The travels of the Rambling Roses: April 20 - Willow Park (Ft Worth) to Plano (Northeast Dallas)

64.84 miles in 5:57...ascent...1368 ft....
I woke up to soaking wet roads after hearing the torrential rains while I slept. I have been very lucky, avoiding all this rain that is falling all around me. It rained and flooded in the Dallas/Ft Worth area for a week before I got here. It is raining and flooding now where I was a few days ago. There is more rain forecast tonight, but the worst will be to my west. Hopefully it won't be so bad to the Northeast.
Pam and I were here last fall, at the TCU football game, and my first 15 miles or so were on the exact path I took when I rode from the Rv park to campus. I went through west Ft Worth to the Trinity River bike trail. The Trinity River is a major waterway running through the area. Last fall it was running at a normal level, and my course took me across a low water dam. Good thing I didn't need to cross in the same place this time, because the river was blowing over the top of all the low water dams. I followed the Trinity trail right past, and close to downtown Ft Worth. While on the trail, I stopped at a bike shop to have my tire pressure checked. It felt okay to my hand checks, but actually both tires were way down, which really makes a difference in how well the tires roll. And I thought my legs were tired from the rolling hills!!!!!!! I should have known !!!!!!. Anyhow, things got much better after filling up from 30 lbs psi to 80 in both tires. The POP was back in my legs. The thing that was slowing me down today was the water, standing, and flowing, on the trails. Where there is water, there is also mud. Slippery mud I could slide or sink in. I rode slow every time I came to it, which was often. In a very stupid moment, I did go down. The front tire just slipped out on a curve.I got muddy and a little bloody, but the thing that bothered me, is that should NEVER happen to me. I'm smarter than that. Damn it.
The Trinity trail dropped me off in the suburb of Holtom City, where I did some residential riding, and very little in busy roads. I rode past the DFW property, and airplanes were buzzing pretty close. Then it was in to the Cotton Belt Trail, a very nice, concrete trail, through affluent suburbs in the Carrolton/ Grapevine area. The mud wasn't so bad on this trail, but there was standing water. For all the nice bike trails in the area, there are no bike lanes on the roads, and traffic was picking up by the time I rode through the next, more business oriented suburb.
I was on and off of two more nice bike trails as I got near the final destination. There was even a small stretch where I was on Interstate 35 frontage road, that was as busy as the interstate. It was a little hairy there! By the time I got onto Plano Blvd, I was doing alot of sidewalk riding because of traffic. I got to the Motel 6, and got the LAST room available, a room with a handicapped bathroom, but I took it. The evening ended with a stroll across the street to an IHOP for breakfast for supper!