A slightly worn party of three arrived in the hotel café at 9:30am ready to drink as much fluid as could be found. The temperature outside was well into the nineties, as was the humidity. This was not great hangover weather...Despite any handicaps the meeting took place as suggested at 11am and after loading Jon's bike onto the back of Sam's 'truck' we drove north through torrential rain to Madison Mississippi arriving at around 5pm. It turned out that it was the wettest June in living memory. The normal rainfall for the region is around 1/2 inch per month. It rained 4 1/2 inches that day! We were fairly worried, the repercussions for the swamp section of the route were not great...

Sam was a wonderful host and his house was beautiful. The bikes looked excellent and after paperwork completion his Italian mother cooked us great pasta and meatballs. We watched a bit of TV and after doing some minor work on the bikes made a shopping list for the next day and went to a motel for sleep