Or am I? Its only 7:30 but there are dark clouds ahead of me, it just started to sprinkle, and its thundering all around me. I found this funeral home, which has two huge car ports to stay dry under. The lights in the office are on and all but the front doors are open, but no one appears to be here. I went looking for someone to ask permission to stay here while the storm passes, but couldn’t find anyone so I cleaned up in the bathroom real quick and went back out side. I’m guessing that someone either left for just a minute or was in a rush because the coffee pot, many lights, and a radio were still on.

I’ve ridden 98 miles so far today, and its really not raining hard here, so I really want to go back out and ride at least another two miles since I have the time and energy. I don’t think I’m going to though because I don’t want to get stuck in a storm and get wet right before I go to bed. If I get wet earlier on, I have time to dry out, so its not that bad, but around this time it’d just turn out miserable. If it clears up in the next 30 minutes though I will go back out, however that doesn’t look likely.

Not too long ago I ventured off route for the second time this trip. I’m on a little bit of a more major road but I’ll get to the same place in 35 instead of 50 miles. This is still a two lane road, but a 3rd lane appears every now and again to make room for people wait to enter a shopping plaza. Still plenty fine to ride on, and I can usually ride faster on those kinds of roads because they are usually paved nicer. I also didn’t mind going on the slightly busier road because I didn’t plan on riding much more tonight, and there should be much traffic on this road early in the morning.

Today I saw my first alligator from the road. He was in a black water creek that was running along side the road. The embankment was a good 15 feet tall, and he was probably a good 25 horizontal feet from me, but that was still close enough. I’m sure I’ve pass at least a half dozen of them already, this was just the first I’ve seen.

My appetite has been wild today. I’m not sure if its because I went food shopping this morning, or what but I’ve been eating like crazy. I’ve had a peanut butter roll-up, four pop tarts, four granola bars, two BBQ sandwiches, about half a box of dry cereal, an apple, and an orange. There could be more to that list but that’s all I can remember right now. When I’m done posting this, I think I’m going to make myself another roll-up.

The place were I stopped for BBQ was just a little general store in the middle of nowhere. It was owned by a young couple (early 30’s at the oldest I’d say) who were very nice. They were the first people I’ve meet who said they see lots of bikers doing what I was doing (I’ve only met one other person who had ever seen any touring riders and he had only seen one couple the week before I got there , coming from Illinois). He said the last cyclist he saw was going north about the time of the last hurricane, and that he was going nuts trying to get to Savannah before it hit.

Tomorrow will be a big day. I should cross the 2,000 mile and then into Florida just a little bit later. I don’t think I’ll hit 2,500 miles before Orlando, and I’m still not sure if I’m going past there or not, but time will tell.

That’s pretty much everything that happened today, or at least all I can think of right now. Disney World looks to be about 330 miles away, so I still look to be on target of getting to Orlando on Thursday.

I made referance to the fact that I narrowly escaped disaster yesterday, but fell asleep that night before I could write about it. So here it is.

I was riding along mostly back country roads the whole morning, and had just recently turned onto a more major road (RT 17A). Things are going fine when all of a sudden I hear a “Ka-Kling!” sound. It could have been something as simple as me running over a coat hanger or somthing else but when I looked back, I didn’t see anything. So I look at where the trailer attaches to my bike and see that on of the retention clips had fallen out!

I get off my bike and turn it around so I can go back and look for the clip, since I don’t have much of the wire left to make new ones (have enough to make about four). When I started to turn the bike, the one side of the trailer popped off! This caused the other side to torque, which looks like it bent the already bent axle even more. I was horrified. If this axle goes, I don’t have another spare, and its unlikely the closest bike shop would stock it.

I put the trailer back on propperly and continued looking for the lost clip without any luck. I rode a about a mile to a library, where I took a break. I was there for about two hours for no real good reason other than procrastinating riding my bike in fear of it breaking.

All ended up working out fine. I rode another 40 – 50 miles on it that day, and another 50 – 60 miles on it today so I think I’m in the clear. I’m even more reluctant to take off the rear tire now though, so I hope I don’t get another flat. Its really too bad that this is the case because my tires could really be rotated, and being stuck in this rain would have been the perfect time to do it, but c’est la vie.

I made reference to the fact that I narrowly escaped disaster yesterday, but fell asleep that night before I could write about it. So here it is.

I was riding along mostly back country roads the whole morning, and had just recently turned onto a more major road (RT 17A). Things are going fine when all of a sudden I hear a “Ka-Kling!” sound. It could have been something as simple as me running over a coat hanger or something else but when I looked back, I didn’t see anything. So I look at where the trailer attaches to my bike and see that on of the retention clips had fallen out!

I get off my bike and turn it around so I can go back and look for the clip, since I don’t have much of the wire left to make new ones (have enough to make about four). When I started to turn the bike, the one side of the trailer popped off! This caused the other side to torque, which looks like it bent the already bent axle even more. I was horrified. If this axle goes, I don’t have another spare, and its unlikely the closest bike shop would stock it.

I put the trailer back on properly and continued looking for the lost clip without any luck. I rode a about a mile to a library, where I took a break. I was there for about two hours for no real good reason other than procrastinating riding my bike in fear of it breaking.

All ended up working out fine. I rode another 40 – 50 miles on it that day, and another 50 – 60 miles on it today so I think I’m in the clear. I’m even more reluctant to take off the rear tire now though, so I hope I don’t get another flat. Its really too bad that this is the case because my tires could really be rotated, and being stuck in this rain would have been the perfect time to do it, but c’est la vie.