Day Final

We had a fairly casual, late morning departure from Savannah. I got the worlds slowest haircut from an old fashioned barber shop in town ,but it was much needed. My hair got so long it started to look like it did when Brad and I first met, 28 years ago, which is a scary thought.( it isn't my hair that's a scary thought, it's the concept of knowing Brad for 28 years.)

We had a pretty hectic departure over two huge bridges from Savannah and then an intense stretch on 17N because there was no shoulder and lots of heavy traffic with lots of trucks. But we were able to get beyond that after 10 miles or so and had a very pleasant ride into Hilton Head Island. Brad, of course, decided to make it a ceremonious ride and rode in his street clothes and those crazy flip flops. So, yet again, he was slowing us down one last time. Actually, he didn't slow anyone down on this ride or any other ride during the entire tour.

We arrived at Coligney beach to a warm welcoming party. My brother Joe, his wife Bridget and one of their sons, Joey were there. Betsy and Dan Brown ( Dan and I worked together for 15 years and he is retired and living in HHI). We even had two Pittsburgh friends make a special trip to Hilton Head just to greet us, John Campbell and Bill Simpson. Plus, the Browns had arranged to have the local newspaper do a story on our ride so there was a photographer from the famous Island Packet snapping pictures as we arrived. Joe met us with some refreshing and humorous drinks. He presented me with a Fat tire beer but of course he modified the label to read "Flat Tire". He had two bottles of wine for Brad, one to represent his flip flop riding days, the winery was called "Barefoot", Joe added, "with sandles". The other bottle was called Red Bicycle and he cleverly inserted the word "Ass" in between the other two words to reflect Brads emergency surgery episode. And for Hutch, the fastest Guiness beer drinker I've ever known, he had a can of Guiness which was modified to read "Guinee pig".
So, we took a few minutes to enjoy the cool drinks and talked to the reporter for a bit and headed 50 yards away to the Atlantic. We had a great time riding into the ocean. What a great feeling of accomplishment but more present was the feeling of fun, true adventure and a life time experience. We moved from the beach to a perfect lunch spot, called Woody's. After a much needed late lunch and some pretty interesting dialogue with our waitress, we headed to Joe's house.

Ironically, the Steelers were playing Monday night football against Brad's coveted Denver Broncos so Bridget and Joe were nice enough to cook an outstanding dinner for us and allow us to abuse Brad through most of the game, certainly the second half. Joe pulled together a great fire outside and then proceeded to move the TV outside so we could enjoy the game in style. We have lots of fires outside in Pittsburgh but the concept of watching TV outside is pretty foreign to us. It was a great final night. THANK you Bridget and Joe. We flew back to Pittsburgh today and Brad and Hutch were taking off to their respective towns late this afternoon. We said our final, for now, good byes at the Airport. While we kept it brief, there was a lot of unspoken communication confirming that we just pulled off a special, rare and once in a lifetime event that none of us will ever forget.

There is more to say and more pics to post. I know that Hutch and Brad want to add some perspective as well so stay tuned for a few more days and then we will wind this thing down. But, I am going to miss this blog, it has been a fun means of communicating to a large, diverse group of people.