Ride Day 53

I had a short ride today. I had planned on riding past Tallahassee and getting to a smaller town to spend the night but I ran into some other riders and we went for dinner and a few drinks together. It was a good time. We rode together for a bit today and then shared a hotel together. They were Clem and Gary from San Luis Obispo CA and started their ride from there. They have a blog also at: www.crazyguyonabike.com/gphavas. We also ran into another biker that is trying to ride all 50 states for his wounder veterans nonprofit charity. It was interesting to meet and talk with him. His name was Scot King and his web is: www.rtwr.org. The local Elks club was sponsoring his visit to Tallahassee today. My ride went smoothly today but then if I only rode such a short distance everyday then I think they would all be much easier than some of my rides have been. The scenery has finally changed from being hemmed in by trees along the sides of the road to a more agricultural setting. There were cattle and horses with fields of hay, corn, peanuts, soy beans and other things. I like the smell of the freshly cut hay. The big oak trees covered in spanish moss also were common today. The houses usually have huge lawns around them. I stopped to ask one guy mowing his lawn why everyone had such big lawns and he answered quickly, "it keeps a lot of the snakes away from the house and there are more fires lately." Made sense to me. My lower leg did not give me any problems today but it is still very tender and sore. I do not use my lower legs when I ride. My heel is on the pedal when I ride and I only use my upper legs for power. If I try to use the ball of my foot or my toes I start to have seizures very quickly. I get by with that way of riding, I have ridden about 3800 miles that way so far. Tomorrow I am going to just get out of town and take it easy. I am so close I am tempted to just blast through and be there in three days but I don't want to do that. With my leg and all I want to take it easier. I will have plenty of time to rest once I get to St Augustine. I want to stay there about a month just resting and relaxing to let my body recover from the stress of this hard ride. A guy told me about how his personal trainer made him do 10 minutes on the bike at the gym the other day. He said it nearly killed him to do it that long and when I told him I ride from 4 to 8 hours he almost died. He thought that was impossible to ride a bike that long and to do it everyday with only a few days off here and there he just could not believe it. I had to laugh at his painful description of the torture of riding for 10 minutes. He did not have to worry about a vehicle hitting him or a farm dog attacking him or any of the other things on a long ride like this. He told me I am more of a man than he will ever be but I laughed and just said I was just crazier than he was. More latter.