Little River, SC to Charleston, SC120 miles
This blog is going to be a little shorter than normal. In a moment you'll understand why! You folks that know me know that I'm an upbeat, positive, happy, love-life kind of guy! Every day I bounce out of bed knowing that it's going to be a good day. Very seldom am I disappointed. Today I was disappointed! It started with my little riding group heading out of the hotel a tad early and Champ and I getting stuck at a red light and never catching up with them.
I rode 120 miles and only enjoyed about 20 of them. I'll explain! We left Little River at the usual 7:45 a.m. and the first 20 miles along the Atlantic Ocean and through Myrtle Beach was really nice! Then we got back on HWY 17 South - the same darn highway we rode yesterday for about 80 miles. We probably rode it for 100 miles - no bike lane, tons of traffic, nothing to look at except pine trees on both side of the road. The most exciting thing is when 100 Harleys roared by us doing a Ride for Cancer. Riding the road was dangerous, noisy, bumpy, boring and no fun! This is not what I expected...although I'm told it is really the only way to get us where we are going.
One highlight for me was completing the entire 120 miles. It was my longest one day ride ever! Thats on top of 111 miles yesterday. Another highlight was riding across an incredible cable bridge coming into Charleston. It was 2.4 miles long and took us way up in the air over the Charleston Harbor.(Longer than the Golden Gate Bridge)! Charleston is a major seaport and Ft. Sumter is about two miles off shore. Will Smith, the Hollywood actor, had a big yacht anchored just off the bridge. I didn't get to the motel until 5 p.m. Carol had a staff meeting dinner so four of us riders took a taxi downtown for pizza and beer.
I wish we had a day off here because I know it would be a great city to explore.
Tomorrow we have an 80 miler to Beaufort, SC. As I look at the route sheet I see another bunch of miles on my least favorite highway (17S)...so I'm having trouble getting pumped up for tomorrow's ride. Plus, the weather report calls for rain. We'll see how it goes. Sorry about the venting, tomorrow will be better!
I stopped a runner on the bridge and asked her to take the picture of me...although there's no way of showing how magnificent the bridge is! The second picture is when I stopped at about mile 80 and found a sign that said "Charleston" - and went over to the side of the road and stuck it out...with my thumb up! If anyone had stopped I'm pretty sure I would have jumped in! Unfortunately no one stopped!
More tomorrow!
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