Take a look at how we’re all dressed in this year’s group photo, taken mid-morning in Savannah: long sleeves all around, and even some tights. So much for the warm southern weather we’d been expecting!
And given that it’s Veterans Day, we took time to call out the four vets in our group:
Today was one of those days where most of us stuck together, following our fearless leader Brent, the East regional coordinator responsible for South Carolina and Georgia and the man with his arm up high in the group shot, with few stops for photos. We were on several busy roads with narrow shoulders (or shoulders made narrow by rumble strips), so when we took a lane of traffic, one of our support cars would keep motorists from coming too close and then swerving into the left lane. Like last year, we are spending time on a section of the East Coast Greenway that isn’t well developed. (South Carolina and Georgia are big laggards.)
Here’s the day’s route. We veered off the East Coast Greenway at Midway to find a hotel big enough for the group. That would be Hinesville, home to Fort Stewart. And when the restaurant next to the hotel is Applebee’s and nothing else is really close and it’s Veterans Day and Applebee gives free meals to military on that day… let’s just say it was a bit manic.
So now let’s talk alligators. Not live ones. But lunch. I ate some of their “fingers”. Jokes aside about whether we now have a bunch of crippled angry gators on the loose, I’d describe this as tasting like well-seasoned chicken.
One more southern food off the bucket list.
Pretty cool to see table after table filled with jersey-wearing cyclists on what normally would have been a quiet lunch service. Perhaps we spent about $1,000 in that seafood restaurant? Economic impact!
Another rider is blogging too — check out what she has to say.
Exploring by bicycle 