The BDB is open! Y'all come on over and enjoy!

I know, I know… no blogging lately. I just sort of ran into a dry spell. We all have ‘em sometimes. It was the end of “true” bike season, I was having problems trying to be a dad with a dog problem (ha!), I had a garage that had stuff piled everywhere, blah blah blah…

So here’s everything I’ve done since the last blog…

Max (the daughter’s boyfriend’s dog) has a new home on the lake in Heber Springs. If I would have know he was getting to move up then I would have gone and he could have stayed! A home on the lake… nice! It was hard on everyone to let him go. I think it was hard on Sean most of all but we just couldn’t keep him. Now I have to say things are a lot quieter and Sadie has figured out she can eat without worry. Max was sort of Mr. Alpha Male and guarded the food even if it was in two places. She is still hiding things in funny places. Zero, Tyler’s dog came over to play Saturday and this dog is about 4 lbs but really a funny little dog.

We opened the Big dam Bridge over the weekend. Yep, that’s really what it’s called. It’s built over the dam so … a lot of folks call it “BDB” so they don’t have to say the “d” word. The newscasters have had fun with it. Thursday night was the 75 dollar a person sunset reception. I volunteered at the shuttle lot. There were a lot of very nice cars. Lots of money folks. All I had to do was welcome the guest as they pulled into the parking lot and let them know where the shuttle buses were then I could go over myself. A friend came back from the party to the shuttle lot and said it was nice but sort of a shallow party. I went on home. Besides, it was cold!

Friday, took the day off. My uncle passed in Alabama some my mom and couple of sisters went over and I stayed with Dad for part of the day on Friday. Brit and Landon came over for the afternoon sitting. Landon is 7 weeks old and a cute little man! Matt and Victoria are due around Christmas and Ryan and Melissa’s twins are due a tad before Thanksgiving. I can’t wait to have a grandchild but not anytime soon!!

Saturday, out at the celebration by 7:30 for the opening of the bridge. Had to go to the same shuttle lot and catch the thing to Cook’s Landing. People everywhere! I ran into Shannon, my niece, who was going to run the 5K over the bridge. My volunteer job today was to stand in the path and keep folks off as the riders come over the bridge for the opening. Several quick speeches and 3 prayers are said. Then the lock and dam horn blasted and here they came. It was a “lump in your throat” moment. The sounds system suddenly starts cranking out U2’s “Streets have no name”. It was awesome. I saw so many friends coming over the bridge!

After I finished I looked for Shannon again but no luck. There were hundreds and hundreds of runners everywhere. So I caught the shuttle back to the car and I couldn’t believe how many folks were still coming in for the run. It looked like the LR Marathon morning. It was so great to see all the excitement. When we pulled into the shuttle lot the line to shuttle to the race was all the way down the drive. I mean like 100 yards of folks. They still had an hour before the race.

I drove over to Burn’s Park and changed into riding clothes and took off. The Boy Scouts were having a jamboree so there were hundreds of boys on bikes so I had to ride very cautiously. The bike path belongs to everyone so I can’t get upset but several times I had to call out sort of stern to get them to move or I’d hit head on. I don’t know if I got over 15 mph the whole time.

I finally hit the open road and rode over the Broadway bridge to circle around to ride from LR to NLR on the BDB. Got there to fast so I had to wait for them to reopen after the race. I jumped on with a couple of Carve riders and it was great since the lead was calling out and we were able to get over fairly quick.

The rest of the day was spent getting things ready for our Redneck Oasis rest stop. I borrowed all sorts of stuff from all sorts of folks. Our rest stop was going to be the best.

Sunday morning… laying in bed awake at 5… oh just get up! I rechecked everything again and again. Terri and I head out and when we get there all that’s there is a ice machine… in the field. We go ahead and get things started setting up and the rest of the stuff arrives except the porta potty. Ok, I’m thinking to myself, this could be bad. The guys can take care of themselves but girls well that’s a different story.
More later….