Soggy

Today’s mileage: 53

Cumulative elevation gain: 784 feet

Weather: Wet and windy

Attitude: Soggy, need sun please.

So here we  are for our long awaited rest day on the beach in Surf City, North Carolina. Which also happens to be right in the middle of tropical storm Ana. No sunbathing in store, but the surf certainly is impressive and I can see it from the balcony in front of my room.

This storm has been dogging us, and yesterday, so many people bagged riding that our poor guide had to make two shuttle runs because the van won’t hold all of us and our bikes. A few more people, including me, rode today, and it was actually an OK ride as long as you don’t mind being wet. It rained ALL day, sideways, and it’s still doing it.But it’s warm and we had a stiff tailwind for much of  the way. And nearly all the roads had shoulders or even marked bike lanes.

 One of our riders went down crossing a railroad track and had to take a trip to the emergency room: concussion, stay off the bike for a few days: it could’ve been a lot worse. Thank god for helmets. She went down on the very first of about a dozen tracks we had to cross today to get through the city of Wilmington. We all walked our bikes across the rest of them.

I opted for the 2^nd shuttle yesterday, which allowed me to hang around the hotel and do my washing. Then found a local coffee place and managed to walk there and back without getting rained on. The ride in the van included a half hour ferry ride across the Cape Fear river, near it’s mouth… open ocean out to the east, waves as big as a choppy day on Puget Sound. This is a  tiny ferry, just one of those flat boats that carries maybe a couple dozen cars. I’m surprised they would run it in this weather, but the ride actually seemed pretty smooth. That ferry took us to Carolina Beach, on Pleasure Island. The hotel was just a block or two from the beach, and the sun showed itself long enough for a nice barefoot walk in the sand before dinner.

No pictures for the past couple of days as it's been too wet to get the camera out.