A battle with the Forces That Be

Thursday, May 29 (Day 13)

Distance: 86 miles

Average speed: 11.6 mph

Max: 28.7 mph

Total: 801 miles 

The day started out wonderfully with Dean's blueberry pancakes. I was quite relaxed and slow and didn't get going until an atrociously late 9:30am.

I stopped not too long after I started at a shop that is quite well known, Cops and Doughnuts. It was really interesting, although I didn't think to get any pictures inside.

After my slow morning, I really had to get moving because I had a lot of ground to cover. I was on a rail trail for nearly 60 miles, and saw next to no one all day. Dean had told me about three girls who rode across the country together, and I spent most of the time thinking about them and how nice it would be to have someone to ride with... 

As I approached a town, I came across what might once have been very nice forest and is now a mess of big trucks and torn up ground. I found it pretty sad, because all the trees surrounding it were beautiful.

It was starting to get pretty late in the afternoon so I stopped dawdling and taking pictures and shifted into my highest gear for the last 30 miles of rail trail, quite the test for my knees, which are performing splendidly now.

As I finally left the rail trail with about 30 miles to go, it was getting hot and I had deviated from my maps to stay on the trail longer. I ended up having a lot of trouble getting to my camp site, encountering massive hills and accidentally getting stuck on horrible gravel roads. But I had a tail wind! It's hard to adequately represent those hills.

I had trouble staying positive when a middle school boy squirted me with his water gun, a dog chased me, and I fell again. Thankfully on my left side, which was a nice change and evened out my scrapes. 

I arrived at camp exhausted and was greeted by a very friendly camp manager, Tom, who told me he had once met a Swedish bike tourer who had been riding for four years and this was his last continent, he'd ridden on 5 of them. Tom also has an adorable and very friendly cat named Tux!

This is another beautiful campsite, but other than Tom, no one else is here. I hope I don't wake up in the middle of the night and realize how completely alone I am out here.