Day 22 It was a Good Day.

These two pictures were taken on the bicycle/pedestrian bridge over Lake Marion. They show the extent of the bridge (Old Route 301/15) and the size of the lake, and this was the small side of the lake. This lake is created by a couple of damns downstream.

We were out at 6 am. The road was flat and there was little if any wind (that came later). We were (for us) cooking.

Out first stop was in Turbeville at a place called the Chat and Chew for breakfast. It was a quick stop (Debbie is a hard taskmaster). And we were off towards Manning.

We briefly stopped in Aculo for a Gatorade and at 10:45 we stopped at a McDonalds for a chicken sandwich. We had come 35 miles in the morning, our best yet. We tried to make this a short stop also because Debbie wanted to make it to Santee which would be another 22 miles, give or take and by now the wind had begun to pick up a little.

We left and headed down the still flat road. It was really fun to have the bike rolling well, the wind not too strong, and the traffic light. We stopped in Summerton (at about 45 miles)and bought some bananas and two liters of water. It turns out that I had consumed almost all the water in my Camelback. It is fortunate that we noticed because running out of water on a hot day is not good at all and there is not much on the road between “towns” in this part of the world.

We still had about 11 miles to go and now the wind was getting stronger. The prediction has been for wind out of the southwest at 10-15 mph and it seemed like we were getting there. We were still able to maintain reasonable speed so that was heartening.

The ride was uneventful. We were looking for the place where 15 and 301 joined I 95, at which time we would take “old 301.”  What is nice about that is that this road crossed  Lake Marian on the old bridge which was closed - to all but bicycles and pedestrians. We stopped at a minimart just at the junctions to ask directions to be certain we took the correct road. The woman who worked there had grown up only several miles from Utica, NY. This was the second time we had run into someone from “back home.”

We left for the bridge which was as it had been described. It was quite and the view was quite nice, and, we did not have to worry about the traffic. We stopped and took some pictures.

Santee was only 1 or 2 miles past the bridge. When we got to the main crossroads we stopped to decide which motel to stay at. Of course we were brain dead by that time so the decision took 45 minutes. We have absolutely no frontal lobes by the end of the day and no capacity to make decisions. We ended up at a Super 8 because- both a pool and a coin laundry.  We checked in. Debbie swam and I worked.

We ate dinner at the Pizza Hut across the street partly because they have a salad bar and we both wanted some salad. I went back to work. Debbie went shopping for breakfast and tomorrow’s provisions. Now I am blogging.
   
Today’s ride: We rode 58.2 miles at an average of  9.1 mph. We were on the bike for 6 hours and 21 minutes. We are now 917 miles into our trip.

Debbie’s emotionometer: Today was marked by good mood and high spirits. We were feeling efficacious and that we were making good progress finally.