Around mile marker 90 another great storm started rolling in and the drizzle began. We kept riding though and we're kind of hoping the rain would pick up a bit to keep us cool. Unfortunately though with about 8 miles to go Justin hit something and got a flat tire. We quickly changed it but about 10 ft down the road my tire blew out and we were stopped again. While changing the tire everything was going well until my last pump when pshhhhhhhh all the air busted out because my tire had blown. We took a second look found a whole in my actual tire and we're putting another tube in. Using a lucky $2 bill to cover the hole we were able to change the tube and get the tire back on the bike. With 4 miles to go we were passing LSU and stopped outside of Tiger's stadium to take a touchdown celebration photo for our daily sweepstakes.
We then started riding along another section of trail on top of a levee. Justin was making jokes about LSU Tigers vs the potential gators in the swamp adjacent to the levees. All of a sudden Kalli said look left and there was a 5 foot gator less than 2 feet from me and a foot from Justin. We all screamed and I took off (I am NOT a fan of gators). Then while laughing about almost being eaten alive we passed along a beautiful bridge, sunset, and cool retired naval ship.
We then pulled arrived at our host cleaned off, had some nice bike maintenance assistance from a local B&B alumn who stopped by, and went out to grab some groceries and a beer. It was an incredible 115 mile ride, that just showed how fun the rain 3 flats, and a near gator attack can be.