Day 30: South Bend, 0 miles

September 25th, 2009

First, I spent the early part of the day enjoying the B&B. This was certainly a very big upgrade from the tent, and there was a lot to take in. The B&B was a very interesting place – all done in Victorian style and little tea cups included.

Baptiste got released from hospital with a neck brace and with credit to him seemed to be in reasonable spirits and somewhat accepting of the whole thing. I don't know of I would have handled it quite as well.

We all sat down for a fantastic dinner at the end of the day with the addition of Ed, the Texan who was also staying at the B&B.

I also received a bit of good news for the day. I found out that Clare, the wife of my good friend Iain, gave birth to their baby daughter Evie!

Day 29: Ocean City – Raymond, 48.30 miles

September 24, 2009

Once again, Baptise and I set off together. While it was nice to have a companion, I tended to go slightly faster than Baptiste and often had to wait for him catch up at the break stops. He was never too far behind though, and in fairness was carrying a lot more stuff than me.

We stopped in a little cake shop in a town along the way and stuffed ourselves full of some very tasty brownies. I am sure this wasn't the diet of a pro cyclist, but it sure beat power bars. The town was also no place for a pro cyclist – or any cyclist for that matter. I think this part of the world only barely realises what cycling is; there were just no provision mades for cyclists at all.

We then carried on out of town, over the hills, where you could clearly see the effects of a hurricane that had come through the area. Large areas of trees had been ripped from the Earth.

I reached the little town of Raymond and was waiting for Baptiste when I heard sirens which I remember thinking seemed a bit out of place for a small town. Next thing I knew, a car stopped by me and the driver asked, "Are you cycling with a friend?"

"Yes", I answered hesitantly.

"He has been involved in an accident, but he is conscious and is just back on the other side of the bridge," the man informed me. The sirens I was hearing were for Baptiste.

So, I cycled back to find Baptiste lying on the pavement with fairly serious road rash, surrounded by fire engines, ambulances, policemen and paramedics. Still, he seemed in relatively good spirits (all things considered), and he had managed to set up his camcorder to record the event. Apparently, a car was making a left turn as he came down the hill and obviously didn't see him. The car hit him, and he went flying trip right over the top of it.
At the hospital several hours later, we found out that he had suffered a compression to his spine and would need to be kept overnight at the hospital for observation. It could have been a lot worse but was obviously going to put his trip on hold for a while.

However, as the saying goes: every cloud has a silver lining, and the silver lining here was the kindness of strangers. From the moment the accident happened, people went to such great lengths to help. From the policeman, James, who took our bikes to the station and gave me a lift to the hospital and then later bought our bikes to the B&B to the nurse who provided me with a packed lunch – everyone was just so great to us. With incredible kindness, Lynne, the radioographer at the hospital, even realized that we had nowhere to go, and arranged for us to be put up in his B&B. Beverley and Desiree, the innkeepers at the B&B, also went out of their ways for us, shuttling us back and forth from the hospital and town, providing us with meals and me a very much needed cold beer (it had been a very long afternoon). There were numerous other people who all offered support to us both and I really was overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of strangers.

Day 28: Quinault - Ocean City, 47.79 miles

September 23, 2009

With a mild hangover, but a much lighter bottle of Bacardi, Baptiste and I spent the earlier part of the morning trying to get our things dry after a heavy overnight dew.
Once we had packed up our stuff and set off, we made a quick stop at a salmon fishery to see lots of little fishies being bred. This trip seemed to have a general salmon theme going to it – all quite interesting though.

For this part of the ride, we decided to take the coastal route as opposed to the 101 as it looked a bit more scenic and seemed to carry less traffic. When we got to the coast, we found a massive sandy beach. Baptiste rode onto it and I happily followed along to perform – in classic style – a favourite cyclists’ maneuver. Riding on the sand quickly bought my momentum down to a speed of 0 at which point I scrambled desperately to get my feet out of the pedal clips. I failed dismally and ended up splat lying in the sand much to Baptiste's amusement.

Just a we were riding off the beach, we met a couple of ladies who were just departing their holiday cottage and gave us a big bag of food. How kind of them!

A few miles further we discovered a blackberry bush and stopped for a bit of afternoon snacking. Mid-snack, a car came by and parked directly opposite us. It seemed a bit odd but not to be deterred, we carried on with our munching only to be rudely interrupted by an amplified voice from the car.

"Move your bicycle to the other side of the fog line...thank you."

Just moments prior, Baptiste had asked me "when do we stop eating?" I guess this was our answer.

Later that day, we arrived at Ocean City campground and made a shared meal from the food we'd been given earlier. The donated fake crab certainly added a new dimension to Ragu and pasta.

Day 27: Bogachiel State Park – Quinault, 63.97 miles

September 22nd, 2009

I set off early to a good start. At the same time that I changed the battery on my speedometer, I also changed the setting so that I was able to see my average speed. For the first couple of hours, I kept challenging myself to see how good an average speed I could actually keep up and found it to be about 16 mph. Not bad for a fully loaded bike…in the heat. The only flaw was that I quickly ran out of water and was quite relieved when I finally found a place to refill my bottles.

As I reached the coast, I met up again with Baptiste, the Frenchman from the ferry. We decided to ride together as we were both heading for the same final destination for the day. There were three campsites, of which two were closed. Baptiste – ever the adventurer – suggested that we went to one of the closed ones where presumably we would get all the facilities but wouldn't have to pay. Sneaky! I liked it! (But extend sincere apologies to my parents).

It was worth it! We ended up with the best campsite right on Lake Quinault –perfect for a quick swim before we settled in for the evening.

On top of that, I just happened to have been carrying a bottle of Bacardi since the ferry crossing which I had really "sensibly" bought at Duty Free. While it wasn’t exactly what I needed to be lugging around on my bike, it was perfect for this kind of night. It seemed, to me, like the most sensible time to dispose of the extra weight, and so with that, Baptiste and I settled in for a rum and coke evening and put the world to rights.