I am now in Bay city. it was a very long day, but the weather was very nice. there was only some strong head winds to battle, but ill take that over the rain anyday!
i realized while i was riding today that a lot of the posts are not very positive. they seem dry and almost negative, and thats not what what i intended. i think the reason for this is that they are all written at the end of the day, when i am the most tired and sore. the days post should be written while i am on the road, flying down a hill, going much faster than the bike was ever intended to go, with cars flying by me head on, just inches from my handlebars. or maybe when i crest a hill, after fighting it all the way up, only to see a beautiful landscape in every direction. its times like that when the posts should be written, but they cant be. i just wanted everyone to know that its not all doom and gloom out here. i WANTED to do this trip, i wasnt forced to do it. i took vacation days from work to do this. i just wanted to clear up that not everything is bad, there have been plenty of great moments along the trip. its just not easy, thats all.
back to what happened today.
it was a slow start, i slept through 3 alarms, so i got going later than i wanted to. once i got going it took quite awhile to warm up, but then my right knee began to act up. it has given me problems before on the trip, but i can usually adjust to make it go away. this time it kept getting worse, so i had to pedal with one leg for a few miles. that didnt work out, so it was grind through the butt AND knee pain now.
it got to the point where i was going less than 10mph, and stopping about every mile or so. i finally got to a kmart and picked up two important items: aleve and a "granny cruiser special" bike seat. i took too many aleve, and swapped out the seat, the seat worked out great right away. the aleve kicked in about an hour later, and worked out better than i had hoped. it was then that i really kicked into high gear and covered some serious ground. i made it into pinconning with less than an hour of daylight left, but decided that i wasnt done yet. i pressed on another 20 miles and made it into bay city in the dark. it was 135 miles today, and a top speed of 39! (that hill was huge!)
i am looking forward to getting the last leg done tomorrow, as i need to be back so that i can depart for Germany on tuesday afternoon. not much time to recover, but ill be ok as long as i can get packed and sleep in my own bed.
im sure this trip has taken some years off my life, but it has been a very good experience overall. thanks again to everyone that is following, supporting or otherwise helping me get throgh this.
i will have a short post tomorrow after i finish, but hopefully a more detailed one to follow while i am overseas, maybe filling in some missing points from some of the previous days.
its very late now, and i still have some work to do tomorrow... not done yet.
time for bed.
