One Lucky Rando Girl

The three mega mileage amigos (Geoff, Mark, and Vinnie) were planning to baptize the new Three Rivers Cruise V2 route last Saturday. Earlier in the week looking at the weather forecast I thought Sunday looked better and managed to talk them all into switching the day. As the weekend drew near dire changes were shaping up on the weather front and I was facing the prospect of not only being scorned by my riding mates but also not being able to do any weather whining. Saturday turned out to be a pretty good day and the forecast early Sunday was still unfriendly. Okay, load all the rain gear and get ready to gut it out.

I was picturing a pretty wet and miserable day of about 11-12 hours. But no, Lucky Rando Girl emerges from the phone booth! Robin and I drove up to Arlington to find not only those amigos but a few others as well - Dan Jenson, Mike Richeson, Kole Kantner, and Ward Beebe had heeded the siren call. Notice all the male names there??? Like I said, Lucky Rando Girl! Another point of luck, they are all nice, intelligent, handsome, and look great in lycra!

A little bit of head wind and a very cold arrival in Darrington (which didn't prevent Kole from feasting on an ice cream sandwich - brrrrr) and I was still anticipating the rain at any moment. Lucky Rando Girl would not be so easily defeated - we changed direction here heading north and suddenly the wind was at our backs and seemed to stay there for the entire rest of the ride. Bits of blue sky appeared and we had fantastic views of snow capped Mt Baker while also sighting eagles along the Sauk River. Another change of direction (west now and still a tailwind) had us zipping along the Skagit River. Well, we were zipping once Robin got Mike and me in hand and pulled us up to the leaders...

We descended upon the Skagit Valley Co-op in Mt Vernon for a nice lunch break and then back out on the road, this time basically south but still with a tailwind - how is this happening??? At this point we had visions of getting back to Arlington before dark and the rest of the group would easily have done that but my legs were beginning to feel the efforts of the pace and they very kindly slacked off a bit for me. Now we had views of snow geese and Mt Pilchuck to delight the senses. Still, I was on the edge, just hanging on, and as we climbed a freeway overpass (it was a BIG one, I'm tellin' ya!) as we entered Stanwood I saw the group pull away. Well, it looked more like they were shooting out of a canon while I rolled backwards! After Stanwood I saw a tail light ahead and Mike had backed off to wait for me. Not much further along Robin was there and when we hit Silvana the rest of the crew was hanging out and harassing the locals. They could have been in Arlington already but they waited so we could all finish together - what a bunch of sweeties! I felt just a few raindrops as we neared Arlington and there was even a lingering bit of light in the sky as we pulled into the Haggen's parking lot.

What a Lucky Rando Girl.