Defuniak to Greensboro-ish...a century gone by

Tuesday was a long day.  So this will be a long post.  Grab some tea, your suspense-senses, and a smile for the happy ending.  Promise.

Tuesday morning I was raring to go.  I chomped on some cereal, grabbed my snack pack from the front desk, and loaded up Nancy to head out as it got light around 6am.  I was determined that if there were going to be tailwinds for the first time on this trip, I was going to be well-rested and take full advantage.  It was a glorious ride out of Defuniak Springs at that hour.

There were some rolling hills to keep thing interesting, not much traffic, and a beautiful sunrise.  You can tell what's coming.  After an hour or two I had that literal and figurative sudden sinking feeling of a flat. Ah well, I thought, after the amount of glass and road-sharp-garbage I've been running over, it was about time.  So I fixed it up and had a snack.  When I got to the next town, I went to the gas station to use their air thingy as it's much easier to get the tire pressure as high as I want it than with my little portable hand pump.  I rode into the service stop and there were three of the town traffic controllers (aka men in their 70is in lawn chairs drinking coffee watching trucks drive past).  They asked lots of questions, such as whether I keep my pistol on my person or in a bag, and emptied their pockets for quarters to pay for the air machine.  It was quite entertaining to have four people putting air in a tire, but, what can I say, I think it made everyone's morning.  With that sorted out and lots warnings about crazy people and heckling I rode out only to run into some fellow cyclists within the next hour.

From the Netherlands and cycling to Texas.  These two explained that, unlike in the USA, in the Netherlands the  rich pay lots and lots of tax, so they figured they would come to America and do some credit-card touring (aka staying in hotels and eating out lots) so that the government would not get all of their money before they die.  

In his 70s and headed to San Diego, California!

Reminder of the day: there's no such thing as a free lunch.  These guys were having strong headwinds on the flipside of my gleeful coasting along.  Flat tire #2 came along just before noon.  The tube I had put in earlier as well as the one that I had to put in now, figuring I would deal with patching later, seemed to not be in the best of shape.  I can't remember where I got those two, but they seemed rather flimsy when I took a good look at them.  The second one even had some water in it...so that could have something to do with the second flat.  I figured that I would change it out and hope that would get me to Tallahassee where I could purchase a more durable tube from a bike shop.  During both flat-changing sessions, I was just thinking about the headwind-riding I was missing out on (probably about 1-2 hours of alternative time spent including the air-gas-station stop).  I rode along after that with my breath half-held and my hitch-hiking thumb at the ready, anticipating another flat and being caught tubeless on the road.  Luckily, everyone seems to drive a truck here, so it didn't seem like it would be so difficult.

In a matter of metres, 3pm became 4pm as I crossed from Central Time to Eastern time.  At that point I was passing a campground where I had been contemplating stopping, but felt silly doing so as I was pretty sure I could cover a fair bit more ground before figuring out a spot to pitch my tent.  As I rode past the campground turn-off, I was still undecided, but the large downhill that followed cemented my decision that there was no way I was going to turn back and climb up that hill.  This is one of those moments where hindsight is 20/20 but I found myself in the moment and blindly swept away by the wind.  So, I kept on route 90.

A bit later, I found myself thinking that I should start sorting out where to spend the night.  There were a few towns coming up, such as Gretna and Quincy, and up until then I had felt like knocking on a door to pitch a tent in someone's yard was something I would be comfortable doing.  The land adjacent the road was flooded as far as I could see because of all the rain, so true 'stealth camping' was not really an option (and I was less keen on it, still a bit wimpy I admit).  As I got closer to Gretna and the sun was getting lower, I had an 'uh-oh' feeling of not wanted to camp there.  People I spoke to at the gas station were friendly but there were many people just hanging around town who didn't seem like they had much to do and lots of stray dogs wandering.  At one man's recommendation, I went by the city hall/fire station to see if they could suggest something.  The only person around was a friendly guy locking up city hall for the night, and he strongly said that I should not even consider camping in this town.  Great, thanks.  He gave the police chief a call, and the two of them suggested heading out of town towards a casino by the interstate.  Apparently people might be friendly out there and there might be areas that weren't flooded should I just want to pitch a tent in the woods off the road.

Long story short, I wound up pedaling like crazy person out to a casino (which had a driveway that felt like it was 3 miles long, likely about 1) and arrived literally as it got dark.  Much to the amusement of people inside when I walked in wearing a bike helmet and visi-vest, I headed over to a side-office where I explained, quite wearily, my situation to the friendly middle-aged faces of Michelle and Kevin at their desks.  They offered two suggestion:  bike down the road to the gas station and ask for a friend of Michelle's who could likely help me out or Kevin offered that he lived a few miles away on a big property and I could get a ride there and camp.  While the logical/cautious/don't-scare-mom in me might have taken the first option, by that point biking anywhere seemed daunting and I wasn't sure I would make it back up that long driveway once I left.  So I headed out to scarf down some cereal and waited for Kevin to finish up work.  As we put my bike in the casino storage room overnight and chatted, I could tell we were going to get along just fine and I was glad to have found such kind people.

Salvation lies within

The driveway didn't feel quite as long the next day in the light

We drove out to his place and, when he asked about what it was like doing the sort of traveling I am doing, I explained that you never know when you're going to end up driving through a forest in the dark with bow-tie wearing men you meet at a casino in the hope of somewhere to spend the night.  Seriously, though, Kevin you are an awesome guy.  We shared a great evening of lentils and stir-fry, conversation, and he even made brownies.  And had almond milk.  The best. Thanks for your excellent couch (sorry I couldn't take it with me) and for sharing bits of your life with me about all things interesting.  Happiness, Buddhism, family, song-writing, our shared lack of knowledge about politics, and all sorts of nonsense turned what could have been a cold evening in my gator-exposed tent into one of the highlights of my trip thus far.

Lessons of the day:

(1) There's no such thing as a free lunch.
(2) When you are tired and hungry, stopping at a casino is a good plan.