The first layer of hell

So first, you get a sore throat. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but now you have to ride 30 or more miles a day every day. Next it progresses to a fever. Your whole body aches and you're exhausted, but you have to keep riding. As it gets dark you find a suitable place to camp that turns out to be a cactus patch. As you are picking the cacti off of yourself and out from under your tent, a swarm of mosquitos and gnats cover every inch of your exposed skin and you can't hide because your tent can't get staked out until all the cacti is gone. You finally get in the tent and the bugs follow. After what seems like an eternity of swatting and flicking insects you are reasonably satisfied that all your unwelcomed guests are either fed or dead. Now you try to go to sleep but you can't because you're too sunburnt and feverish, and when you finally get some shut eye you have to deal with your inflatable, or uninflatable rather, pillow that needs attention hourly. This has been my life for the past few days, fun to say the least.

It's not all bad news though. The past few days, while some of the worst for me, also included some of the best days for Bryce and I on the trip. Since the last post we've been crusing through the outer banks in North Carolina. You can't camp anywhere around here without paying a hefty fee, which explains the cactus and bug dilema that haunted us the past few nights. But enough about bad experiences, here's the good stuff.

Just before my cold took full effect, we stumbled into Mulligans, a local bar and grill, for one last decent meal before we returned to the rice and beans diet. It was half price burger night, so we couldn't pass it up. We ordered our food and told the bartender our story, but she seemed confused. I think when we said bmx her first thought was of some type of motorbike. Regardless, we headed out to the patio to wait or our food and were soon joined, not by our food, but by the owners son, Aaron.
"Ya'll are goin to Florida on bmx's?!? You're not vegetarian or anything are you?"
Puzzled, we answered,
"No."
"Ok, good, my girlfiends making you guys a plate downstairs."
The next day, while riding and still semi-healthy, we met Don (Bryce insists his name was John, but I repeated 'Don' to him and he confirmed it). Don came upon us as we were eating lunch near the beach and we struck up a conversation. After explaining what we were doing and getting a bit of advice for the road from him he went on his way down the road, but as we put our heads back down to our meal we heard
"I tell you what I'm gonna do".
We looked up to see Don headed back in our direction.
"Heres twenty bucks. Treat yourselves to something nice tonight". And we did.

While enjoying our nice dinner courtesy of Mr. Don, we were interrupted by two men at the bar.
"So how far you guys hiking?"
Seeing our backpacks, a lot of people make this assumption.
"Going to Florida. On bmx bikes actually."
"Those litle bikes out there?!? You (expletive deleted)'s are crazy. Come on, we're buying you guys a beer"
Not being the argumentative type, we agreed to the proposition and explained to them more about the trip in the meantime. After hearing the whole story, Jim and Doug offered us more beers and the extra room at their beach house for the night and an evening of drinking, fishing, and clothes washing (that doesn't really fit in, but it happened) ensued. The one unfortuinate detail they left out was that they were staying with six others, including two children, who were as surprised to see us as we were to see them. Some of the residents were reluctant to let us stay at first, but after getting to know us, hearing our story,and realizing we wouldn't harm them in the night, they allowed it.



The next morning my cold hit full force (I wonder why?), and the skies threatened rain as winds gusted up to 40mph. I attempted to ride but after about five miles of pain and with a drizzle already starting, we surrendered to mother nature and my sickness.

We woke up in the tent hours later and searched for some reasonably priced food to eat. Soon we were directed to the Life Boat Community Church where they offer free dinners on Wednesday nights. Lucky us again. After breakfast for dinner at the life boat, we continued for another 5 or so miles (ok I lied about the 30 miles every day, but it sounded good, right? It was getting dark by then anyways.) and set up for our first night in the cacti.



The next day, I awoke as sick as ever and dehydrated. I hadn't been hungry much since the cold came on, but subway was one thing that sounded appetizing. We stopped there for lunch, picked up some phony nyquil, and then continued on to our planned destination for the previous day, the first ferry crossing. We camped out just after the ferry, again in a cactus patch and a day behind our plan.




The night time sniffling sneezing coughing stuffy head fever knock off seems to have done the trick fairly well. Apart from a little acheyness and continued dehydration, I feel reasonably well. We only rode about 13 miles today, but a 2.5 hour ferry ride took up a good portion of the day. We met some more cyclists, Tom and Tom, who are on a father/son ride from Rhode Island to the keys, and a Canadian couple who were nice enough to set us up for another good meal in the near future. Our second $20 tip in 4 days. I guess there's something in the water down here, southern hospitality is even rubbing off on the visitors.

Right now we're in the tent somewhere just off the ferry (actually we're probably riding, cause it's tomorrow now and we had no service last night). I'm not sure what this place is. It was dark when we set up, but it appears to be some kind of park.

Bryce lost his head lamp.