Bicycle Journey Progress

The journey begins on July 29th and ends on September 11th, 2023

Ride Progress: ABOUT TO START!
Daily summaries:
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75

quinta-feira, 12 de abril de 2012

Big accident near Atlanta




Now a nice coffee

I'm under the impression this trip is just an excuse to eat a LOT for to full months... Hehehe





Lunch time!!

We found a mall and its time to recover the energies!




Found some nice shades!!




Talk about low standards... LOL




Perfect weather

Today we're having some very nice weather, we can see the ride to a Atlanta will be very pleasant!

18 miles done, just 20 to go!





Bike lane

Getting out of Covington now!





This is all we need

Water, moisturizer and chocolate milk... perfect!!




Summary of days 5, 6, and 7

Day 5

This day we had planned to go from Walterboro to a state park called Barnwell State Park. There camping was not guaranteed, and we were not even sure if we would find any bathrooms around. Besides it was quite far and we would end up getting there at night. So we decided to change our route and go to a small city a few miles to the north called Denmark.

This day we learned how to escape a dog chasing us down the road. We were chased by one Pit bull, two Rottweilers, one German Shepherd and a handful of other dogs. Its incredible how owners won't leash or chain these dangerous dogs. I guess anyone walking down this path would be dead by now.

Right upon arrival we noticed that was a unique place. The first thing I noticed is that the whole population seemed to be black. This is quite odd in a country where so many cultures and backgrounds are usually prominent. Most of the houses were old and in need for repairs. There a festival was going on. Lots of people were on the streets, and there was loud music and food everywhere. Everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun.

We crossed the city and found the only hotel around, called Carolina Inn, where we decided to stay. Its a shame I ended up not taking pictures or videos in this city. We thought the hotel would be in downtown, but it turned to be far away from it and we were too tired to go back late at night.

Here is a summary of the road leading to Denmark:


The room was OK. We then left our stuff and went down the street with our bicycles to buy food for the night and for the breakfast. Thankfully we slept well, because the following day was quite hard.


Day 6

This was probably the hardest day of all up to this point. Because we had changed our route, we then faced not the originally planned 50 miles, but 63 instead. Our goal was to reach a hotel in Augusta, GA, and based on our experience of the previous days we though we could do it without much problem. However, after the first 20 miles we started to get hills and more hills... the plain roads were over. The following 15 miles were very, very difficult. What would have taken us 2 hours to complete took about 4 and a half:


After 12 hours on the road, we arrived in Augusta and into our "camping"... and for our surprise, what we thought to be an RV parking was actually a mobile home parking. Not a camping at all.. besides, lots of questionable individuals were walking around that parking, so we decided to move on. With the smartphone we found a Days Inn hotel close by, and without further options we decided to stay there.

That was a hardcore day.


Day 7


On the previous night we were so tired we had decided to stay one day resting in Augusta. But we slept up to 10:00am and woke up well, legs not hurting so much and felling good for a ride. So we found a campground in the middle of the forest, about 39 miles from where we were, and decided to go there slowly, enjoying the day.

That was a great day. The weather was perfect: sunny but not too hot. The roads had hills but since we were going slower, it didn't seem too hard. The whole ride was great. We passed through the Wrightsboro Historic Route, where we saw houses built during the period of colony in the US, and many places dated from the 1700s. We stopped many times to look at things, and in one of the houses I saw a broken window so I went down the bike to see what was inside. There I saw shelves, and machines probably from the early 1900s. That was probably a store of some kind... after a few minutes we moved on.

The only downside was that, since we were riding slower, it was getting really late and the sun was about to set. And, to our surprise, after few miles the pavement ended. We saw a big feline we couldn't identify crossing the road. We also saw a fox, very orange, almost read, with a white tip of fur in the tail. As the night was approaching, we were hearing more and more sounds in the forest that surrounded us. As we moved forward to avoid the night in the jungle, we reached a turn point full of old cards and junk, and we decided to cross it since it would connect us to the road. There nothing happened, we crossed without problems and soon after we reached the road we arrived in the campground.


This was a very special campground. Joking between us in the days that followed I started calling it "campground from hell". This one deserves its own post. I'll jot down all the details as soon as we arrive in Atlanta tonight.

Cheers,
Eduardo



Almost ready to leave!

Today we're going towards Atlanta. It will be just 38 miles! It will be a nice ride.