today was a good day. i started the day after waking up, making coffee, turning on some fleetwood mac, taking a shower and then cleaning up around the house that david(my warmshower) let me stay in. refreshing. i had the whole house to myself and there wasn’t another person for a few miles. i cleaned up, got ready and waited for david to arrive. when he showed up a little later, we talked a bit and he took me into town. he gave me some advice on my rear wheel and took a few photos for his guests to see. he gave me a route to take, advising me on roads and then told me where the change for time zones would be. we separated and i started riding.

before i start writing about the day i would like to remind everyone that i am not only doing this ride for my own personal goal, but also to raise money for the livestrong foundation, that will be donated to cancer research. my family has had a strong history with cancer and there’s a good chance that someone you know has had their life affected as well. we can help support cancer research and donate money to this cause so that it may become more treatable or hopefully in our lifetime completely curable. my donation site is http://tiny.cc/cancerdonations

i an see that i am currently averaging 1400-1500 visitors per day and thought i am writing this for everyone to read, please donate if you can.

blountstown is a small place, but it does have some livelihood to it. i passed through it quickly and saw the bridge to cross both the river and time zones. i was happy to have the bike lanes with me as well.

the bike lanes continued on for the day, all the way through every town and down every road. i was interested to see what the national forrest would be like. as i expected, it was beautiful. long roads with bike lanes, tree lined streets(actually forests) and no turning off the roads for my day. the forest was a combination of mostly pines and tropical plants/trees. i haven’t smelled pine this good since i was leaving washington. that pine smell was much different though. it was a sweet combination of wheat fields and pine. this one is pine, but definitely different.

i put on some headphones and sang while i rode through the forrest. i rode quite a bit today, but what is becoming normal. david had said that doing centuries every day was crazy, but i won’t be doing them every day(90 miles or maybe even 85).

the heat and humidity wasn’t so bad, but maybe i’m becoming accustomed to it. i was sweating a bit but i was also drinking as much water as i could. i stopped as often as i could, but for some reason the stores i was stopping at either didn’t have fountain machines or wouldn’t let me have ice water. just plain old normal water for me today…blah. it was nice to coast for a bit on flat land, but i had the wind in my face for a while, which wasn’t as bad as it could have been. it was a cool breeze, and not enough to keep me from gaining speed.

i’m happy that everyone keeps reading about my experiences. all is well and i’m having a great time. i took a few photos today, but i guess i was using my camera more than my phone. those will have to wait until i’m done with the ride. i can hardly wait to get to the finish line and see lindsey there. i covered just over 100 miles and made good time doing it even with the time change. day 42 done.