Just when we thought the adventure was over, a new twist comes our way.

I was getting a good night’s sleep until about 2 AM. I woke up to a scratchy sound in the wall next to the headboard of the bed. “Hmmm. Termites,” my half-awake mind said. My mind became fully awake when that scratchy noise started moving. Next there was the sound of something dropping to the floor and then scurrying across the floor. Could it be a mouse? I tried to get back to sleep. Each time I was on the verge of sleep, I would hear another noise. At about 3 AM, I heard some fairly loud noises across the room in the cabinet holding the television. I sat up in bed to see if I could see anything. Pat noticed that I was sitting up in bed. She asked what was wrong and I told her that I thought there were mice in the room. We turned on a light to see better. We didn’t hear or see anything, but we decided to leave the light on, naively thinking it would keep them at bay.

I got to sleep finally. At about 5 AM though, there was a noise in the bedside stand next to Pat. Pat woke up, turned on her bedside light and there was a glimpse of something moving from the lamp to the backside of the stand. “OK, that’s it. I’m done!” she says. I thought she was going to get in the car and drive to our home in Salt Lake City, but what she meant was she was done sleeping in the room. She put on a jacket and stormed over to the lobby.

She came back 5 minutes later with the keys to another room. We took what we needed and walked about four rooms away. I knew there was a chance that this room had mice too, but I didn’t want to mention it. We slept until about 7:30 AM. We spoke to the manager at 8 AM. She was very apologetic and admitted that the mice have been a problem and not just in our room.

As I was getting dressed for the bike ride today, we caught a glimpse of a mouse making a dash from the television cabinet to the bed. I picked up the pace of my preparations. The longer we were here, the creepier it felt.

Unlike the room, the ride was delightful. Sunny skies, calm winds, country roads — a perfect day for the last full day of riding on The Dream Tour. It was nice to start seeing landmarks I know and roads I’ve ridden on before. Mount Nebo, Mount Timpanogos, Twin Peaks — they were all visible, but had clouds hovering around the top and a fresh layer of snow below that.

Total distance:	66.67 miles
Time:	4:38:31
Average speed:	14.4 mph
Maximum speed:	32.3 mph
Total calories:	4288
Average heart rate:	118 bpm
Maximum heart rate:	148 bpm
Total ascent:	1191 feet
Total descent:	1776 feet
Ride profile:	(click on image to view a larger version)
Ride comments: We got a later start today because of the lack of sleep last night caused by a mouse in our motel room. We’re on the home stretch now! Today’s ride was the flattest ride I’ve seen in quite a while. It was nice to start seeing landmarks I know and roads I’ve ridden on before. Even better was the dramatic improvement in weather conditions.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 6:38 pm and is filed under The Dream Tour, Bicycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.