Fly Day; June 3, 2005; Green Airport, RI. to Cleveland and Cleveland to San Francisco.

Up at 2:30 AM, had breakfast, packed car. Foxy Lady, our dog, was very confused as our morning routine was very different today. I had to put my hard shell bike box into the trunk of our Mustang and it was tied in and sticking out the back. We probably looked quite strange going down Rt. 95 to Green Airport.

Our New England weather this Spring has been terrible: damp, cold and windy. Weather forecasters have said that it is the worst Spring on record. I had committed to do a paint job for a customer and didn't finish it until yesterday. The bad weather also affected my training (only 6 weeks and 860 miles) and flower and vegetable garden planting. As usual Donna will be tending to the yard and garden duties while I'm gone. Six weeks ago I planted beets, carrots, onions, potatoes and lettuce. The lettuce is doing great now. Donna will be taking some to work to share with her co-workers at L&M hospital. Yesterday I planted pickling cucumbers, zucchini squash, yellow summer squash, green bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and salad tomatoes. I also planted some marigolds with a drip irrigation system. Donna volunteered ( oops, wow, she did? ) to plant bush beans, pole beans, scarlet runner beans, morning glories and some more marigolds while I am gone. Did she really, or did I dream that she did?

I got to airport at 5:15 AM, checked in at Continental. I have been experiencing substantial anxiety . . . usual airport stuff: x-ray machine, shoes off, laptop out of case, attendants opening up my hard shell bike case to examine contents. They seemed concerned about my chain degreaser but everything was OK. The various attendants were polite and helpful - they probably could tell I was very nervous and didn't fly very often. I have about a 1 hour wait at departure gate, so I am writing this first journal and trying to calm down a bit. I don't really like to fly but it is necessary if I am going to continue to do my Alzheimer's cycling fundraising. My effort since 1999 has been very successful: 6 years, over 7,700 miles, $77,000 raised for the Alzheimer's Association. I am very thankful for so many personal friends, groups and organizations for their generous donations. A special "thank you" goes to my wife Donna. Without her support and help the success of my effort would not be possible. :-)

Take off was at 6:30 AM on a Continental Express Jet with 50 seats. Very smooth! I am wearing Sea - Band wrist pressure bands just in case we get turbulence. Landed in Cleveland at 8:00 AM, had a fairly short walking escalator to get to my next gate. Take off was on time on a Continental 737 with 124 seats. Flight time is 4 hours 30 min. to San Francisco. It is overcast on the ground but sunny up here above the clouds at 36,000 feet. We are experiencing turbulence from time to time. This leg of my flight gave us breakfast: cold cereal, banana and a muffin. I was so hungry that I stood up in aisle and shouted as loud as I could "is there anybody that doesn't want their muffin?" I immediately got bombed with about 40 muffins. Muffins were bouncing off the seats and ceiling. The lady sitting in front of me got hit in the back of the head and almost passed out! People were hiding under the seats. Opps, sorry, this didn't really happen. Guess my imagination got carried away. All that really happened was that the man sitting next to me offered me his muffin and I said "sure". This flight had two movies but you had to buy headphones in order to see them. That's OK, I don't care much for movies anyway. I did some journal writing and took a 1 hour nap! Flying over the Rockies was awesome. There is much beauty to absorb from any view, but from 30,000 feet it is difficult to see the depth that is responsible for the beautiful contrasting shades of green and brown and also the snow. I took several pictures trying to capture some of the beauty of this part of our country. We landed at San Francisco International Airport at 2:15 PM (east coast time) - 11:15 AM west coast time. It took one hour 30 min. to get my luggage and catch a shuttle to Holiday Inn Express in Burlingame (a suburb of San Francisco). I checked into the hotel, got my room and met the 4 ABB staff support team members. I have ridden with 3 of them back in '99 and 2001. I had lunch at a nice restaurant next door called Max's. I had the best Rueben ever. The corned beef was so tender that I could cut it just by looking at it! Our mechanic Jim Bensen assembled my bike. There are 23 cyclists starting here in Frisco and most of them will be going all the way to N.H.

I went out to get some dinner at 8:30 but the restaurants in the area had long lines, so I came back to the hotel, got a coffee, finished my journal, emailed it to Ed and went to bed. It has been a long day.

Continental Express Jet	Takeoff in Cleveland
Rockies	Rockies
Rockies	Rockies
Rockies	Rockies
Rockies	Rockies
View of Frisco Airport from hotel