Little Fish, Big River, Bigger Cityby scott kurttila

"Man alone with his God must strive."

Day 9 Update From Gainesville, FL

A good friend sent me this quote and it seemed more than appropriate for my journey so far. It reminds me of my favorite movie, "Joe vs. The Volcano" starring Tom Hanks. While many people look at the movie as silly or not that good, if you go beyond the "hollywood" parts, there are some really good messages in the film. I highly recommend you rent it and watch it by ignoring the "dumbness" and paying attention to "the message" in it. It's deep if you look past the comedic effort. I'm reminded of one point, where Joe is in New York City, alone and he invites his limo driver to have dinner with him.

The limo driver declines and Joe says, "There are some doors in life that you have to go through alone."

Even in the short amount of time I've been on the road, my life and soul have grown beyond belief. I feel alive...truly alive. Yet I feel like I'm in a dream, probably due to sugar lows, but this trip has been a strange dream so far. I feel a bit transcended, like I'm not really here, yet I'm more here than I've ever been. I have biked at night, under a full moon, completely alone, on a strange highway with stars dancing above in brilliance. I've stood at the Atlantic, just listening to waves, smelling the salt air, watching pelicans glide overhead while twiddling my toes in sugar-soft sand. I've been in so much pain I just had to pull over right where I was, scream at the top of my lungs and lie down. I've met breast cancer survivors full of joy and thanks. I've seen people with dreams in their eyes who find me inspirational. I've been inspired by others and embraced with kindness wherever I've gone. Except for a certain Burger King in Oakville. More on that later.

Yesterday, as I was cycling through a chilly morning in the Ocala National Forest, I thought about what a woman with breast cancer must go through, how she feels, how unfair the disease is. I then thought of my grandmother and her struggle and as I rode, thinking of all the brave people who face so much more each day than I face on this little joy ride, I began to cry. Here I am, a perfectly healthy 37 year old on a bike, riding along on a sunny saturday through a beautiful forest while crying. Emotions tend to run a notch higher during an endeavor, I think. I find more beauty, more magic, more pain, more strength and more of God in each day than I ever did sitting in a cubicle. Life is one big freakin' miracle. Nature is insanely awesome in her delicate details and her enormous power. A small wind, just a puff will slow me to six miles an hour from eighteen miles an hour. And the wind is invisible. I feel so puny and weak that I can't even push against something I can't see. Man is small. I'm but an ant skittering about on a small rock floating in an enormous universe. It's pretty humbling. But what can one do but go out and grasp onto everything one can? I'm proud of myself for doing this. It's been 1,000 times beyond what I could have hoped so far. And with that, I will give a brief update here of where I've been each day. Then, when I get a computer replacement, I'll go back in a few days and "beef up" and "fill in" all the details for each day more fully as I need to get rolling soon to keep putting more miles behind me. I'm currently in Gainesville, Florida and am on my ninth day of riding. I'm about 650 miles into the trip and am fairly beat up but feeling great. This is easy in many ways and brutal in many others. I'm not sure if I'm getting in shape or just killing myself. In a couple more weeks, I should know.

For those of you who wish to follow my route, You can see it by clicking here but keep in mind that I've altered the first part of the route. I started in Key West, rode North to Ormond Beach (47 miles shy of St. Augustine where that map starts) and I'm staying South of the original route and meeting up with it in Pensacola. From Pensacola on, I'll be sticking to the route on the map.

Day 3 - Key Largo to Miami

I set off early from the campground, around 7:50 a.m. and rode into South Miami. I knew I was there when I rode over empty bullet shells on the sidewalk near a mall. Garbage became a part of the landscape. People regarded me as a strange sight and they stared oddly as I went past. Eventually, I found the green emblem of civilization after many hours...a Starbucks built into revamped gas station. It was drive through. I bought a mocha, donned raingear for the first time. A huge black cloud loomed.

I rode on, another spoke blew...then another. That was three in two days. At an intersection, I stopped at a red light. I put my left foot down and leaned the bike a tad to the right to look back at the spokes and how bad they were. I needed to cut one off since it was hitting the chain as it went around.

Before I knew it, I felt the dead weight of bike and the one-wheeled B.O.B. trailer going over. I couldn't catch it. I went down with it, crashing to the asphalt as drivers regarded me. Crash #2, again at a dead stop. How embarassing. I pulled the bike back up onto the sidewalk after freeing my locked in right foot. I took out a tool and cut the spokes off to keep them from catching and I pressed on. I was getting low on clif bars and at one stop, I saw a running store. I went in and bought Chocolate Java Avalanche Clif bars. I discovered that they are insanely good whereas, Nature's harvest bars taste like recycled vomit with sugar. I won't mince my words.

Additionally, my Smith sunglasses suck. The right lens falls out incessantly. The trailer rocks, aside from taking me down now and then, it feels weightless on the flats for the most part and carries my gear easily. The flag is stupid, though. It says "B.O.B." on it as if it were my name. Luckily, a few miles down the road at a red light, I see an American Flag that has fallen off a car in the middle of the intersection. I can't take the sight of our flag being run over by cars turning left. It's just wrong. I run out during a red light and rescue it. It fits perfectly on my flag pole and "B.O.B." goes in the garbage. I'm now proudly flying the stars and stripes across this great country.

A bit further down the road, I see a bike shop. I go in to get extra spokes and they talk me into a new rim instead since they said spokes will keep blowing. They sell it to me at cost. I find another bike store for the tools I need and I also purchase a pair of shorts and new Transalp Camelback that has more storage room for buying groceries, etc. than the small camelback I've got. I head to an Ace Hardware and purchase a crescent wrench. For some reason they are locked behind glass. They cost $6.99 but are locked up. Weird.

Both bike shops were incredibly nice and I need to dig out my receipts and update this section with their names soon. The second shop gave me a 30% discount on everything I bought. The girl at the second shop tells me to ride through Coral Gables and Coconut Grove. I'm floored. It's an amazing ride through trees dripping with moss along streets that wind through homes of enormous size. Where is all this wealth from? I'm floored. I've never been this close to so much money. I try to calculate out how many dollars of real estate I'm riding over by the minute. It takes me about 3 seconds to ride past a $10 or $15 million dollar home and I do it for a couple hours. I end up eating at Johnny Rockets in Coconut Grove.

I press on to South Beach Miami. It begins to rain, but I'm in full gear. I'm impervious. This rain gear rocks. I could do this all day long. The rain and winds become torrential. The streets and gutters become rivers. It's dark now and the rain is blasting across everything in sheets. I've never seen rain like this in 37 years. But I'm impervious...I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I'm warm and happy and soaked. My laptop and digital camera are safe in my "bomb proof" bag. Winnie the pooh is packed away in my clothing bag. I keep riding and riding. An hour goes by. Now I'm soaked to the skin despite the rain gear. Palm trees are blowing and weaving like in the news casts that show hurricanes. I begin to worry about the storm getting any stronger. I have an hour to go. I keep going.

I finally make one of the bridges that crosses over to Miami Beach. I ride up, exhausted, soaked, cold, sore. At the top of the bridge, I look out over city lights and super yachts below. I turn and look back at Miami. My flag is lit up from headlights of oncoming cars and it's waving madly. I love this moment. I'm doing anything but sitting on a couch watching a game show. I fear that life. I fear sedentary. I am far from it now.

Eventually, I hit South Beach as the rain and wind are still insane. I ride through a puddle in an intersection that is so deep that it is above the axles on my wheels. Even at the top of my pedal stroke, I look down and can't see my feet as they are underwater. I dare not stop and I ride through it. I make it across the 30 foot temporary lake. I find Cafe Milano and my friend Corrado who works there. I park my bike near an awning and walk in among all the neatly dressed customers. I'm a soaked rat. A shivering, soaked rat. I tell the gorgeous Italian hostess that I just rode from Key Largo. I've gone 101 miles today.

She says, "You wanta da table for-uh one-uh?" with a thick accent surrounded by perfect hair, clothing and body. I don't belong here, but I don't care. I'm freezing and starving and I'm in one of my favorite restaurants. I get seated at "our table" where LoLo and I sat during a dinner we had here when we visited during New Year's week earlier this year. Corrado greets me with an accent that puts an "a" or "uh" on the enda of-uh everything-a.

"Howa are-uh you-uh, my goodah friend-uh?" I laugh and reply that I'm well. I point to my bike and tell Corrado what I'm doing. I notice that the awning has become a waterfall with so much water pouring off of it, it's like a window to look through. My bike is right under it. Luckily, again, I think about the laptop and camera safe in their bag.

I order mushroom polenta, a glass of red-a wine-uh and some sirloin tips on spinach salad. It's amazing. I decline lemoncella as I'm getting hypothermia. I head out after some nice people talk to me about my ride and take my photo. I find the Villa Luiza and as I approach, I notice a nice smooth ramp right up to her front door. I start to ride at full speed to make the ramp. At the last second, I notice that it's not a ramp because there is a funny yellow line through it. It's a puddle that has overtaken the sidewalk. I hit the brakes, but it's too late. I smash into the yellow curb, fly forward off my seat as my feet unclip from the pedals and I rack my groin so hard on the handlebars that it takes a layer of the material off of my long rain pants. I want to cry or lie down but I'm too cold and tired. I go inside and am greeted by Tony who wants to talk all about bike rides. I'm happy to do so and eventually a huge puddle forms around me inside the lobby.

I get a room and have to pay cash (?) $50...by going to the ATM at the Marriott next door. He warns me about keeping my key with me and not leaving my door open for security reasons. I'm a bit lost. The room is treacherously wonderful. More later.

Fast Forward to Day Four

I visit the News Cafe for breakfast after replacing the rim entirely with the new one. I pulled out my laptop to make an update and found that the bombproof bag was filled with a gallon of water. My one week old digital camera is floating in it. I had left the flap in the wrong place over the zipper and the bag made of rubber raft material had filled with water under the awning. My reaction to seeing the water draining out of the laptop was simply "huh" stated as a curious observation. I spend the morning eating breakfast with the nicest server on the planet who made a donation. Evelyn, I believe. I have it written down but it's in the bag outside on my bike.

I call a few places looking for a laptop replacement. No one has one. I give up. I call a friend of a friend, Phil and go to his condo down the road. I get online and order a new laptop from Sony and a new camera from Amazon.com. Luckily, Visa covers the cost within 90 days of a loss if you purchase using Visa. I spend the day watching football with Phil and trying to repair the camera and laptop by dousing them in alcohol to dry them out. It doesn't work but it might have had I caught the mistake right away. Oh well. It's midnight, I haven't ridden. I load up and head out.

Day Five - South Beach Miami to Boynton Beach - 23 hours of riding

As I head north up Ocean Drive, I stop and take in the music for a bit at Mangoe's. I laughed at Phil for telling me how cold it was going to be. Whatever, I can take the cold. I ride north and stop at a Walgreen's for Gatorade then grab a piece of pizza. I keep riding. I cross a huge bridge and for some reason stop at the top. I look over to see the most incredible sight. About 50 pelicans are flying about, diving, fishing. I watch for a minute from 100 feet up. It's a beautiful thing to take in. Then I notice gray backs under the water...DOLPHINS!!!! no...wait...their tailfins are vertical, not horizontal...SHARKS!!!! no, wait...TARPON!!!! HUGE ONES!!!! HUNDREDS!!!!!!!! They are about five feet long, gray backed with huge silver sides. They are right at the surface weaving about and feeding as water flows down the river under the bridge and the pelicans compete overhead. I watch for several minutes amazed at how many people must cross over this and not even know it is happening. It's like my bike. I ride past some people who don't even see me. Others stop and watch with the eyes of dreamers and I know these people will someday do something like this. It's as if there are "robots" and "humans with souls and dreams." The robots are just getting stuff done, droning through each day. The dreamers are chasing that voice inside that they alone can hear. You can see it people's eyes if you look for it.

I keep riding. I ride all night and then I begin to freeze. I'm going into hypothermia. I am losing feeling in fingers and toes and my teeth are chattering. The wind chill from the headwinds has frozen me and held me to 7 miles an hour for five hours. I'm in "Hollywood" Florida on Highway A1A. Every motel says "OPEN!" "VACANCY!" but no one answers their doorbell. I'm getting desperate. I find a construction site for a parking lot near the beach. I go to the back stairwell figuring I could hide out there from the wind and people and warm up. I pull the garbage can over to block the wind.

I'm still frozen. I pull out my sleeping bag and crawl in. I start to warm up. It's 5:40 a.m. Then I wake up. It's 6:30 a.m. A bald, black cop is standing over me, not saying a word. His arms are crossed. His radio crackles.

"Did you get rid of that bum yet?" the voice says statically from some other place. The cop ignores it and just keeps staring at me. He reads the sign on my bike. I apologize and tell him that every stupid motel said open but wouldn't answer their doorbell and I was freezing. He goes into some explanation that I can't do this. Well, I just did. I'm waiting for a ticket that he doesn't write. Instead, he begins to tell me that "when I come back through here..."

I interrupt, "Dude, I'm going to San Diego, you're never going to see me again. I'm not coming back through here. Trust me." I notice some fishing line in my chain ring as I'm talking. I sit there in my slightly thawed stupor and begin to slowly unravel the greasy mess. The cop is still waiting. I plan on taking my time. The fishing line is from an intersection near Key Biscayne from before the rains hit. I was crossing over and noticed a bit of line in the roadway. I ignored it. The it was caught in my left ankle and started slicing me like a cheese cutter. I fought to get my foot free but couldn't. Finally, I stopped in the middle of the intersection and untangled my foot. Over the next three days, I was to notice that the same line was bundled into my trailer wheel, my front hub, my chain ring and my rear derailleur. I'm going to have a neat scar across my left ankle. Must've been marlin line or something.

I bundle up my sleeping bag and move on from Hollywood as the sunrise is exploding beautifully along the beach. I wish I had a camera. I meander on up the coast in strong headwinds right in my face. I meet wonderful people, stop at wonderful beaches, take photos with a disposable. The bike tries to fall over again at another intersection but I catch it by getting my right foot out and down. I also catch the chain ring in my leg. I have three puncture holes from the teeth on the gear.The grease stings but seems to keep the bleeding down. I hit a Walgreen's and buy some "liquid bandaid" which is to become my new favorite thing. You just paint it on and you're good to go. I've discovered that it works great on mosquito bites, too. It looks like you have dried snot all over you, but it keeps the itching and bleeding down. People are too cool while I repair myself. They make donations and brighten my day with good luck wishes. I keep rolling. I pedal until 10:30 at night. I've gone about 23 hours not including the one hour accidental nap in Hollywood. I've only made 69.87 miles for all that time. I had to stop every half hour to rest. It was a brutal day.

I pull into some motel. I can't recall this part of the trip. I think I'm in West Palm Beach but I need to go back through my receipts and work it out and fill in later.

Day Six ~

The next day, I plow on another 50 or 60 miles against headwinds and end up in Port Salerno. Again, the day has been amazing and there are a lot of details to fill in later. I think the highlight was coming down off of a bridge at a good clip with a car behind me. I moved into the shoulder as fast as I could to get out of his way. A lot of the bridges are narrow and cars are held up while I ride over. As I cut into the shoulder, I'm a bit hasty and discover that, like most every bridge, there is some "gift" on the downhill side. This gift happens to be a patch of sand. I hit the sand hard and fast, go for the brakes. I skid and slide and wobble like crazy. The trailer starts to whipsaw/fishtail. I'm going to go down. I can't make it back to the pavement and stability due to my trajectory. The grass is soft and the ground begins to absorb my tires. I wobble down to about 10 mph and then my front wheel jacknifes and I slam. I hear one of my signs crack as my should hits the ground and my shin slams the top cross bar of my bike frame. It feels broken but isn't. Just a bruise. I get up and pedal one block to the King Neptune restaurant which was a fantastic meal. One of the locals, John, buys my dinner for me as a donation after checking out my ride. A family next to me, "Cache Farms" gives me directions on a napkin. People are amazingly nice. I thought I would be so alone on this trip and it's quite the opposite. I ride until I find the Sandsprit Park. I sit and hang out, choose a picnic table to set up camp on. A Wiemeraner comes trotting by and its owner, Mark comes by soon after. Mark is a blast. We chat and hang out for an hour or so. I start to go through my stuff and before I know it, Mark is back. He brought Ben & Jerry's. They guy is a godsend. He tells me all about Florida, his family their bikes, things to see, things he's done. He got busted by his wife once for teaching his 12 year old daughter how to drive from the parking lot near me to their house up the hill. The dog chases unseen animals up all the trees. Eventually, Mark leaves and I give a glance for meteors in the sky but it's too cloudy to see the showers. I opt for just taking in the full moon and sleeping in the open air, just sleeping bag, pad and no tent. The picnic table makes me feel like a king on a pedestal as I doze off. I wake up early, pack up and roll after trying to take some pics of cute white birds picking through the grass. Florida is glorious.

Day Seven ~ Will the Coast Ever End?

I( keep riding in headwinds all day. I eventually pass through Vero Beach. It's significant for some reason and now I can't recall why. I'll have to go back through my reciepts and see what it was that I did there. Ug. Oh... I think I remember. I was full of myself. Feeling like a bigshot. The sun had been out all day and it was extremely hot. I took off my jersey and rode shirtless with just a camelback on. I had this down. I'm a road warrior.

People would look at me and say, "Wow...there goes that guy! That superstar! Just look at him, how he shines! Wow. He's a Golden God!!!!"

It was around 4:30 p.m. or so and it had been such a great day of riding despite headwinds. The coastline was amazing to take in. It's time for Gatorade restocking. I pull up next to a green car with a blonde girl driving it. She's startled by me saying "excuse me" through her open passenger window as she sits at the light. I ask her where I might find Gatorade but notice that from the looks of her body, she might not have ever thought about shopping for it. Not to put her down, it's just that exercise was obviously not on her agenda. As she began to think, I felt the familiar tug on the inside of my right thigh.

"Oh, crap," I thought to myself, "here I go again!" and down I went, right in between the left turn lane and the right turn lane at a busy intersection approaching the beach drive. The girl was telling my left shoe that there was a 7-11 down the road about a mile. I stood up, thanked her, righted my bike yet again and off I went again.

A note on falling. As I type this, it's been nine days on the road and I've gone down six times at a dead stop and once coming off the bridge. I calculate out that I have approximately 21 to 25 more falls if I finish this trip in thirty to forty-five days. So much for being "the Golden God." I am humbled daily with falls it seems. The stuffed pooh bear groans every time I'm pulling the trailer back to upright. I'm surprised he hasn't flown out of the cargo net yet.

I end up finishing the day in Melboure Shores, I believe. Again, I need to check receipts over the last few days to see where I landed at night.

Day Eight ~ left turn

At last, I get up, move out and make it to Cocoa Beach and the Ron Jon surfshop. I love the small surfing towns. I want to just pull over and buy a board and stay awhile. But I have to keep going. I weave my way through Melbourne and end up eating some Buffalo Wings at Hooter's. For some reason it seems appropriate. My server is De Vonaie (pronounced "devonnay") and she's nice at first. A bit somewhere else in thought, but nice. Turns out, she's pregnant but excited. She's around 21. I eat outside and recharge the battery on my iPod which is my source of music. Without it, I'd be lost. The miles are 100 times longer without music and I constantly thank Mike George and his family for throwing over 600 songs on it for me before I left. I added another 800 or so while packing up and so I've got 1406 songs to listen to. I set it to "random" every day and get a wild mixture from rap to classical to Britney Spears to Van Morrison.

After De Vonae gives me her life story, she disappears and another server has to finally cash me out. The girl is very nice and gives me directions to Circuit City. I head there and purchase a voice recorder and batteries so that I can easily take notes from here on out of where I've been, observations, etc. It's a godsend and will be a vital part of filling in these sections later on.

I hit a bike shop that doesn't have the three ring chain ring I'm going to need for hills. I keep rolling. I pass Cape Canaveral. I meet a nice couple at a Chevron in a mini-van who make a donation as their son Nikkie yells out questions from the back seat. The station is attened by Ed Clark who is an astronomy fanatic and this extremely friendly guy who greets every customer with some sort of happy hello. He's seen 100 of 104 shuttle launches and self-published a book since he's also a photographer. I plan on trying to buy it from Amazon once I get home. I roll on and land at the Lipponia Motel.

Day Nine??

I've somehow lost track of the days, etc. I think I have too many days and motels entered here and need to go back to straighten it out. I ride to Daytona Beach, accidentally take a right and then I find myself riding along on the beach itself for five miles. Cars are driving down the beach, too. It's like nothing I've ever seen or heard of. I'm plowing along, the sand is flat and hard and it's the coolest way to say "goodbye" to the Atlantic as when I hit Ormond Beach on the end, I turn left and head west on Highway 40...finally...after more than 500 miles, I'll be heading WEST!!!!

I ride about five miles on the beach and notice that I'm getting pretty tired as the sand takes a bit more strength to ride on. The headwind still puffs away at my face to slow me a bit, too. I'm finally there. Ormond Beach. I turn left, off the sand and head up onto the street and Highway 40. I need a break and sunblock. My left calf, arm and ear are feeling burned since I'm ran out yesterday. I stop at a bikini store, purchase some sunblock and a "life is good" sticker for my helmet. I traipse to Starbuck's next door. I get a venti iced mocha and a cinnamon scone to munch on. I eat, I rest, I pack up. I've lost my sunglasses. Somehow, somewhere, within a 20 foot space, I've lost my sunglasses. Sure, I hated them and that darn lens...but shoot...it would suck to not have them. They are simply gone. All I can figure is that I left them on the counter at Starbuck's and some opportunist now has a set of glasses that the lens will fall out of incessantly. Fine, he can have them. Visa will cover me for new ones. I just need to find a store in these small towns that carry them. Perhaps the new pair will hold the lenses better.

I ride on into the night until it gets down to 40 degrees. It's utterly freezing and the highway is treacherous. I've only got the white line and no shoulder to ride on for much of the way. I pull over to a small pizza shop and there are two young girls and a guy joshing around and cleaning up. They give me some directions to campgrounds, etc. I forget the name of the pizza shop now, but it's in my voice recorder so I can add it later.

I press on until I find a Subway/Gas station. The people inside are nice. Subway's bread machine broke so I opt for salad. I stock up on pringles and gatorade and chat with "Chuck" for a bit outside. I talk to a nice family who pulls up. The mom is a breast cancer survivor and the son and daughter are really nice to each other. It's great to see that in America instead of the typical fighting and yelling among siblings. I love small towns. I wish they could all be small. Or I at least wish that city people kept the small town attitude even though they live in a city. I feel safe and at home where ever I go on these small roads.

I make my way to the Juniper Springs campground, tired, frozen, 87 miles later. I ride through looking for a camping spot. I help one group of kids find wood from another group of campers. I eventually find a small band of people who are kind enough to fill my fuel bottle for my stove. They also offer me a beer. I take it. Then they offer me some pot. I decline, of course.

The sweat starts to chill my body a lot. I check my thermometer on my watch. It's 40F. I pull out my sleeping bag and have to crawl in it to cook. I fire up the stove to make macaroni/cheese and tuna and realize that I don't have water. I boil orange Gatorade instead. It seems to work okay. Cheese is orange. Gatorade is orange. I'm in Florida. They grow oranges here. It's all good.

I eat as much as I can, set up my tent, toss my garbage so I don't attract bears (yes, there are bears down here, i guess) and I fall asleep. I wake up late. 7:44. I'm really starting to get peeved at myself for constantly getting a late start, then riding late, then sleeping in. I'm totally on the wrong pattern. I want to be asleep early, up early. It turns out, it's almost safer to ride at night, though. There are no headwinds so I make better time. There is a car about every 10 or 15 minutes instead of every second. I see the headlights coming long before the car arrives by keeping an eye on my rearview mirror. It just feels a lot safer. I feel far more visible at night, too. I've got reflective clothing, flashing lights, flying flag, etc. During the day, I think I blend with the landscape too much. And cars whip past me with no warning. I ride all day long and reach Gainesville at night. I pull over when I'm almost here bc I heard that there would be a shuttle launch. I meet Bruce, Wife and kids from Connecticut at a pullover area with a bridge that extends out into a marsh. We wait, we had the time wrong. The shuttle launches at 7:50, not 6:50. I ride on toward town looking for a spot Bruce told me about that is even better for viewing. I don't find it. But at one intersection, I look up and there it is.

Wow. The space shuttle. It's a huge glowing orange stream just racing through the sky. I'm standing next to Circle K. It feels ironic. Here I am next to a convenience store while astronauts are soaring up to the International Space Station. I feel like I'm exepeiencing the full spectrum of man from convenience stores to space travel all at once. I'm tired and cold. I find the Java Lounge which was supposed to be an internet cafe according to the kids who took over my camping spot this morning. It's not. It's a coffee shop. So, I pack up my gloves and wallet and ride to find the copy shop that is open 24 hours and has internet access. I find it but am so cold and wet from sweat that I need a motel.

I pull into Holiday Inn. It's $97 a night. No way. The guy at the front desk is nice enough to call around. He finds me The Gainesville Lodge for $36 a night just down the street. I walk out to my bike and trailer and discover that my wallet is just sitting on the trailer cargo net in front of the pooh bear. I'm floored. I must've left it there while stuffing other items into the pack on the trailer at the Java Lounge. How it just rode there for the past mile of u-turn, sidewalks, city streets, intersections, more u-turns, bouncing curbs, etc. I'll never know. I think God is watching out for me. I give him a well-deserved "thank you" and head to the Lodge. It's seedy. I love the seedy places. I order Dominoe's Pizza and wings even though I'm craving Chinese food. Go figure.

I watch TV after gorging on 10 wings and two medium pizzas. It was a special. I ate half of each of the pizzas and left the rest. I also ordered a liter of coke for some odd reason bc I need a break from Gatorade and water. I was so tired that I fell asleep and failed to even open the Coke.

I had planned on sleeping a few hours then coming here to the copy shop for the internet connection in the middle of the night before setting out early. I woke at 3...dying of thirst. I find my camelback in the dark and suck on the tube for five minutes. I fall back asleep. I wake up at 5, again, dying of thirst. I drain the camelback this time. It's time to get up. No, wait...just five more minutes. My body feels racked even though I only did 69.98 miles yesterday with hills and some winds. I wake up again at 7. Crap...I need to get going. No wait...just five more minutes. I wake up again at 8:55. Okay, that does it. I'll never make it if I keep sleeping my life away.

I get up, I shower quickly noticing that "Sweet Bouquet" soap that has monopolized every motel in Florida now has a new line called "Aroma." I try the Botanical Shampoo and it smells and feels like pure chemical laundry detergent. I pack up and hit Starbuck's then check email. I then blog a bit. I hit Starbuck's again. It's now 2 p.m. I've lost most of today's riding and it's perfect weather but I feel better about getting this big update in here. I can't wait to get the replacement computer soon. I hate going for so many days and forgetting so many details without being able to update. With that...I'm outta here. Pensacola is the goal in a few days. That will put me on the edge of Florida so I can finally reach a new state -- Alabama. I'm hoping to pick up my laptop somewhere around there in a few days. Until then...the pedals will be turning, the crotch will be raw, the hands, neck, back and legs will be aching but my soul will continue to soar.

Onward!

Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

by scott kurttila

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