Spring Beak- 03/18/2009

Waking to the sound of the radio blaring out talk radio and my dad saying hey i have to go pee, what about you? I agree, and i get out of the car to see we are at a Tennessee rest stop. We go inside and nice old lady, roughly in her 60's, points to the the door behind her visitors counter, and says "It's over there." My dad and I couldn't help but chuckle that this little old lady was able to distinguish us from the other touristy type people that would like to walk in spend a little time and look at what Tennessee had to offer us. Truthfully we didn't really care, we had already been through it once earlier this week, and new that its not all that special that is besides Gaylord Opryland Hotel, is pretty neat.

Recently i have been sending emails to coach David Grigsby at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia Kentucky about their cycling program. We came to agreement that i needed to come visit and see just how great the campus was. So my dad and i drove up there to check it all out. Turns out that its a 12-13 hour drive! The drive was a long one but a not so fun one. It was al swamp lands the whole way. They had recently got some rain so it was water on both sides of the road the whole drive. When we finally arrived in Columbia it was 11 pm and time to hit the sheets. We woke up the next morning for some breakfast around 7:30 am and then off for a 4:30 hour ride with Danny Esteevez  one of the team members at Lindsey Wilson. It was an easy pace ride, 17-18, so it gave it time to talk about the program and the school in general. Danny sure does know how to sell the school thats for sure. He was saying that it is really supportive about the cycling unlike some other colleges. It was a small school but it was growing which is always good. He was talking about how the school pays for all the race fees, entries, food, lodging, and gas. They actually take a van and a trailer to all the races just like here, so you get the team feeling when traveling to the races. He was telling me that they have lots of really good mountain bike trails, and their very own dual slalom course as well! When he told me that i got really excited!

The next day we meet up with the Head of Admissions, Charles Mooney to discuss the campus and all that fun stuff. We took the tour of the campus, it sits on about 4 acres, and it has about 8 buildings for classes and the dinning hall, but some how we spent an hour and half to two hours just taking the tour. Then we sat down and just talked for a little bit about, and got to talking about track racing and Coach David was saying that the Dean and President of the school were tossing around the idea of building a concrete track in town or even on campus. 

It seems like this school has everything a cyclist needs, good food, nice riding, and nothing to do. That way you stay busy training and doing some school work. I really liked the visit and am really excited about Lindsey Wilson and what the future has in store for me there... maybe.