bloggity blah blah

7/28/09 - Day 3 of riding.

It was boring... and very uneventful.

The only thing to report is that we discovered that miles on a bike are not all the same... No, really. One mile on gravel is roughly equal to three miles on a bike. There's just no other way to quantify it. Our ride today was only 35 miles or so (which should be short!) but the same amount of force that would be propelling our loaded touring bikes up to 12mph got us all the way up to 6.

So, it was a long, hot, hard 35 miles. The only thing good about this ride is that we left Big Eddy's in the dust... OOH, OOh - I forgot that... Last night there was a HUGE thunderstorm - lightning cracking across the sky everywhere. Claps of thunder that would just make you curl under your covers cowering! The nice thing was that it cools everything down (remember, no AC?). The horrible part is that it felt like the final chapter of the horror movie that we were living in. I really expected to see the silhouette of Eddy through the window backlight by a bolt of lightning! Or maybe hear the creak of the door that locks but doesn't close... So, needless to say, we were all low on sleep today -- except for Eric, who, halfway through today said "What? There was a thunderstorm last night?" (how does that happen?!?!?)

Notice the dark "amber" color of the hummingbird feeders...

drunken hummingbirds fight a lot...

After arriving in Avery, I began to realize the peril of our journey. 35 gravel miles = the hardest day on the trail yet. Avery (where we knew we could resupply for food and water), was a very small town, with a General Store about the size of my son's bedroom. Everything was 3x what it should normally cost... and after talking to the natives, we discovered that NONE of the 3 trails we were taking tomorrow were any better maintained than the one we just came on. And, unlike I was led to believe by lying maps, none of them are paved.

Oh, and to boot - no civilization. For 50 miles. Almost completely uphill. Gravel miles. We... Are gonna... Die. No, seriously. I'm really worried about tomorrow. Beginning to think this is NOT a smart idea.

We are so tired, and achey already... if there was any way to actually make it tomorrow, we needed a big meal tonight, so we opted for a very, very big, beefy meal - two hamburgers each for dinner...

Ok, now I'm done. Time for bed.