Day 44 – Happy Birthday on the road

Today is my 51^st birthday.  I mentioned earlier, I think, that this trip was a dream of mine to mark my half-way point through life.  I am glad that I was able to do this.  It has been good for me to learn of myself, to learn much of my country and to think upon God as I have. Today has been a very good day.  I miss spending it with my sweetheart, but I have been treated very well.  We didn’t have a long distance to ride today so we slept in a bit.  We woke at 7:30 to begin breakfast by 8:00.  It was another quite chilly night, so I was ready to get up.  At the beginning of the trip, the nights were so warm that I sent home my 20 degree bag I bought a 55 degree bag at REI.  The last few nights, I have been sleeping in my cloths to stay warm.  I hope I did the right thing in sending that bag home.  It should warm up.

The ride today was wonderful.  It was a short distance of 35 miles and it was beautiful.  We passed small lakes, farms and houses and I really enjoyed the travel.   We have ridden by a lot of cotton, but I have yet to see it being harvested.  I do hope I get the chance. We are camped just outside of Reidsville, GA in a state park.  This park is beautiful as well.  The tourist season here is over and there are not many campers.  The camp is so clean and quiet.  There is a lake in the middle of it and it was just so pretty tonight.  I will send a picture.

The group has been so kind to me today.  Not that they aren’t normally kind.  They would all say, “Happy Birthday”, and the cooks cooked me my favorite meal of hamburgers and made this great desert of pound cake topped with fruit and condensed sweet milk.  It really was good.  I spent much of the time this afternoon getting some office work done, which now seems like a break from the riding/camping routine.

Many of you sent me a nice note of happy birthday as well.  I appreciate you my good friends and family.  You are what is important in life.  Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. We have a much longer day tomorrow of about 85 miles.  I think the rest today will help us get through it.

The place we are staying

Us getting ready today

Some scenery along the way

Day 43 – Georgia

We had another beautiful day of riding today.  We got up at about 6:30 and it was still dark. I don’t know why the others always insist on getting started so early.  It was also pretty cold this morning.  We gauged it at about 46.  I know that is not too cold by Idaho standards, but when you are camping and riding in it, it is plenty cold.  However, that is what made it such a nice riding day.  It ended up in the lower 70’s and the wind was not blowing as hard as it has been and that made for some great riding.  We traveled 75 miles today and are now in Statesboro, Georgia.  We are camping again and had a nice dinner of burritos.  It was our tour leader Dave’s turn to cook and every time he cooks, it is burritos.

The riding was somewhat uneventful so I am going to write a bit about hostels.  Before this trip, I had never stayed in a hostel.  They are a more inexpensive way for people to travel.  In Charleston, a hotel room is going to run you $150 at best and most are $200+.  The hostel cost us about $20 per person.  Keep in mind that we booked as a group and they had eight people in a room.  I think for others it was about $40 per night. We met a lot of foreign people in this hostel.  There were about three from the UK and some from Australia and Germany while we were there.  They are mainly young kids (in fact other than us, they were all young) and most of them seemed to be partying about every night.  I don’t  know if they knew people coming into the City or they just party with whoever.  The place was pretty clean when we arrived, but the place was loaded with people over the weekend and by Sunday morning, it was getting a bit grungy.  I don’t know who’s job it is to clean the place.  In our room of eight on the last night, we had two young men that were not part of our group.  They went up town to find some things to do and didn’t come in until very late.  I guess we got back at them because we left very early and it was hard leaving without making quite a bit of noise. The beds are these mattresses covered in plastic and they give you clean sheets and a pillow case.  They make a terrible racket getting on and off. They tell you absolutely no sleeping bags, which I guess is to protect against bugs coming in. Anyway, I think I would rather camp than stay in those.

Tomorrow we have a short day to ride.  We are only supposed to ride 35 miles, but Georgia is a lot more hilly than we have had the last few weeks.  They are not high hills, but there are a lot of them.

Which RV would you rather have?

I saw peanuts on the road today, but I don't know what a peanut plant looks like.  I will have to investigate.  There is a lot of cotton here and a lot more "not so fancy" homes.

Day 42 – Alligator Country

It actually felt good to get back on the bike again today.  It really did our group a lot of good to take two days off from riding. I think everyone’s psyche, as well as body were somewhat rejuvenated.  The ride was on a little busier roads than we usually ride due in part to having to get back on our route in a different direction, but it was a nice ride today.  I ended up missing a turn and riding about 10 miles further than we were supposed to ride.  I had no idea for about 10 miles that I had missed the turn.  I checked the GPS on my phone in this town called Walterboro, where the next town was because the names of the roads were just not matching up.  It said 22 miles when I was expecting 11 miles and when I figured it out, my morale just sunk for a bit.  It is kind of weird how that happens.  Then I just said to myself, “You know what you need to do, you just have to ride the extra miles and enjoy it”.  That is what I tried to do and it turned out fine.  I rode a total of 76 miles and it was a beautiful day of riding.

We did spot a dead alligator on the side of the road.  It will be fun to start to try and see them in the rivers and swamps that we are passing.  Tomorrow, we will cross into Georgia.  The weather has cooled down considerably.  It was 47 degrees when we took off this morning and it really never did hit 70 all day.  It does make good riding weather.  The wind blew from the south all day slightly, which was a bit annoying. 

I tried to listen to conference on the bike while riding, but I kept losing my signal and finally gave up.  I did get into camp early enough because of the time difference to listen to the last session.  I sure did enjoy that.  There was a talk that was given by a Japanese fellow and he talked about the missionaries that came to him and taught him.  It was a bit emotional for me to listen to that talk because it reminded me of the people of Korea that I was able to work with.  I so remember the day I came home from there. A bunch of people I met during the two years I was there came to the airport to see me off and it was so bitter-sweet.  I wanted to go home and see my family, but I knew I wouldn’t see these people again in this life and I had developed such a love for them.  It still tears me up a bit when I think of them.

I do a lot of thinking about the people that I meet on this trip.  We are running through areas that are predominately black and the people that I have run into have been so kind.  I stopped to get a chocolate milk today and the lady behind the counter was so kind.  I told her about being lost and she was just so nice to say that it is a beautiful day and it will be ok.  I ate my sandwich outside and this older man with few teeth came up and talked to me for a bit.  When I got on the bike to leave, he said, “You be careful out there now”.  It is just nice to think how many good people there are in the world, in which billions of them, we never meet.  I wonder what these people’s lives are like I run into and hope they are happy.  I have seen people living under bridges and you wonder what has happened in their life to get them there.  It is just humbling to think that all these people are God’s children and that He knows them and loves them.

Day 41 - Mutiny!

We had a bit of a mutiny yesterday.  As we studied the maps on today's ride, we noticed that as we rode out of Charleston to the north, we would circle around the outskirts of the City and begin heading south and we would travel about 140 miles to a place that if we just headed south out of the city, we would get there in about 70 miles.  This trip to Charleston is a spur on our maps that allow you to come into the city, but to get back out, you just follow the spur back out.  Anyway, we all thought that we could not travel today and be at the same place we were supposed to be in tomorrow night, with a lot less travel.  We all put the proposal to our leader last night and he petty much had to conform because no one was going to ride the route that was mapped out.
So, this day really has been a day of rest.  We all did very little and this has been the first day on the trip that has been a second day of no riding.  There is a WWII aircraft carrier on the other side of the harbor that I wanted to visit called the Yorktown.  It was very interesting, but was much the same as the battleship that I visited in North Carolina.  Today is also General Conference for the LDS church and I was able to stream the sessions in on my phone, which I really enjoyed.  I wish that I would be able to listen tomorrow as well, but as I move around, it is real easy to lose the signal. I think I will try to listen on the bike, but I would be surprised if it works.

There is not many miles to report today.  I did ride the bike around town today instead of walk and taking the bus.  The bus just took too long to come around.  I think everyone in the group really enjoyed the two days off the bike.  It seems the moral of the group is better than it has been in a while.

It is hard to believe that it is October.  The weather here really cooled down today.  It was about 90 degrees yesterday and I think the high today and for this weekend is only about 70.  The wind really blew here today and I am hoping that it is not quite so strong tomorrow.

Here are a few more pictures of the city.  They have quite a few cobblestone streets in the city and they say they came from stones they would put in the ships from Europe to use as ballast as they would come over carrying furniture which was quite light and carry rice and tobacco back which is heavy so the would leave the rocks

Day 40 – What a cool City

Charleston is a pretty cool place to visit from what I was able to see in a day.  There were a lot of tourists here, probably because of a cruise ship that was docked, but they have some really neat houses and tours inside those homes, which I was not able to take because of the limited time.  Carey has told me before that this is one City that she would like to visit and I am sure that she would enjoy it.  We will have to make it a goal to come back.  They have great restaurants and many tourist attractions based upon the history of this city.

The tours that the city offers are carriage rides.  There are plenty of companies doing them, but the city must have limited the types of tours to these exclusively because you either walk or you ride the carriages.  I took one of these tours and it was pretty good but it was very slow and because of that, I am sure you don’t see very much.  In fact the city gives the carriages a lottery number and that determines where the driver can take you.  I guess they do this to limit the carriages that are blocking traffic all over the city.  It was interesting though and gave you some places that you wanted to go back and spend more time.  They do have some great southern mansions like you see in Gone With the Wind.

I also went out to visit Fort Sumter.  You are all probably up on your American History, but that is where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.  It was a pretty small place, but the history behind it all was very interesting.  There really is not much of it left because when the Union took it back in 1865, they did it after firing on the Confederates in the Fort for 22 months.  The Confederates never did surrender the Fort, they just abandoned it.

The day went too quickly today and we are back to riding tomorrow.  To see this city, we took a spur route into here and will have to back track that route tomorrow to get back on the designated route.  Because of that, it will be another pretty big day of 75 miles.

Fort Sumter

A shell still imbedded in the wall

Some homes

Day 39 - Charleston!!

Today was a great day of riding.  The humidity seemed to be a lot less today and of course the miles were less as well. We did ride 65 miles today, but compared to 90, it is a lot different.  Those miles above 60 – 65 miles are pretty much agony.  At this point in the ride, it is not the strength that seems to be lacking, it is the ability to sit on that seat for more time.  My tail end was complaining pretty loudly about the 90 mile ride today but it was happy that we only rode 65.

We stopped at this small grocery store/café in a little place called Bathera, SC.  I was riding with my roomie John and a few others and John always stops somewhere for a second breakfast to fuel him along.  This place didn’t serve breakfast and they had this lone lady in working cooking stuff up for lunch, so we had only a few things to choose from to eat.  I had black-eyed peas and cabbage and some cornbread.  Man, that was so good!  I don’t know if I was particularly hungry or what, but man that tasted good.  Maybe it is just that good ole southern cooking. The black-eyed peas were cooked with bacon and I don’t know what they had in the cabbage, but it really hit the spot.

We rode into Charleston, SC about 3:30 this afternoon.  We are staying in the southern part of the city in the “Not So Hostel”.  It is the older part of town and I guess has some great old homes to see.  We have two rooms.  One room has 8 beds in it and the women and the men are all sleeping in the same room.  The other room has four beds in it and the snorers are banished to that room.  I hope I don’t wake tomorrow and someone accuse me of not fessing up to be a snorer.  The hostel is clean, but they have these plastic mattresses on the beds that you know have been slept on tons because they are pretty much worn out and they give you clean sheets for your stay.  I think I have mentioned that I have never done the hostel thing before. It seems a younger, more foreign crowd that stay at places like this.

We had dinner at this cool place called, “Fuel”.  It was a restaurant in an old gas station and they served Caribbean food. I had Mahi Mahi tacos and black beans and it was delicious. I was just thinking while I was there eating that it will be sad to leave all these people in a few weeks.  We have really gotten to be good friends in the time we have ridden together.  It is a little weird, but I think going through the process of riding difficult stuff together really has bonded us together.  Everyone in our group is accepted by the others and I have seen no problems in people getting along and we just have a good time together.

Tomorrow it will be six weeks since I left home.  My odometer went over 2,000 miles today and we have three weeks until we arrive in Key West.  That seems a little unreal to me.  I am looking forward to seeing the City of Charleston tomorrow.  This looks like a City rich in history. Did you know Charleston is a short name for Charles Town? The City had its beginning in 1670.

This is a some pictures of us crossing the Cooper River into Charleston.

Day 38 - South Carolina

This is going to be a difficult post to write. I don't want to sound like I am always complaining, but it is the negative things that are the easiest to write about.

Last night was miserable. It was so hot and humid, I felt like I was suffocating. That might sound extreme, but it is the truth. I don't think I have ever been so warm during a night. I am most likely forgetting nights that I went through in Korea on my mission. I definitely remember the bed being wet there when we would lay down to sleep. Last night I actually took the rain cover off the tent to see if that would cool things down and it did. I fell asleep for a few hours and when I woke, my bedding was getting wet from the dew rather quickly so I put the cover back on. I did sleep because of plain exhaustion.

Today we rode close to 90 miles. I had a plan that I would stop every 20 miles and be off the bike for about 15 minutes. That actually worked well. It gave me something to look forward to. I did have two chocolate milk breaks today. I seem to crave chocolate milk when I am riding. Maybe the dairy industry will want to make a commercial about me. It was a warm day. It was 91 degrees at a store I stopped at. We were warned that the wind generally blows from the south here and sure enough today it did. It wasn't a big wind, but probably about 10 mph. I have to admit, it was getting a bit annoying after riding the miles we did today. The scenery was much the same today so that didn't help much on breaking the day up. See, I told you that all I do is complain. I did make it and we are staying in a motel, so I should have a good sleep tonight.

Tomorrow we ride into Charleston and we have a day off to tour. That will be good.

This is a view from my bike saddle. My map of where I am going.

This is a pretty neat shot of boats that were in a port we went by.