Day 32: Aug 12 - Sloberts and our new friends feed us like we were kings

Though I slept on the typical pull-out sleeper sofa last night, it was probably my best night of sleep on this trip. When I laid down, I got about 4.5 seconds of reading in before I was out. So waking up was a treat as I was actually well rested and lively. Breakfast was delicious...bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs...maybe some toast even. We got a late start, about 11, as we just moped around our new home with Liz and Rod (and Fudge of course). But the road beckoned, so we finally got all our junk together on our bikes, took our family picture (see above!), and hit that old dusty trail. It was a little overcast and we had a long day ahead of us. Our buddy (one of my best friends from UMD) is attending the University of Florida in Gainesville for graduate work in aerospace engineering (he's doing some research with flying velociraptors or T-rexes or something...). And he's actually applying for his PhD-ship this fall, so wish him luck! Anywho, Brob, as we call him, decided that if we were going to be biking through his area then he might as well join us for a little ride. Bear with me here as I work out the progression of the day.

We were originally supposed to be spending the night in Flagler Beach, but unfortunately the closest Fire Department was about 9 miles down A1A in a little town called Ormond By the Sea. So we called ahead to the Fire Department and who answers but Manny, a sweet girl with a bubbly voice. She puts me in touch with Phil, the chief, and apparently he's already heard about us. This stuns me because how in the world could he already know what we're about? I just assume there's two other guys who are biking the same route and we're just filching off of their fame...which I have no problem with. So he says to come on in and they would gladly take care of us for the evening. Yada yada yada, we contact Brob and he plans to park near the station and ride up to meet us in Crescent Beach on his sweet Giant racing bike. Little did he know there would be unfavorable weather. Ha, sucker.

So before I get to the awesome weather that accosted us for most of our ride, let me tell you about a little bridge called the Nassau Sound Bridge. This unimposing, 0.9 mile bridge presents you with the opportunity to lazily cruise over the Nassau Sound, 360 degree vantage points surround giving great views of the ocean, beach, and island...ALONG WITH 30 MPH HEADWINDS THAT SLAM INTO YOU FOR THE LENGTH OF THE BRIDGE!!! With the winds and the slight uphill because of the bridge, this traverse rivaled some of our worst hills in New England (if it had only been longer...). All we could do was laugh hysterically as we churned our way over this behemoth. There wasn't even any respite on the downhill, because you actually had to PEDAL down the hill. So that was the first piece of awesomeness in a day full of miserable weather.

Apparently in Florida, "rain showers between 3 and 4 pm" actually means "relentless downpour from 2 to 7 pm". We were able to wait out the first portion of the storm under the porch of a gas station in the middle of nowhere, but the rain was just not stopping and we had places to be so we buckled down and moved out. The ride was pretty miserable; everything we owned was soaked (Esmith's brand new phone...the one he just got during the stop in MD because his last phone died due to water damage...yep, it got water damage again). Luckily all my electronics were well protected with Ziploc Bags (did you know that "These food storage containers lock tightly so your foods stay fresh and your items remain protected."?...I'm shamelessly plugging products here hoping for donations from their respective companies). So we rode on and on, and the rain kept falling...into our bags and shoes and eyes. Cars were dowsing us with wonderfully clean road water and at one point we came over a bridge and confronted a 4 inch deep puddle the ran the width of the road and stretched about 50 yards ahead of us. There was no going around it so we had to just ford the damn thing. Since both my fenders were removed during the course of the trip, my tires took the liberty of dumping any water they picked up right into the heels of my shoes. Oh joy!

So we rode and rode and rode and finally met up with Brob 32 miles from our destination (Brob is a sadomasochist when it comes to working out and being active, so riding the 64 miles that day in the rain was not as awful for him as I would have liked it to have been). The ride from there on out was great. We kept up a decent pace and it was relieving to have someone else to talk to (when you're on the road with the same person for a month, you unavoidably run out of topics of conversation). So the ride went smoothly and quickly with the rain lightening up later in the day (though never stopping).

When we finally got the fire department, it was about 7:30 pm and Phil came running out "Your food's getting cold! Get in here and eat!". Apparently the guys and girls at the department had cooked us a HUGE meal for our arrival (these people were great). We got showered up, Brob started cooking his delicious chicken, vegetables, and pasta meal, and we realized that everyone at the station was pretty much the nicest person ever. I don't know if I've ever met a group of friendlier, nicer, more welcoming people in my life. We had a lot of fun hanging out and chit chatting and also found out that someone, a mystery friend who may or may not be a fire chief from one of our previous Station sleepovers, had sent an e-mail to all the fire chiefs that he knew down the coast of Florida letting them know about our trip and that we may be coming through and needing help (sorry about the long sentence). So they were well aware of our adventure and astounded us with their capacity for assistance. There was Phil, the chief (runs triathlons and does all kinds of crazy physical activity), Manny (the sweet one who I talked to on the phone and was all smiles), Mike (never saw him without his hat on or a smile off his face...he was also a big fan of the olympics), Jodie (he showed us all around the trucks and let us play with all the gear...then showed us all the tracheotomy equipment and the drill to put IV's into people's shin bones), Courtney (Jodie's exuberant girlfriend who is a beach lifeguard and a cheerleader at UF...I believe), Mary (the mother of the department...such a sweet gal), and Joe (I didn't get a lot of interaction with Joe, but from what I saw, I imagine he was the jokester of the group).

So the day ended very well; we got to meet a bunch of new friends and meet up with an old one. We were able to watch the men's 4x200 free relay race (and I use race lightly) and got some good sleep. It was a 96 mile day, but that just meant the next few would be a little bit shorter!

Special thanks to the Ormond By the Sea FD; you guys were awesome hosts and went above and beyond what was necessary for two ragtag ruffians like ourselves. Thank you.

Day 31: Aug 11 - The Coast Is In Our Sights Again!!

The miles were short today and the day went by pretty quickly. At least towards the end, because the beginning was spent with Esmith trying not to die on his bike. Apparently the food/water poisoning was still in his system and he was something to see as he biked. I've tried to ride like he did when I'm tired, but just can't do it. He was basically slumped over his front pack, hands hanging over the front and his chin resting on his arms, just slugging along at a speed that was just below the one that would make him puke. As the day went on he got better though so the riding was much smoother. I unfortunately felt really good on the bike this day, so at one point I just rode ahead for about 25 minutes going 20 mph...which never happens so it was a REALLY good day for me. We met back up at a convenience store and made the last slog to our place of residence for the night in Fernandina Beach in a gorgeous neighborhood.

The family we stayed with is related to us in this way: Emsith's mom is a substitute teacher with a woman whose husband went to the Coast Guard Academy and is best friends with a Coast Guard buddy Rod...who is the father of the family we stayed with. So we spent the evening with Rod, Ashley, Liz, Maddie (Ashley's unbelievably adorable 2 year old daughter) and Fudge, the dog. The whole family was so easy to get along with and we had a blast. Liz had just graduated college the year before so we had some stuff to chat about, what with the dilemma of careers and moving on in the world as adults (bleh!). Liz, Esmith, and I ended up going to see Pineapple Express which although it dragged on at the end, was incredibly funny. I almost peed myself during the scene when kicks through the windshield of the cop car. Bedtime.

Day 30: Aug 10 - High Schoolers Rock

Today started out very foggy, with our tent (we had set it up the night before for the illusion of us sleeping in it) soaked from the dew and our shoes and bikes covered in sand as we pedaled out of the campsite on the sandy road. I got some good shots of some horses as we pedaled through the country and the day went by relatively quickly. For lunch we stopped in Atkinson GA next to a church (the Church of God of Prophecy) and I decided to head in and see if they would offer us a table inside out of the heat to eat at. It was Sunday, so they were in service, but before I knew it, we were at a table with our food plus tons and tons of food that they were offering us as well. They were more than helpful and let us stay for quite some time. We ended up talking with the Pastor and one of the parishioners (I can't for the life of me remember their names and I think I lost the paper where I wrote it down). The pastor is in our photo gallery though!

After lunch we kept riding and came across a bridge over the Satilla River. This was the bridge we had been waiting for, too. All this trip, we've been keeping our eyes open for a bridge or cliff or something to jump off of and finally we got the perfect one. We rode down under the bridge where there was a boat ramp and several families and groups of friends hanging out on the water on the gorgeous afternoon. I asked a lady if the water was deep enough to jump off the bridge, to which she responded: "Well, I don't know how deep it is, but people jump off it all the time." Good enough for me. We got changed into our suits and a fisherman actually found the deepest part of the water for us with his depth finder. The jump was exhilarating and we finally got our leaps!! The pictures are great and will be in the photo gallery soon. While we dried off, some guys our age gave us some soda and hung out chatting with us before they sped off in their boats and jet skis for a day on the water.

So we finally arrived in Folkston, GA at about 6 pm. I had tried calling the Fire Department earlier in the day but to no avail. When we arrived in town, we stopped a lady coming out of a Rite Aid and asked her where the fire station was; directions ensued and we found that the station was volunteer only and wasn't actually occupied. So great. We didn't want to ride ahead to the campsite which we found out wasn't actually even open, so now we had no place to sleep. We asked a guy about the police station, but he said that probably wouldn't work and suggested we just sleep on the Amtrak station platform (that sounds great!). That seemed like our only option, so we went to a deli/seafood place for dinner (didn't want to cook) while night time approached. Esmith and I were feeling a little sick because I think we got our hands on some bad water at some point in day, so dinner was a little slow; though Esmith was definitely more under the weather than I. We were trying to decide what we wanted to do about sleeping when I finally decided that to just buckle under and ask the high schooler behind the counter. When we had ordered, he was pretty interested in what we were doing and seemed legitimately excited about what we were doing, so I figured why the hell not ask him? It went something like this:
ME: "Hey, what's up I'm Evan. This is gonna come across as weird, but do you live around here?"
JUSTIN: "Uh, yeah, why?"
ME: "We don't have a place to stay tonight and we were wondering if we could crash at your place...even just camp in your backyard."
JUSTIN: "Ha, no problem. Let me call my grandmother and see if it's ok."
*goes into kitchen and calls grandmother...a few minutes pass*
JUSTIN: "Hey, my grandmother wants to know if you happened to ask an older lady this afternoon where the fire station was." *I say so* "Yeah, that was her. She says it's cool."
BOOYAH!!! We hung around the deli while Justin finished up working...drank about a gallon of sweet tea so he would have less to carry into the back...and followed him home on our bikes. His grandparents, Ellen and Dean, were great. Dean was retired from the military (he'd been all over) and Ellen worked as a correctional officer at the State Pen right outside of town. Her shift was 5pm to 5 am the next day, so they were wide awake when we rolled in. We chatted it up, exchanging the normal descriptions of our journey and finding out everything about each other. Justin is a senior in high school and will be attending college for classical guitar (he's pretty good). We got to watch the Olympics and saw the men's 4x100 free race. Oh. My. God. I have never been more excited about a sporting event in my life. That was by far the best race I've ever seen; up on my seat, practically standing on the recliner, watching Lezak make the most incredible comeback ever. We were all screaming and yelling and it was absolutely ridiculous. I was jacked up on energy for the next few hours. Esmith got the fold out futon and I got the floor (still infinitely more comfortable than being in a tent on my pad...actually one of the better night's of sleep I've gotten on the trip). We exited quietly in the morning because Ellen needed her sleep with her flipped schedule.

Day 29: Aug 9 - Odum, GA...Odamnit there’s no fire station

Today was an interesting one. We finally got a break from the boring flatlands as some small rolling hills got thrown into the mix. We broke 2K miles and boy was it hot. It was just too hot to eat outside so we ended up taking our lunch materials into a Dairy Queen and just making our PB&J's in there. It was a little awkward, but again we've developed the ability to feel no shame on this trip. The interesting part of today was arriving in Odum at the campsite. It was cheap, only $10, so we were very happy about that, but again it's crazy hot outside, the ants are EVERYWHERE and they fill everything you own, and it looks like it might possibly rain. Drat. But wait, what's this? KC's Clubhouse? What is that? Apparently, this campsite has a little building that a main room, kitchen, and two screened in porches that they let the local 4H Club use. Well, no one was using it, so we decided we just may sleep in there tonight. Though the porch was just as hot as our tent might be, there were ceiling fans all around. Unfortunately the lights for the whole place were also on the same switch as the fans, so the place was lit up like the fourth of July if the fans were on. Now, not that we were doing anything wrong or anyone might be mad that we were sleeping on our pads on the porch, we just didn't want to deal with any complications. So we went around the building unscrewing all the lights so we could have a good night's sleep without any interruptions.

Backtrack. We got to take showers and the bathrooms are full of geckos and green tree frogs. These guys can stick to pretty much anything and we had a great time playing with them and watching them leap onto the walls, mirrors, ceiling, and us. Esmith spent 10 minutes trying to catch the gecko until it finally just leapt onto his back and then just crawled around on him for awhile. Outside, the frogs and toads were just as plentiful, and Esmith spent some time taking pictures and watching the frogs swim around in an old empty pool that had rain water in it.

Day 28: Aug 8 - Georgia, Here We Come

Today was a long one...101 miles. But it was actually a pretty good ride with some good stuff to see so there weren't too many complaints.

Esmith got a snake along one of the highways; some red guy with white stripes...real snake handler style, too. Upon realizing that perhaps it might have been poisonous, he returned it to the high grass and we moved on (pics in the gallery soon enough).

The areas we hit were getting pretty Southern, with the broken down cars in the yards and guns in the gun racks (in the trucks). Sean (the cyclist we camped with a week or two prior) had warned us it was "Deliverance Country" down here and hot damn, was it so. Just after crossing the Georgian border, we found ourselves idling (yeah...bicycles idle) that everyone had warned us about, Reedsville Rd./DR 82. It was just pure sand and Emitt, who I had called earlier in the day (the guy who drove Sean across the sandy road), had said that we should ride around the road, adding about 5 extra miles but avoiding the impassable connection. Upon approaching the road, Esmith and I intelligently decided that we could, in fact, ford this sandy villain. It had rained the night before, so the sand was decently compacted and somewhat ridable. Though we had some hairy spots where our back wheels got a little squirrelly, nobody bit it and we were able to make it. Go Team E-squared!!

The rest of the day was just spent riding, riding, riding and I actually was able to make a bunch of phone calls to college friends by putting my cell on speaker phone and laying in the nest of my front pack. It's a good way to cruise along those straight, flat roads killing miles without actually realizing it. When we got to Statesboro, we headed to a bike shop that had stayed open a little longer for us because we really needed some supplies. Both my toe clips no longer worked unless I cocked my heels out to the side (very uncomfortable riding position) and Esmith needed a tube before we got screwed on the next bad flat tire. I had called ahead to the bike shop to see if they carried my cleats (google text rules!) and finally a bike shop between Maryland and here had them! After the bike shop, we rode down to the Fire Station that I had called earlier (once again, google text rules!). They agreed to put us up which was much appreciated. We didn't get any pictures with the fire fighters, most of whom pretty much kept to themselves, but there were Tommy and Ezette who were nice (they let us know that teh other guys weren't rude, they just don't really talk to anybody). I also talked to a guy named Weston the next morning who was nice as well, but no pictures.

We got a rotisserie chicken along with salad and other goodies at the store and had an awesome dinner while we got to watch the opening ceremonies for the Olympics! We were both worried that weren't going to get to see any of the Olympics while we were on this trip but our chances are improving. We had a good night's sleep in the training room on our pads after a late night watching the TV.

Day 27: Aug 7 - Thank god for nice people

Overnight a cur got into some of our groceries and they were strewn all over the field when we woke up the next morning. He ate an entire loaf of bread for god sakes! At least it was an early start because we had a long day ahead of us to catch up on the miles we lost yesterday.

We ended up doing 92 miles today...and although it was as hot as it was yesterday (there was a 105 degree heat index), it was much more humid so pretty much worse for riding. The foliage is starting to get interesting with lots of Spanish moss on all the trees and...oh, what's this? The soil is actually pretty much sand...and what's this??! There's ants on every square inch?! OH JOY!! Everything you own (including your body) gets pretty much swarmed if you leave it one space long enough. So that's nice.

I ended up calling the Walterboro Fire Department to see if they would put us up for the night...just a cool place to sleep with a roof over our heads. Eventually, after several calls and transfers, Fire Chief Barry hooked us up with the Colleton County Fire & Rescue just outside of Walterboro...thank god we wouldn't have to sweat all night in our tent.

On the way to Statesboro, SC we met a guy named Dan who was on his afternoon bike ride and he gave us his address just up the ride so that we could stop by for some cold drinks and a break in some AC. Dan was originally from Northern England, near Yorkshire, and he lived with his wife Sharon (who I believe is a coordinator for the Special Olympics...maybe). We got a nice break at the house and as a storm started rolling in we headed out for the last 8 miles to the Fire & Rescue center. The wind and some rain came in and often I would swerve to the center line of the road as I heard branches creaking and cracking overhead. Luckily no large branches crushed either of us and we arrived at the fire station in one piece.

The rest of the evening was spent hanging out with the fire fighters: Scotty, Duane, Ashley, and John. We heard plenty of crazy stories, from guys getting tazered on calls to getting shot at by the locals with their shotguns as they were putting out a fire. Crazies left and right in the county were well known amongst both the veterans and new guys, with plenty of stories to be told about their crazy antics. This was podunk country and these guys readily admitted it. I think Scotty's quote of "See if anybody in your hometown ever had their girlfriend's dad arrested for trying to shoot them" pretty much sums that up.

The guys were great to hang out with and we also got beds...BEDS I TELL YOU!!!...so the sleep was great.

Day 26: Aug 6 - Rough Riders

Wow, today was a late start. And the festivities of the night before left us a little worse for wear than we would have liked...well, I was downright useless. We ended up not getting on the road until about 1:30 pm, leaving us with a rough set of miles ahead of us. Nothing really happened, but it was just ridiculously hot and ridiculously not fun to be on a bike in our current states. That's the price we pay for having fun (good thing we're young and can afford it). That night was spent camping outside the volunteer fire hall in Andrews, NC. I say camping and not sleeping because sleep was pretty much avoiding us that night. It was probably about 93 all night...miserable.