It seemed like it was growing harder and harder to wake up each morning. With each days ride being more of a survival ride, I was ready to get things over with. My wisdom teeth were continuing to hurt, the weather was growing colder, and the days were shorter and shorter. The views were beautiful though, and that's probably why I continued to get on my bike and ride. The weather was absolutely perfect, and I was on the road around 9. The sun was coming up fairly early in the morning, but the morning wasn't warm until around 8. I started my ride on a detour route that took me away from most of the traffic and was fairly scenic. I was away from most of the flat land that I had been riding on, and I was cycling through some rolling hills and through the woods. Trees were everywhere. With all sorts of colors and with a great scent in the air. It was a ride like this morning that set me away from most of the rude drivers for a moment's time. Things were good for the beginning of the morning and then the detour ended. I was back to some riding with traffic. There were some country homes and some farms, and cars. The traffic seemed about impossible to avoid and by the time I had cycled about 60 miles I stopped just outside of Pensacola,FL. I was looking at cycling a little further for the day and then putting in two monster rides for the two following days to make it to Billy's house. He had told me to call him today to let him know where I was and how I was doing. So I called him and I had the best surprise of my trip. At this point I was exhausted from just about everything and I was ready to be in Moultrie,GA. When I talked to Billy and told him that I was in Pensacola,FL, he asked me if I wanted a ride to Moultrie. I thought all of 2 seconds before I said yes. He had a friend that was in Pensacola,FL for some business for the day and he was going to be heading back towards Moultrie. It was such a relief to say that this was going to be the end. I had thought a lot about it while I was on the road during the past week, and the idea of cyling more through the south sounded like a bad idea. With the drivers and the roads, I was ready to call this trip over. I had seen a lot of amazing things over the course of the trip and I was plenty satisfied with all of the great people I was able to see. The joy rides were everywhere in the west and now I was in survival-ride-territory. I was told from Billy to meet David at the Outback Steakhouse, downtown. I only had a few miles to ride before I made it to the Outback and I couldn't have been happier to see the sign. This was it. The end of all of the crazy drivers and the end to sleeping outdoors. I had wanted to put in 6,000 miles over the course of the trip, and that ghoal had been reached. I had wanted to be on the road for three months, and that goal had been reached. I had done the coast to coast trip and I had biked from Washington down to Florida. I was now at the end of the journey on the road and just as Forrest Gump had said on the road, I was feeling the same way. "I'm tired now, I think I'm going to go home." When David arrived, I loaded my bike in his vehicle and we headed down the road. We drove for about 30 minutes before we pulled over to eat at a buffet. I was glad that we had only been driving for a short while before we pulled over to eat. Not only was I starving for a good meal, but the car was so awkward to me. It had been quite awhile since I had been in a car, and to be travelling at the speed we were going was almost overwhelming. When I first got in the car and we started moving with the rest of the traffic I could have sworn we were going to start to lift off at the speed we were going. It turned out that we were only going about 65 mph. I had my hands gripped on both sides of my seat as we travelled along and I knew that this was going to take a little while to adjust to. So with the Ryan's Buffet now in our reach I was ready to eat about everythinig in sight. They had fresh food off of the grill and all sorts of other foods. David had a couple of plates and was very patient. After we ate our plates together at the same pace, he looked at me and told me to go back for another. I felt bad that I was probably going to eat a good couple of plates more while he sat and watched me eat, but he was very persistant that i continued to eat. He knew that i was burning up a lot of calories on the bike and so his understanding as to how hungry I was was great. After a good couple of plates more I was beginning to feel normal again. I had all of the calories that I had needed and probably a few more. It was such a great stop and now we were off to travel at lightning speed. The food managed to settle fairly well as I adjusted to the speed, and I was able to visit some more with David. After he had asked about everything from my trip I was able to learn that he was a broker. He sold convenience stores along the coast and all over. He said that he mostly drove for his job and with all of his driving he had plenty of miles racked up each year. One funny story he shared with me was when he was sitting next to another dad at his son's basketball game. As they started to get to know eachother a little he was able to find out that this guy was a truck driver. Interested in how many miles a truck driver would put on in a year, David asked himwhat his yearly mileage was. The truck driver responded that he would put on around 50,000 miles a year. David then sat very quietly for most of the rest of the game. David wasn't a truck driver, but with the miles he put on each year he had totaled around 100,000 miles each year. I couldn't believe that it was possible, but it must have been. In only today, david had been driving from his home to Pensacola and back which totaled around 600 miles in one day. It seemed like an exhausting way of life, but it probably paid the bills. We drove through the night and I didn't feel like I was missing very much at all from the ride that i would have taken. I was able to escape from the drivers on the road and I was only passing by more and more trees to get closer to Moultrie. When we arrived in Moultrie, Billy was waiting to take me the rest of the way to the house. David still had a good hour to drive ahead of him, but this was my dropoff point. I was so thankful for David being where he was when he was and how things had continued to fall in place for me on the road all the way to the end. After placing my bike and things into Billy's car we went to what was going to be home for me for a little while. It was great to see that both Billy and Amy had stayed up and had waityed for me to arrive and I knew that they both must have been exhausted at this point. I was able to say hello and then we all went off to bed. We were all exhausted and for good reason. It was about 11 at night and we all had a long day. I was able to have a room to myself, with a bathroom, cable television, and last and certainly most important, a nice big bed to sleep on.
BICYCLE
(Daphne,AL to Pensacola,FL)
Daily mileage: 64.4 miles
Average speed: 12.5 mph
Total mileage: 6,125.7 miles
AUTOMOBILE
(Pensacola,FL to Moultrie,GA)
Average speed: 80.0 mph
Total mileage: 240.0 miles
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