Starting the Day that'd Never End

9:15 am- After passing down Victory for a few miles through the historical mansions and moss covered oak trees Savannah and the "Secret Garden" are famous for, we jetted into the industrial segment of this society and more importantly- breakfast. No day would be complete without a balanced breakfast- so no deal shopping at 7-Eleven, no, we chose Burger King. 8 blueberry muffins and 4 cinnamon rolls later we filled up our koozies and drenched them with cherry gatorade powder... It was 10:00 am and we were still struggling to begin the day we wouldn't be able to end.

But alas, there comes a time when you've gotta clench your butt-cheeks and buck up buttercup. And we were off. The ride started off normal as most days do, especially the bad ones, but after about 20 miles of riding I began experiencing a rather bothersome itching that I'll refer to as chaffing. 5 miles later we'll pulled off to look at our maps and refill our water. I jumped off my bike and stormed into the bathroom. I walked out awkwardly after having been indoors for longer than what Adam or Steve would consider normal... Adam called me out, "Yo Gene, you okay??" My waddle may have given me away. I whipped around and stared at him, almost shaking. I couldn't stand myself, my skin was crawling and the pain had grown from annoying to agonizing. Adam knew I wasn't playing around and we decided that the next large station or grocery store we saw, we'd be pulling over, "Unless... Gene, wanna see if the second-hand store across the street has a tube of vagasil?" Idiotic comments like these throughout the trip helped me to keep my perspective, reality, and sanity. Thank God for the Adam Berriers of the world.

Time seemed to lapse for hours, but we'd only since covered a couple miles since the last stop. My body was inconsolable, I couldn't sit right, I couldn't stand right... but we had 105 miles to go. Standing however was more comfortable and for the next 5 miles I rode my road bike like I was ready to pop a wheelie.

Then suddenly through a clearing I noticed after a scattering of homes a large rectangular shaped building which had to be one of two things out here in the middle of knowhere-Darien-Georgia 1) A dollar General or 2) a grocery store. I squealed with joy- heaven seemed to be reigning down it's blessing on me as I came to realize I was approaching a Piggly Wiggly... instead, Heaven seemed to be raining down a different sort of something, right into my eye. I screamed. I'd literally watched a speck,  a sliver float down from a giant oak tree and slip right beneath my Oakley's, and into my left eye.

"@#$%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

This was it. My camel's back was broken. I literally kept a running pace as I threw my bike to the ground and screamed for Adam and Steve (let's just clarify that I was being a big baby... but I can look back on this day and still say I've never been more uncomfortable in my life). They turned around with smurks on their faces. I screamed again, "Get over here and dump my water bottle in my eye!"
"What happened?!", they had no idea.

"Something just flew into my eye! or it bit me! or stung me! Get it out!!!"

Steve could see nothing and we flushed my eye with the san-gatorade water bottle. It didn't help. So I marched off to Piggly Wiggly.

I couldn't see very well as my tear ducts were welling up, but I could tell as soon as I walked into the foyer I was standing in front of multiple lines of people. With a soaked face I asked the attendant where the bathroom was. She said it's out of service. I told her it was an emergency. She said it was out of service. I asked where she went to the bathroom. She said try the Goodwill next door. So I huffed and I puffed... and I stormed over to the hygiene aisle. I stared at the reflection of my eye in a Goodie-brand mirror. There was nothing there, just a small flat puff right on my eyeball. grrrrr... so I went to search for what had been my main priority 15 minutes ago. ointment.

7 long minutes later I found myself handing a container of "ointment" to a young adolescent cashier standing behind the counter, it was when the tube passed to his hand I realized, "this sucks". See, moments earlier he'd watched me walk into his store crying and begging for a bathroom. I now realized just how ironic this uncomfortable and embarrassing situation truly was as he scanned my tube of saving grace. I took solace in the fact that I'd never see the clerk again and yelled to Steve and Adam that they'd find me at the next gas station.

The morning that came to late...

8:45 am, October 27th and the pounding in my head was clouded by massive sleep deprivation. Last night would be approximately 793 times more fun than the next 14 hours... not really a great way to wake up to your second century day, not to mention our longest yet- 105 miles. I woke up next to a forest of Victoria Secret models in Savannah, GA. Yes you read that right- our fabulous host mother had decorated the wall I was sleeping next to, her son Ross' wall with an enormous magazine like photograph of a babbling brook that covered the entire 7x12 foot canvas, and she adorned the currents, rocks, weeds, and trees with Victoria Swimsuit models. Awesome, not something I'd do for my son, but awesome. The scaling was quite realistic.

I scraped myself out of bed and took a cold shower, all the lights were off in the home so that meant I hadn't actually overslept by 2 hours and 15 minutes... not if Steve and Adam weren't awake. Once I'd cleaned up a bit and caught more of an awareness of the pounding against my brain, I bundled my  gear and moped into the living room where my four friends were sleeping on one couch. I had to laugh. Only 5 southwestern alumni from NY, ND, SD, IL, and WI would end up in a city like Savannah at random. "We were supposed to wake up at 6:30 right" I stated.

"Shit what time is it?", Adam popped up.

"Close to 9:00" I replied

"Best be on our way", Steve agreed. However we all wondered if it'd be possible. This was an incredibly late start for us and we need to tackle our biggest trek yet. Well yeah it's possible, we'd just have to do some night riding and I knew there's no way it could be worse than the night we barely made it through Yonkers/ New York City. We just needed to gauge the milage to get an idea of what time exactly we'd be arriving at our next host family's home in St Mary's, GA.

Bakken whipped out his iPad. "Uh guys?"

"Yeah how far"

"well it looks like you've got a big day ahead of you"

"What the hell does that mean?"

Steve, Adam, and I stared at Google Maps...

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY MILES?!

Are you, what! I mean is that, c'mon man! Who's the idiot that calculated this one??! I burst out laughing. Seriously you've got to be kidding me man. Dammit. Well here's the deal- we have to be in Jacksonville by tomorrow, that's 170 miles. Why not just be insane today and lolly-gag into FL Friday afternoon? Hm... because that's crazy. So we tapped into our resources, Bakken knew of a woman only 90 miles away and gave us a few numbers of people we could call to get in touch with her. Apparently when he'd sold in that part of Georgia, he had teammates stay with this woman.

Regardless of what we would choose to do... we needed to move it. So we packed up, tied down, clipped in, and began peddling into the day that would never end.