 miles from the house and the next thing I knew I'm racing a small deer. It looked like it was a young doe, maybe a year old. It came out of nowhere on my left. The grass was kind of tall on the edge of the road and there was a lot of brush and small trees all along the fence line and I didn't see it. There were at least two of them that I saw, but this deer started running in the grass heading in the same direction as me, and quickly darted onto the road. We were neck and neck for a second, but I was moving slightly faster. It was happening so fast, but I think I let off the throttle because it looked like it was going to try to cut in front of me. Next thing I know it bounces off my foot and foot board at full sprint. When deer are running at full sprint they get very low to the ground. I could have reached down and grabbed it, but there was no way I was letting go of the handlebars. It reacted when it hit my foot and may have stumbled, but I can't be certain. It instantly disappeared. I was probably doing about 45 when this happened. I was fine. I quickly looked in my mirror and saw the deer leaning against the barbed wire fence in a state of shock, like "wtf just happened?" The next thing I know there are two more deer just ahead on the same side of the road. I see them and slow down as they began to run, but they weren't frantic. I passed them cautiously and was on my merry way. My heart started beating faster once it sunk in. I settled down and pulled over to inspect the bike. I thought the deer might have hit the saddlebag, even though I didn't remember feeling a thump. I saw no damage.
Everything was smooth sailing after that. I stopped in Harper for some gas and continued on. As I got farther south I started seeing vehicles on the sides of roads here and there. People sitting in lawn chairs, and tripods with big cameras pointed at the sun waiting for the big event. I had my route planned and I kept going until I found a spot that looked good. Nobody was around. The sky had started to become dull looking. It had been a beautiful bright blue morning, but it started looking like someone had thrown a sheet over the lamp shade. I busted out my little cobbled together eclipse viewing kit, consisting of my laser cutting glasses and a piece of tinted acrylic I cut out as extra caution. I knew the laser glasses weren't going to be enough. I could only look a few seconds at a time. I could see the ring of fire developing. I took a lot of photos, but they were all crap. The one I'm posting shows what it looked like about 10 minutes before the full ring of fire effect. Looks like the sun, right? But look at the little glare spot just below the sun. That's it! When it hit full ring of fire, it looked like a target through my lenses, with concentric circles for some reason. The eclipse was also producing some strange looking shadows. You can't really tell from the photo, but it looked like out of focus ghosted triple shadows.
I had given up trying to get a photo, but waited around for the sky to start looking normal again. Once I could tell it was changing back to a normal sky I took off, heading south again. I decided I better head to the only gas station around, about 10 miles away. About a mile away from where I stopped the cars and motorcycles started getting thick on the sides of the road. I pulled into the Lost Maples Country Store and it was packed. I have been there dozens of times and never seen that many people there. Fortunately, there wasn't a line at the pumps.
I got my gas and it was time to start heading home. I made it all the way back to Harper, but not before hitting the ton in Frank's memory on the highway. I stopped at the same gas station, same pump as the one I used on the way out. I got home safely with no issues and no deer. Was a great day!
Breakfast tacos and Ride #51 tomorrow!
