November 14, 2008
planning the end, kid in a car
Day Fifty Four
"When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you."
- Nora Ephron -
"If you liked being a teenager, there's something really wrong with you."
- Stephen King -
"When a child turns 12 he should be kept in a barrel and fed through the bung hole, until he turns 16..... at which time you plug the bung hole."
- Mark Twain -
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It's starting to seem odd that, after two months of riding, tomorrow will be my last day. I've been doing this for a long time, and you get into a rhythm. Waking up, packing, riding, eating.... Life is simple.
Most of my morning was spent planning. I have to find a place to stay tonight and tomorrow night, and I need a good route to get there. Without the ACA maps, traveling on streets in a city the size of Jacksonville can be dangerous. Maybe I should try I-10 again.
I also need to ship my bike back to Iowa, so I've been calling around looking for a bike shop that will box it up and mail it. Unless I find a place to stay that's close to the bike shop I'll need to rent a car. Once I drop off the bike (and it'll have to be tomorrow because everything is closed on Sunday), I'll be on foot. The car rental places close anywhere from noon to 3:00 on Saturday, so I'll need to take care of that early unless I want to ride to the airport. Depending on where I stay (and where I stay depends on how expensive), I might just be able to use a cab. Anyway, things sometimes get complicated at the end of an open trip.
I'm also working on flying out earlier. I arrived in Jacksonville ahead of schedule, so I might be able to meet Heather in San Diego earlier than I had anticipated.
This morning I ate a full breakfast at the cafe before leaving, so it was around 10:00 when I finally rolled out.
The roads were blank.
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Then to Lake City, where I briefly stopped for a late-morning break.
It was overcast all day and I had a strong headwind until I turned east in Lake City. Pedaling against the wind, as much as I've been complaining about it, wasn't really that bad today. Or perhaps I'm already becoming nostalgic. I rode against it today, not exactly with a sense of resignation, but perhaps an acceptance - having come to terms with it. Whether it's the wind, the rain, the cold, the heat... (perhaps not the heat)... you just keep riding. Turn the crank around once, then turn it around again. It doesn't matter how strong the wind is, turning the crank gives you a certainty that you will get there. If the crank is turning, you're making progress. Like I said... life is simple.
Still, I wondered how my three friends were doing, pedaling 80 miles against that wind.
Besides, who am I to complain about the weather? Do you remember how it rained in Silver City on my rest day while I had a nice cozy hotel room to hide in? And how it rained in Fort Stockton on my rest day? And how the Norther blew in two minutes after I closed my motel room door in Lockhart? And how it began raining literally thirty seconds after I finished riding in Greenville? And you may not know that in two days, a cold front is supposed to hit Florida and the temperature will get down to the low 30s.
I stopped for lunch in Olustee, but left earlier than I had planned when a couple of women fired up some cigarettes inside the small cafe.
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The rest of the afternoon was spent pedaling and coming to terms with the fact that my trip is almost over.
Except when I was in MacClenny….
Occasionally, although much less frequently than you'd expect, someone will yell at me out the window of their car as they drive by. My usual response is to smile and give them a friendly wave, as if I misunderstood their intentions.
Today, as I was pedaling through the traffic in MacClenny, a skinny young kid yelled out his passenger-side window, "RIDE ON THE SIDEWALK!"
I didn't give it another thought until I noticed, with a certain amount of glee, that the traffic light ahead turned red and he was stuck in a long line of traffic.
I wasn't.
I breezed past all of the stopped cars and instead of going all the way to the front, I stopped four cars back, right next to his window. By now he was feeling somewhat less vocal about his opinion of me RIDING on the sideWALK. I gathered as much because he frantically rolled up his window as I approached, and was now sitting stiffly upright with his hands folded neatly in his lap, as if he were on trial for some heinous crime such as smuggling cheese in his underwear or stealing garden gnomes.
His face was turned away from me and I considered tapping on his window and talking to him but, instead, I just pulled out my camera, took his picture, stood there grinning until the light changed, then pedaled away.
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distance: 52 miles
average speed: 13.9 mph
maximum speed: 23.9 mph
time: 3:44:32
distance to date: 2710.8
Today's ride: 52 miles (84 km)
Total: 2,707 miles (4,356 km)
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Also, good job in shaming that "ride on the sidewalk" jerk.
4 months ago