Yesterday Trudi and I drove from Richmond Virginia to Louisville, Kentucky.  And it could be described as a torrential downpour the whole way.  Hours upon hours, I had the windshield wipers on full speed and it still wasn’t enough.  It was a stressful drive.

That being said, the drivers of the other cars, not all of them, but a lot of them, drove so poorly, that the weather wasn’t the most dangerous aspect of the drive.

I don’t know who taught drivers in West Virginia how to drive in the rain, but it must be the same guy or maybe it is on the WV driver’s test.  For some reason, they think the proper way to handle torrential rain on an interstate highway is to pull into the left land and drive at 40 mph with their emergency flashers on.

100’s if not 1000’s of cars did this exact same thing, so either they learned it in driving school or by observation.  Either way, it is wrong and very dangerous.  Slow driving vehicles belong in the right lane of an interstate.  In Kansas, you’ll be ticketed for driving slow in the left lane.  I even believe it is illegal to pass on the right, but I may be wrong on that.

Add on top of this 1000’s up 1000’s of semi trailer trucks and the whole drive was crazy.  I don’t know how many  accidents I saw.  Luckily for us, most of them were on the other side of the road.  One was on the westbound side, so we had to get off and drive the 18 miles to Charleston West Virginia on a small road beside a creek.  But, other than that we got lucky.

Lots of the accidents were trucks that had hit other trucks.  I think there were so many accidents were two-fold.  Or three-fold if that is an expression.

One, the rain was super heavy.  Obviously that made it dangerous.  Two, the bad drivers, especially slow drivers in the left lane causing everyone to go into “the truck” lane on the right. And three, the asphalt highways were really bad in places.  I don’t know if it is because of the amount of truck traffic or what on I-64, but the highway is lower where your tires are and there are small streams of water running down the road.  The Acura I was driving is a super car, AWD and very responsive.  But I hydroplaned a few times and I was driving, what I thought, pretty conservative.  Not 40 mph left lane conservative, but conservative enough to not be hydroplaning on interstate highway.

Anyway, made it to Louisville in time for dinner, but a tad late.  Karl had made pizza and Stacie had brussel sprouts and yellow squash with it.  Since is was raining, plus the falls leaves already falling, the food seemed season appropriate, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I didn’t ride yesterday, so I’m going to try to squeez a ride in with Karl between the rain today.  I don’t really miss too many days of riding.  I’d be surprised if I have missed 20 days this year total.  Okay, I as curious, so I went and counted on Strava.  I’ve missed 23 days since I started riding the first week in January.  Most all those days were because of travel.  I think 3 were sick days, so it’s about 2 a month.  Whenever I don’t ride, I feel out of sorts, so I try to get in just a little, no matter what.

Thinking of heading over by Churchill down to have breakfast at Wagner’s Pharmacy.  I try to eat there everytime I come to Louisville.  I like the ambiance, historic horse racing memorabilia and the food is good and cheap.

My view most of the day.

Lot and lots of trucks had issue yesterday in West Virginia.

The Capitol building in Charleston is nice.

Brussel sprouts.

Karl’s pizza. It was great.

We had to drop off the extra BMC cars to be shipped back to California.

I went for a final swim last night, after cutting wood for a few hours yesterday.  The lake is super cold, like in for 5 minutes and your muscles barely function.  I had already turned on the sauna and when I got back I was crimpled by cold.  Anyway, I have already written a post about 3 years ago, about my best sauna memories, so I thought I’d just repost it.  It’s below.  I cut a ton of wood yesterday, rode MTB’s for nearly three hours and made a pie.  Little stiff today.  Probably from making the pie.  Okay, have to start driving.  (New pie pictures below the sauna pictures.)

I was flipping through an Outside Magazine yesterday and there was an article on Taylor Phinney and how he was using a sauna after training to increase blood plasma and thus VO2.

I had actually just gotten out of the sauna when I saw the article. I have always loved saunas. I like heat in general, although not so much anymore when I’m racing. When I was a kid, I used to get inside our car in the driveway, in the middle of a summer day, with the windows rolled up, and sit there for long periods, basking in the heat.

When I was a junior I was invited to the Olympic training center and met Eddie B. One of the first things that Eddie did was take us to a gym and put all of us in a sauna. It was Jeff Bradley, Greg Demgen, Mark Frise, Greg LeMond, and all the other guys on the Junior National Team. Eddie just sat by the stones and poured ladle after ladle of water, creating a cloud of steam. Soon it was just Lemond and I left, each sitting as far away from the stones as possible, in opposite corners. I just kept hearing the sizzle of the water on the rocks and then the searing heat of the steam would hit us. After what seemed like an eternity, I hear Greg whisper, “Hey Tilford, I’ll go if you go.” I said back, you go first. He said we’ll go together. The heat moving to the door was nearly overwhelming. Eddie just stayed in the sauna and we just kept hearing the sizzle of the water over and over again. He made his point that he was much tougher than us. It was a very good lesson.

Later, when I went to KU, I used to have a work/study job at the computer center, which was next to the gym. Afterwork, at 11pm, I’d go over to the gym and read the KU paper in the sauna. I’d go through wave after wave of wrestlers, trying to get down to weight. I could sit in there for a couple hours.

I’ve always thought that taking a sauna was good for you. In 1994, before MTB Worlds in Vail, I was feeling pretty ill. Ned wasn’t good either. There was a sauna in my condo so everyday, three times a day, for most of the week before, I got into the sauna for 30 minutes. My though process was that a sauna created a synthetic fever and the bug inside of me couldn’t live in the high temperature. I have no idea if that is anywhere close to true, but by the weekend, I felt better and finished 12th, the 3rd American, after starting 125 guys back in the smoking section.

I built the sauna here. It is in the “Kansas Garage” at Dennis’. It was built pretty much from scratch. We bought the heater element and insulated door, but everything else we built. Dennis went over to the local lumberyard, Vortanz’s, and cherry picked the cedar decking. Not the clear boards you’re supposed to use for a sauna, but we ended up with hardly any knots. A knot in a board is supposed to heat up and the sap is supposed to come out, but the few knots in our sauna seem to not have that problem.

The sauna is on one side of the Kansas Garage facing the jacuzzi.

We put in a nice window to the outside.

You might not see it here, but the cedar is nearly clear.

Dennis using his first chainsaw for the first time.

It was pretty dark for my last swim.

Used up the last of the apples.

Finished pies.