Wow did we get drenched today. Even though we tried to wait out the worst of it. And the flooding on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach … at one point I swear I biked through water halfway up my wheel. At least my chain got “washed.” And, yes, my shoes are soaked. I’m on the hunt for newspaper to help dry them out.
Thankfully the ride through heavy rain was only for 4 miles, with rear light flashing for visibility and almost no traffic to cope with. And it wasn’t a cold October rain like it would have been up north.
Still, when you show up at a hotel soaking wet, you are grateful for a hot-out-of-the-dryer towel and a warm chocolate-y cookie before you even check in. 300-and-some-odd calories be damned. Thank you, Lillie.
(Oh, and when you say that county name in the photo at the state line, it’s a silent H. Otherwise it sounds illicit.)
Photo of the day: an alligator in a neighborhood pond just off the road. How it got there… and why it can stay there … is beyond me. Last night, a kid at the general store’s fish counter explained to us how to hunt alligator (bait is bits of chicken dangling from a string, followed by a bullet to the head). He was selling a block of frozen Georgia gator meat for $17.99 a pound, but who knew North Carolina meat was so close? (Why you will pay that much for gator and then essentially turn it into chicken-like nuggets when chicken breasts are regularly on sale for $1.99 a pound is something someone still needs to explain to me.)
You never want to call a gator friendly, so let’s say this one was … curious. He kept drifting closer to where we were standing, as if wanting to check us out as much as we wanted to check out him.
And why do I say 40ish miles? It was supposed to be a 46-miler but at one point in North Myrtle Beach, some riders started following East Coast Greenway signs instead of our cue sheets. The signs date back to an interim on-road route with bike lanes that follows Ocean Boulevard rather than the new trail route further inland. Just another opportunity to debate the route! I ended up with the road group. Think the long side of the triangle. Maybe I lopped off 6 miles? But I missed the only real trail segment of the day.
We were just 4 miles from our Myrtle Beach hotel when some other riders called out from a meh beachside grill restaurant. Most of what was left of our group stopped to eat, figuring we could still find the trail afterwards — and then came the deluge. At least we could hide out and watch a bit of baseball; others were on the trail with no place to hide for quite a while.
Does getting soaked count as doing laundry?
Read what my fellow blogger has to say about the day.
Exploring by bicycle 
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