Antelope Island Ride

I'm riding the 2010 Bike MS ride in a couple of weeks and at the recommendation of my friend Kevin Day, I went out for a training ride two weeks before the big ride.  Unfortunately, two weeks before the big ride turned out to be yesterday.  I was a little gun-shy as I looked out the window and saw the trees swaying from the huge gusts of wind.  I had decided to ride to Antelope Island, because riding there and back would get me to my goal of riding 60 miles.  Here's the route I took:

The ride to Antelope Island wasn't too bad, because I had a tail wind for some of the ride.  The ride back home was a different story.  Anytime I was riding east (which was a good portion of the ride) I was battling winds that had to be 40+ mph.  Being new to the sport of road biking and not having much experience in endurance riding, I learned a couple of things from my experience:
           1.  Don't bike in hurricane wind
           2.  If you run out of water, your legs will cramp up and 
                you will experience much pain until you are able to
                find and drink more water
           3. Just because you're engaging in aerobic exercise
                doesn't mean that your legs will stay warm in the
                cold rain, sleet, and wind.  In fact it is quite possible
                to get hypothermic.
           4.  The kid at the Antelope Island pay station is very
                 cool.  I had forgotten to bring any money with me,
                 and after I had inquired about the possiblity of 
                 giving him my credit card number, he said I could 
                 just go ahead and enter without paying.  He asked
                 me not to tell anyone.  Oops.  Nobody reads this blog
                 anyway.