Longest day yet

   I knew that today would be a test of my will, 65 miles to reach my cousin Niffy in Boca Ratan.  Starting off at 7:08, I rode four hours and forty-five minutes before I reached the fifty mile mark.  The sky was blue with barely a cloud and sun beat down on me unmercifully. With water sweating out of me faster than I realized, I began to bonk.  My body was telling me to stop but I persisted. Pouring down the water brought me back to life and allowed me to push onward.  A1A followed the coast with jogs across the inland waterway to get around water outlets to the ocean. The bridges are steep and short, challenging my legs as I shifted down to my granny gear.  The views on top were always panoramic, worthy of a few photo opportunities. The economic disparity between the numerous communities I passed through varied enormously.  The wealth in Palm Beach was over the top.  Huge mansions with lavish landscaping including thirty foot hedges. The whole place reeked of gross conspicuous consumption. When I stopped for lunch at the Palm Beach Publix grocery store, I had to sit on the ground to eat for lack of benches. After forty minutes a woman employee came out of the store and pointedly asked what my destination was. It was a subtle way of figuring out if I was homeless.  No benches for the homeless to sit.  I was not impressed and if anything, I was disgusted by the stores atttitude.
    I pushed through the last fifteen miles, dealing with mild hand numbing, stiff arms and sore behind. The last bridge in Boca Ratan I crossed was a blow torch, over one hundred degrees.  Finally, I entered a gated community where I found my cousin’s house. From that point on, I went from being beaten upon to being treated like royally. After cleaning up, George Ligeti (Niffy’s husband) gave me the tour of his shop. Loaded with state of the art equipment, he had an amazingly little shop of four hundred square feet. Definitely a new world woodworker, I hope I can persuade him to learn joinery and how to use the associated handtools.   Next stop was to a nice restaurant where we gabbed about everything, a really good time was had.  After loading up on chocolate at a store near the restaurant, we cruised home where we settled into a movie (SOLO) in their theater room.  You have to see this set up, two tiers of seating of divinely comfortable sofa chairs, eight by ten foot roll down screen over a library breakfront; the room could easily fit twenty people.  The only thing missing was the concession stand and the smell of popcorn.
   I will be here for two nights. My room has its own bathroom and lounge room; almost too much for me to handle given my austere way of living....but I love it.  Tomorrow, repairing the bike by tightening the spokes and adjusting the gear cable is priority.  My remaining days on the road, I want to keep under fifty miles a day.