Sunday June 5th 2005
Morganstown, NC to Orland FL 612 Miles
What can I say about today’s ride other than it was droning on the Interstate all day. However, this 600+ mile stretch was much easier than the last. I took more opportunity to move around on the bike. I figured out a way to hang each leg out to the side in order to straighten out the knee. It seems the ‘stich puts a lot of pressure on the front of my knees. Much like the butt pressure situation blood flow is restricted. I’ll figure it out. I was pushing 80+ most of the day so the MPG was down to 46 or so…. Grin… I was making very good time all day and conditions were good. Again, the wet t-shirt and the evapodana worked great in combination with the full Aerostich suit. I stayed cool all day and it was 90+ all day. On the GA-FL border I ran into some serious thunderstorms. Rain, hard enough to sting through the stich, pelted me for miles! Great torrents of rain! I was wet underneath the suit to begin with, but was even more so after the rain. It didn’t matter; I would be in my hotel room in less than 3 hours at that point!
I saw it coming and actually was looking forward to it, a diversion if you will. I put the cell phone in the top pocket and stored the Starmate radio in the tank bag. It was only a shower so I didn’t put the rain cover on the tank bag. I did button up the suit, but still it would only be a quick shower. It lasted for miles. Soaked me good, it did. Ruined my cigars!
I’m actually writing this from an I-Trolley, a cheap transport for tourists that runs up and down International drive here in Orlando. It’s Thursday and I’m on my way to the Convention center for the last day. Hopefully it is a quick transit, as other days have been agonizingly slow to make the trip. However, this is giving me a good chance to play catch-up with the write-up, something I only managed to figure out this morning. Of course just after that sentence was typed an throng of tourists filled the trolley and I didn’t get back to writing until Friday in the hotel room. A tropical storm has caused me to elect to stay one more day here as opposed to riding into the teeth of heavy rain and wind for the 4 hour drive to Fort Myers.
Once I cleared all the rain, I pulled over to take a short break. In the morning I had decided to use my non-gauntlet gloves to get more airflow up the sleeves. As these were pulled off at the rest stop, I was a bit taken aback by the lovely blue tint to the skin on my hands. It took three days for them to look normal again. The rest of the ride to the Holiday Inn was uneventful. I piled all my ***** on a cart and settled in to my room for the next few days.
[ This message was edited by: JasonS on 2005-06-10 17:15 ]
