Day 26. May 1, 2022. May day! 81 miles. AIS 7:24 hrs. 2791 elev. 10.9 mph.
Week stats: 381 miles. 63 miles per day. Total trip mileage (part 2) 1462 miles.
The most climbing since April 10…Johnson City to Austin! If anyone tells you Florida is flat…not the panhandle…or “Georgia’s basement”! Today we climbed, dropped, climbed, dropped, All. Damn. Day.
A bit about motels. We have stayed in several low budget motels. Sometimes it can be just about the only option in a small town. It’s highly likely that the proprietor/owner is of East Indian descent. I have noticed this in the western US as well. Kind of like Asian restaurants, it seems East Indians have adopted motel ownership. Are they related families? Many of the recent motels we’ve stayed in have new flooring and new bedding, even though everything else may be extremely dated. They have all been clean, so we’re okay with that.
Early start today. Our earliest start yet. Up at 4:30 and on the bike at 5am.(CST). I insisted that I wanted to start riding in the dark. We had an 80 mile day. That’s about 8 hrs of AIS and another 3 or so of stops for water, snacks, lunch, photos or whatever. So 11 hrs. Plus…we lose an hour by crossing into Eastern time zone! So… it was dark as we left town. It took about 25 min to get from one end of town to the other so we had street lights to help with our headlights. Then we went about 1 mile in the dark before it was twilight enough to easily see the road and any hazards ( roadkill) to avoid. Turns out it was a good idea…we arrived in Tallahassee about 5pm EST (11 hours)!!
Country backroads for several miles. Really nice road conditions and nice temperatures. But it was hilly! Seems like I needed to use my lowest granny gear several times today. Ugh!
On the edge of Tallahassee we had 18 miles to go through the city to our destination. We are staying at our good friend Jamie C’s sister’s house for tonight and tomorrow…our layover day. Beth and Joe have a lovely home on a small lake in NW Tallahassee. If you route by bicycle in Google maps it will take you on roads with bicycle lanes as much as possible to your destination. It took us through several areas and neighborhoods all with bike lanes. A couple of the roads took us past some very beautiful southern homes with live oak trees. We were also riding with thunderstorms all around us. For a while we were in the “donut hole “. Jim kept checking radar😊. Eventually we couldn’t escape the rain…we sat it out for about 10 minutes and took refuge at an elementary school. But then we only had 5 miles to go in the rain. We climbed and descended for 5 more miles as it poured on us. We made it to Beth and Joe’s house. Tired and happy to be there. They beer’d and fed us, so we’re all good. Tomorrow is a day off. Yeah🙌
cinnicrew 