The Early Bird Gets The Waffles

My morning started earlier than I originally planned because I had to finish yesterday’s update which didn’t get entirely finished last night. Actually, I barely started it. But it wasn’t entirely my fault. The bed provided by Ray and Melinda was clearly a bed where consciousness goes to die. Despite my best efforts to stay awake, the bed eventually consumed me and didn’t release me from its grasp until 6:30.

Freed from the bed’s grip, I uploaded yesterday’s update before heading downstairs for breakfast. As mentioned yesterday, breakfast was to be waffles à la Ray. And they were great. And filling. And did I mention great? Makes me wonder why I didn’t take a photo. Probably because I was too busy enjoying the waffles.

As much as I was enjoying my stay at Ray and Melinda’s, it was time to move on once again. In addition to waking to an unfinished blog and waffles, I also woke to an e-mail from Bob – another host with WarmShowers.org. I had sent him an e-mail last night and his response this morning indicated that he, and his wife Nancy, were available to host. I now had a destination for the day – Southport. About 110 km away.

By 9:00, my bike was loaded up and I was back on the road. Rather than return directly to Highway 17, Ray had recommended taking a bit of a detour through Topsail along the coast. There wasn’t much traffic and there was a good bike lane for most of ride – plus there was a great view from the top of the bridge. As detours go, this was a good one.

I’m happy to report that the biggest issue of the day didn’t involve my bike. But there was definitely an issue. At about 2:15, I was about to cross the bridge to Carolina Beach. As I often do, I stopped to take a photo of the sign. Unfortunately, my camera did not want to cooperate. At first the zoom wouldn’t work but the shutter button did. Then, I got the zoom working but the shutter button didn’t. This made no sense as it had all worked fine a few hours ago. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get it working. Sigh. There wasn’t much I could do at that point so I put the camera away and figured I’d deal with it tonight. Not having a camera for the remainder of the ride to Florida clearly isn’t an option.

The toughest part of today’s ride was the last 8 km to the Fort Fisher ferry. There was a bit of a headwind all day but it really picked up near the end of the ride. This made things a bit more challenging as I was attempting to get to the ferry in time for the 3:15 crossing. As frustrating as the wind was, I managed to get to the ferry just as it was boarding. I made a quick call to Bob to inform him of my crossing time as he was planning on meeting me on the other side.

About 20 minutes later, I was leaving the ferry and I met Bob waiting for me on his bike. There was a noticeable absence of wind as we rode the remaining 6 km to his place. Upon arrival, I met Bob’s wife Nancy and their very friendly dog, Lucy. Just to be clear, Nancy was very friendly too! And she makes an incredible apple pie. Seriously. Really incredible. Dinner was excellent as well as we enjoyed pork, salad, and local green beans. We talked trips, sports, cycling, and more. It was all thoroughly enjoyable. For the third time in as many nights, I was once again being hosted by incredibly generous people.

One final note unrelated to anything, a special thanks goes out to Ken for his generous donation to the Crisis. He didn’t specify what I should purchase with his donation so, once I find something worthy, I’ll post a photo. Until then, thanks Ken!

Oh, and one really final note, somewhere along the line my camera seems to have fixed itself. I’ll have to monitor the situation over the next few days.

Today’s totals:
Distance travelled: 113.81 km
Time on bike: 4:52:21
Maximum speed: 46.55 km/h
Average speed: 23.33 km/h