Well, today has been “interesting.” I won’t say “bad,” because, well, I’ve had much, much worse days than today, but it hasn’t been all roses, either.

First, on the way here, we decided to try the GPS’s suggestion of using highway 50 to cut off a chunk of I-40/65 to and from Nashville. Problem was, part of 50 was closed due to flood damage, so we ended up detouring through some crazy back roads. We saw some wild flood/wind damage out there, as well as some places where mudslides had, at one point, been covering the road.

Once we got to Cotton Mill Preserve, we set up camp, had a snack, and pucked up our registration packets. Somewhere in the midst of all that, Ryan lost his spare key to my car. I’m not worried- it’ll turn up, but he’s been freaking out about it for a solid 7 hours now.

The pre-ride wasn’t exactly wonderful, either. First, I had a mishap with some rocks on a slightly technical section that I’d hit pretty well at CrudeXC a few weeks ago. I managed to fall over into a patch of poison ivy with my right leg pinned between my handlebars and my top tube. It hurt. Bad. I’m sitting here with ice on the inside of my right quad while I type. Then Ryan’s shifting started effing up. I thought I’d done a good job at re-cabling it and whatnot, but apparently not. We still haven’t figured out what’s wrong with it. A new chain & some barrel adjuster tweaking hasn’t improved anything.

After we rode & worked on the bike, we headed over to the vendor area for dinner. However, the pasta dinner people were packing up to go home. So, we went to a sandwich booth. I asked if they had anything vegetarian, and the guy told me no- all they had was lettuce because their good tomato shipment hadn’t come in yet, so he can’t make a vegetarian sandwich.

WTF? Seriously? So a vegetarian sandwich is apparently just lettuce and tomato.

So we went & ate Mexican food. That’s about it. Ryan is grouchy and I am tired.My ice pack just leaked on my sleeping bag.

I just came here to race.

Please?