Today was an interesting day and showed the quality of leadership by Tracy the owner of Crossroads. The original route was to go down the Outer Banks on US12. As you might remember this was washed out by Irene. A temporary bridge has been built but is not open yet. Tracy was hoping it would be open by the time we came through. Alas it wasn't. So we had to be rerouted on an inland road to another town where we could catch a ferry to Ocracoke.
Tracy had never driven this route so had to get all the information off the internet for the cue sheets. Fortunately there were not many turns. Just a lot of long bridges and long roads through swamps and farm lands. We had to be at the ferry by 12 and it was 80 miles. So if you do the numbers, that is a faster ride than several of us could do. So she loaded the two vans with bike and riders and took 12 of us to the first SAG stop. The problem was finding a place to pull off the road to unload us because this was the middle of a swamp. Once we found a place, the mosquitoes were horrific. We saddled up as soon as possible in order to get moving. The ride was interesting. We went through the swamp and then came to farms growing cotton. There were also a couple of small towns, one of them was a fishing village with lots of shrimp boats at the docks. Oh yes, more side winds and head winds. But it was sunny
The ferry ride was 2.5 hours. It was a nice day so that wasn't bad. The Crossroads crew served us a nice lunch from the back of the truck. That was really appreciated. A lot of restaurants on the island are shut down. Once the hurricane came through, they never reopened. So we had a little trouble finding a place to eat.
Today is a rest day. I really need this because of a rash on my butt. The joys of biking in the rain day after day. Other than that I feel great.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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