Steel nerves needed for route 17

 Wide eyed at 5:30, my mind was on the ride today on route 17.  Zander laid out breakfast before he left for work at 6:00.  With everything packed  at 7:35, I weaved my way out of his neighbor and south I headed.  There were various roads that helped me avoid 17 but inevitably I had to face it.  Rush hours is not a good time to ride this road but that is where I found myself. Where the minuscule shoulder ridable I was able to reduce the stress but the barrage of cars kept up for a good two hours. Service roads and various back roads also helped but not enough. Just as I was to begin the final ten miles to Georgetown, a fellow rider on foot suddenly appeared out of nowhere.  It was Bruce Nisley who stayed with his wife Sonja at my house two weeks ago. Sonja spotted me, recognizing my Ortlieb panniers and the fact that I was riding solo. A mini reunion ensued over coffee and scones at a swish development with a restaurant just behind us.  They were back tracking from Georgetown to Myrtle Beach to catch a plane to the Bahamas to help with the recent explosion of Covid cases.  They are both nurses and work through a religious mission.  I lined them up with Zander Law who I stayed with last night.  Aside from them staying with Zander and Kai tomorrow night, they will be storing their bikes there for several weeks.  

After we headed off in opposite directions my ride was considerably more tolerable than earlier. Rush hour had ended.  I never thought I would be ecstatic over road work with one of the lanes closed but for three miles I had the cruise lane all to myself.  Finally after low gearing my bike over one long Inter Coastal Waterway bridge I arrived in Georgetown. Nice old houses were plentiful as I rode down a side street paralleling 17. After buying lunch at a Food Lion, I found my campground about a mile off a side road. I set my tent up with a great view of a river/inlet.  Cleaned up, talked with Betsy, had Domino’s pizza for dinner and climbed into  my tent for the duration.  Tomorrow I need to bike fifty-nine miles to reach Charleston.  The road will go through a coastal  preserved with no towns tor miles. The traffic is considerably less through this area.

Passed into South Carolina

 Avoiding any possible Hazardous debris on the campground road I walked my bike out to the road.  With the wheels rolling by 8:00, I left Holden Beach and headed for Myrtle Beach.  It seemed like forever riding in North Carolina so passing into South Caroline was nice.  For the next fifty-one miles the roads varied between back and main roads.  Once again the shoulders were near to non existent.  Thank God for my rear flashing light and my flag.  It kept the cars at bay.  Only one Bridge over the Inter coastal waterway was a bit tense.  The trick is to ride enough into the lane to force the cars and trucks into another lane.  If I hug the side of the road to closely, the traffic passes me with less room.  Also, overt hand signs let’s the drivers know my intentions far in advance. 

After two stops for food and drink, I made it to my warm showers destination on the western side of Myrtle beach out a few miles from the shore.  Kai and Zander, my warmshowers hosts newly married a week ago, were very welcoming.  This includes their two Siamese cats.  One was just rescued and was hiding under my bed until we made friends. I was tge first one to break the ice. Their  house is a tasteful row house in a large suburban development, next to a pond and access to a swimming pool.  Sander cooked me  up an Aldi’s pizza and with a cold IPA it was a good way to chill down..  A road trip to the grocery store I picked him up a six pack of IPAs and two bananas to ward off the leg cramps. Turns out he is a woodworker, the second in three days so bonded well. He being  thirty-four and me Seventy-one, we have that common bond of fine woodworking.  I encouraged him to contact me with any woodworking questions he might have. I want to pass on what I know so the art doesn’t die. 

With all my trips most everyone is younger than me by a significant amount but it never gets in the way of good camaraderie.  Zander has bicycled both the north coast of Australia and New Zealand.  North Australia is very tropical and you stay clear of the beaches because of the lurking  crocodiles submerged in the water. Some bikers are braver than I am.

Tomorrow my destination is forty-five miles south to a campsite in Georgetown. First I will have to bicycle south east to the Myrtle beach madness. Further south into the country the traffic thins out considerably. 

A broken cable and a flat tire but I made fifty miles

 After a filling breakfast and farewells  to Angela and Stephane, my wheels started rolling south at 8:12.  Four miles into my ride my derailleur cable separated from the coupler.  A call to Angela brought her former husband to the rescue.  Craig was dropping off their daughter Clementine when I called.  He works on the weekends at a bike shop so he knew his stuff.  Mystic Cycle Center over hauled my bike before this trip and have caused me two out of three avoidable breakdowns.  I will be dealing with them when I return.

Forty-five minutes behind, my ride began again in earnest.  Nice roads for a while, including s ferry from Fort Fisher across to Southport but then I turned onto route  211 which was less than safe with a narrow shoulder with fast moving traffic.  After over two hours of this tense ride, I broke for lunch at a Subway and a few miles further down the road turned onto Old Stone Chimney Road, a windy pleasant road. Along the way I saw my second Confederate flag flying mixed in with Trump banners... sickening.  Unwisely taking directions from the girl behind the Subway counter, I missed the turn to Shallotte and ended up on route 130 a few miles from the water, eight miles out of my way.  A mile into the correct route I came across a nice campground which was my intent to begin with.  Ss it turned out there were no other campgrounds in the area. Fifty-one miles ridden, I was tired and hot.  No sooner than I checked in and was following the owner in her golf cart to my site than I realized I had another damn flat tire, my third.  After the hassle of changing the tube, setting up my tent snd cleaning up, I went to the office where the owners and I ordered take out.  So two breakdowns but I made it over fifty miles to a campground.  Tomorrow I have a warmshowers in Myrtle beach fifty-four miles away. Pray that the bike performs well.

First day off, shelter from the storm

 Angela and Stephane opened their house to me making me feel very much at home.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner were excellent; Stephane, being a frenchman, is an excellent cook having trained as a pastry chef.  Watching him preparing dinner was fascinating, talking with his french accent, cutting, cooking and prepping was one fluid motion. 

 It was such a relief not to have to ridden in the driving rain with the wind in my face. They saved me. One step further, Angela gave me the keys to her Mini station wagon.  I drove with extreme care down to the Wilmington historic district and later the North Carolina battleship built during the war.  Once back at “home” I took a nap in the afternoon followed  by a tour of Stephane’s home shop where he is restoring a sixties vintage silver shadow Rolls Royce. There is not much this man doesn’t know how to do.  It will be my task to bring him into the work of hand joinery and classic furniture making. 

For dinner, Stephanie made a culinary delight of pot roast followed by a type of lemon custard pie with blueberries. Of course, there was an abundance of beer, wine and great conversation.  They have an invitation to visit my home in Connecticut.  Matching their hospitality will be a challenge.

No shoulder, great ending

 From the moment I arrived at Ray’s house in Sneads ferry, he feed until I nearly popped. Three large meals in less than eighteen hours. Before I left he whipped up homemade waffles for breakfast.  In turn I demonstrated to Ray my stretching exercises.  He was feeling his age and I explained the importance if loosening up in the morning along with a tall glass of water.  

On the road at 7:48, an immediately made a four mile mistake but got into the groove for four hours untill I reached Wilmington. Routes 201 and 74 had no shoulder at all which made the cycling a bit stressful. Staying far enough out in the lane forced drivers to switch lanes. Although I was constantly checking my rearview for what was coming up on me from behind.  The few jerks who me close got the finger but I made it through safely.  Once I entered Wilmington proper Google map tortured me by sending me to Mars but I suspected foul play and rebooted for the correct directions.  Fifty miles behind me, I arrived at Angela and Stephane’s house in Wilmington.  Angela greeted me and her daughter Clementine got me a glass of water and offered me a donut immediately, great kid.  A delicious IPA, cheese and pate followed, pure heaven.  We talked straight for an hour about everything and I learned that Stephane ( a frenchman) made kitchen cabinets and was making progress in becoming a furniture maker. We have a lot in common. After cleaning up and a brief nap, Angela drove me down to meet Stephane at his shop.  Stephane and I struck it off right from the get go. With dinner approaching I sprung for the wine, beer and pizza and we went back to the house and dined on the back patio.   A fun time was had by all. Angela told me how she had bicycled  four hundred mikes with her three year old daughter (Clementine, now eleven) between her saddle and the handlebars on a custom seat.   The route she took traverses the country and commemorates women pioneers, “Madonna of the Trails”.  It is marked by twelve statues of a woman with babes in arms or something like that.  I need to do more research. Another subject, Angela had played college woman’s baseball but can not get Stephane to relate to the game.  It bores him. I explained to him that baseball is a game of life with its successes and failures. Perhaps, his light bulb clicked on. 

Tomorrow with 100% rain predicted plus 14 mph winds from the SSE, they readily agreed to let me stay another day; my first break of my trip.  Tomorrow I will check out downtown Wilmington.

An act of kindness

 Wide eyed and restless, I was out of my tent at 5:00.  In the dark with my headlamp on,  the tear tire and tube was replaced with my emergency tire and tube.  Not simple but the job got done and I packed up.  Tom, Steve and I rolled out of the RV campground in Emerald Isle at 8:12.  A block later we were climbing over another long bridge connecting the outer banks to the mainland.  Over the last several days, I have ridden over at least a dozen of these bridges.  New or old, all of them are stressful to get over. The shoulders are usually around six feet to eight feet but the debris which includes metal shards and fine wire from blown tires renders half of the shoulder unusable.  This where Tom and I probable developed our flats. About several miles later I had to turn south to get Sneads Ferry where my warmshowers host was located. Tom and Steve were headed west. Fifteen miles on route 24 bought me right into Jacksonville, North Carolina. There was a bike shop. A wave anxiety left me immediately.  There I had the rear tire and tube replaced.  The emergency spare was repacked.  Before heading down a block to have lunch I had a nice talk with a guy about my age.  He was impressed with my riding adventures. After lunch, I returned to the bike shop to retrieve my bike. The guy working on it informed that the man I had been speaking to return to the shop and paid for the new tire and tubes.  What a nice act if kindness to a complete stranger.  He left and the shop guys did not know who he was.  So I will simply pass on the favor when the opportunity arises. 

One on the road again I spotted off in the distance Tom and Steve again, recognizing their rear flashing lights.  Catching up  to them as they were taking a break, they had taken the long route on back roads and I had taken the more direct route on a busy four lane road.  Tom’s navigational skills rival mine....not so good. We bid farewell for a second time as they stayed straight and I turned left. A few turns and four plus miles, forty-eight over all, I arrived at Ray’s house, my warmshowers host.  Both of us born in 1949 two weeks apart and avid long distance bicyclists, we hit it off. He made lunch and dinner, did my laundry and we talked about our biking adventures and many other subjects.  Tomorrow morning he is making me waffles and with luck I hope to be with another warmshowers host tomorrow night.

Some company along the way

      5:00 AM is an ugly hour to arise  but I was not going to miss my 7:30 ferry from Ocracoke to Cedar Island.  Thanking my warmshowers hosts, Dave and Sue Jones,  I turned on my bike lights and made it to the ferry  terminal in the minutes; as always I was an hour early.  While waiting for loading to begin,  four touring bicyclists showed up loaded with gear. We hit it off and had a fun two hour fifteen minute ride on the ferry to Cedar Island.  Once on the other side the husband- wife bikers headed off faster than us because of their light load.  They vanished after about half an hour. Tom and Steve, retired nuclear security government employees, and I stayed together for sixty-seven miles.  We tackled three large bridges, one of which had no shoulder causing us to hold up traffic as we made our way over.  After a few breaks along the way and one wrong turn into a golfing community, we made to Emerald City to an RV camping site.  Two miles before reaching our destination, my rear tire developed a slow  leak.  I was able to pump the rear tire up enough to get me there.  Tom helped me change my tube for a new one which unbelievably was punctured also.  Two attempts to patch it failed so tomorrow I will need to switch out the tire and the tube for my last resort spare tire and tube just for wuch occasions. No sooner had Tom and I finished with my tire than he realized his rear tire was flat as well.  We must have run over the same truck tire wire. The road shoulders are loaded with all sorts of tire puncturing debris.  Steve, a Korean who came to the States as a teenager, picked up Chinese food on his bike.  We dined, me with my broken fork, the two of them with two spoons they had.  We had a good time.  

     Tomorrow Tom and Steve have reservations sixty-six miles down the road and I need to find a bike shop to buy new inner tubes. We may cruise tomorrow for a while before splitting up.  They are new to touring and feel they have to have reserved accommodations  I prefer to wing it, not knowing where I will be from day to day.