You da man, Rick! I still remember that day. Driving to the start, I saw 3 wrecks because of all the water (in places, several inches deep) on the freeway. I had talked Saralie into the ride. Believe it or not, it would have been her first double.

We sat there in that restaurant next to the hotel, hemming and hawing, saying yes and saying no, and all the while it was pouring outside non-stop. I've ridden many miles getting caught in the rain, but there is something about pushing off to start a 200 mile ride in a pouring rainstorm that promises to last all day. Add that to the fact that road debris and potholes are much harder to see and motorists' visibility is affected, we decided to bag it for the day.

I felt like that was a good decision until I looked at the ride stats. I think there were about 160 riders registered, and more than half pushed off into the maelstrom. And of those, well over half finished the course, tornadoes and all.

I was in awe.

Hey wait a minute ... <dawning realization> ... you FINISHED the Butterflood? If that isn't "Never say die," I dunno what is! I didn't even have the cajones to start.