Yes, we made it home

For those who have been following the trials and tribulations on this year's BRAN ride, my riding partner, Candy Crosby, and I both made it home safe and sound Saturday evening.

While I had the full intention of writing a blog each evening, lack of computer access as well as trips to the pools (all of them heated despite being smaller than McCook - hint, hint McCook City Council) with kids prevented a nightly report.

Remarkably, the final days of the seven-day ride were fairly uneventful. We had our second day of riding through the rain Friday from Humboldt to Syracuse. By the end of the day, a half-dozen riders had been transported to the hospital with injuries suffered on the ride. Yet, those could people could at least tell a heroic tale.

One lady on the ride fell in the shower at Superior on Day 3 and broke her wrist. When I talked to her a few days later, she was planning to attempt at least one day of riding. She was just trying to figure out how to drink, shift and steer - all with one working hand.

I also have become very adept at changing a flat tire by the end of the week. Candy and I rode approximately 800 miles to prepare for BRAN with the only flat tire coming after we concluded training. Yet on BRAN, I suffered four flat tires, changing three of them myself including the last one Friday in the middle of a downpour.

A few final thoughts about BRAN:

We met tons of friendly, nice people on the ride. Despite starting out at different times each day on our own schedule, we somehow ended up riding with the same group of people every day. (Hi to Mark, Diane, Michelle and Peg if you're reading this.)

I wish I would have kept a food journal along the way. They say we burned between 6,000 and 8,000 calories a day and yet I only dropped two pounds. Maybe it had something to do with eating everything in sight including - and I'm not to proud to admit this - two double cheeseburgers from McDonald's for lunch one day.

We saw little towns along the way that we never knew existed until we peddled through them. We know which towns have the best pools. We know who has the best - and free - campgrounds.

Will I do BRAN again? Probably. Will I do it next year? Still in the air. My husband has already called dibs on riding next year, a right he has earned after packing up the camper and the seven kids each morning to move to the next town.

Ride on.