Greetings fellow humanoids
I figured I would start off with stats today, mix it up a little
Miles today: 77
Total miles: 270.3
Avg speed: 13.2
Max speed: 29.1!
Ride time: 5:47:15
Weather: ranged from 75-83 most of the day, rained for 30 seconds in Wellborn.
Dog chases today: 1
Shouts from moving car: 1 old Bronco
I write to you from the comfort of my tent in Beautiful Suwannee River State Park. At last! This day was long and the two halves were very different from each other. In the morning, pretty much as soon as I left Al's, I ran upon a dead fox, right on the shoulder. I thought for sure it was to be a bad omen for the day, and I was right. Sort of. Not long before my left knee had started causing me excruciating pain. It was all I could do to hold back tears, which formed mostly at the thought of possibly not being physically able to continue the trip. (Any doctors out there? This is what it felt like: it hurt right on my knee cap with every motion of the pedal, but not when walking. And standing up an pedaling
was the worst of all. I couldn't even do it beacuse it hurt so badly. Very, very sharp pain but it didn't feel like a ligament. More like bone. I fell
hard on my knees on ice when snowboarding last Sunday. Could I have cracked something? Right knee started doing it later on in the day
as well, but only slightly. ) well, I was close to a doctor right then but I figured I would try to go on and see if it got any better. And it did. The
pain gradually dulled throughout the day and finally disappeared. I started taking glucosamine this morning. I wonder if that's why. Anywho,
go knees. Way to indulge me.
The winds were a similar story. Someone once told me, "you never have a tailwind. You either have a headwind or you have a really good day.". Well, this morning I had a headwind. This afternoon I had a good day. Winds were coming out of the north/northeast and my route took me north all morning until finally, FINALLY, I got to make a left turn and, oh me oh my, I flew. This was good. So good, in fact, that I suddenly felt the need to listen to Ulysses by Mason Jennings and, consequently, pedal really, really fast while singing the words at the top
of my lungs, over and over, much to the chagrin of the people who were outside working in their yards. I mean, I would be a little freaked out, too, if some weird biker with a bunch of junk strapped on her bike came screaming by at 22 mph yelling something about loose green tea and bonsai trees that didn't even really resemble singing, not even a little. But I couldn't stop smiling and thinking to myself, this, this moment, my dear friend, is exactly the reason I pedaled through the pain. This is exactly what this trip is supposed to be like. Permagrin and
joy in its purest form. But seriously, I hope my knees aren't crapping out.
Nothing else from this day can really compare to those last 15 miles. Ah! But there were some other highlights. My first glass of beautiful, delicious, reviving sweet tea with a chicken salad sandwich at The Whistlestop Cafe in Wellborn. So awesome. But unfortunately I used my only free refill to get a cup of unsweet tea by mistake. Way to go, Einstein!! But there will be more. And I will drink it. Today also marked the first time I got honk at for supposedly doing something bad. I had to make a left turn, a car was coming my same direction but plenty far off, so I went and safely crossed over to my new road only to be rewarded with a very rude honking, which I rudely returned with with a rude gesture, as my blood sugar was low (you can blame anything on low blood sugar when you're bike touring!!!) This rude gesture was given once before to a semi-truck who passed too closely on day 2. Mean-spirited trucker. I hope you're late with your load. But I digress.
That's about all of the day's happenings. I rode past a lot of pine plantations. I didn't realize there were so many in Florida. I've tried to plan my next three days and failed because I couldn't choose between doing 90 miles tomorrow and stopping in Tallahassee, or doing 53 miles and sleeping at a junky KOA in the middle of nowhere. Which means I have no mail drop addresses for you just yet. Apologies. But thinking
is hard at the end of the day. Regardless, I'm gonna try to get a real early start and see where I end up. I could've ridden another 17 miles
easily today. Buuuut I'm gonna play it by knee and see where I end up.
And that's all she wrote.
Someone please tell the boyscouts to stop screaming,
Jess
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