Day 9: October 18, Huntington Beach to Georgetown

After the adventures of the night before, I slept very well, though not long enough. The bag the raccoon had gotten a hold of was sticky and gross, so I rinsed it out as best as I could and put it on my handlebars to dry. The friends I made last night invited me over for coffee and oatmeal, and we chatted some more with a wary eye on some storm clouds that seemed to be rolling in despite the clear forecast.

I really enjoyed the ride through the trees on the East Coast Greenway trail. I tried to really soak it in and not think too much about the 10 mile stretch on highway 17 that would come later. I had left in the morning, which was about all I could do to avoid as much traffic as possible.

I stopped back in to the bike shop for a few minutes, and we exchanged a few stories about the odd places you sometimes find yourself sleeping at night on these kinds of trips, and they warned me about the rumble strips up ahead. Bikers not careful enough have crashed because of them, they told me. I believed it.

The trail continued on after I was supposed to turn, and I was very tempted to just ride along and see where it went, since it was such a nice ride. There were plenty of “share the road” signs and the traffic was very polite, but the road seemed to go on forever, especially because the wind seemed to be in my face more than usual. I was also starting to anticipate the highway.

There was a hotel and restaurant at the intersection where I would get back on 17, so I pulled in for lunch and to refill my water bottles. Unfortunately, the restaurant only does catering now (said the people at the front desk, who were not at all interested in me.) I used the bathroom and then found a nice bench in the back by the nasty brown pool to have a snack. After a while, I decided to just get it over with. After 10 miles on 17, I have come up with some general observations and guidelines for anyone dealing with rumble strips, questionable shoulders, and highway speed traffic.

1. On a road with rumble strips, it is very important to pick a side. There will be no crossing over (or riding the line as I tend to do), so pick wisely.

2. If you are in the shoulder, no one will move over even in inch. They will treat that shoulder like a bike lane and whiz right by you. And the winds they create as they do are nothing to just dismiss, not to mention the scare-the-shit-out-of-you factor if you both happen to be too close to the line for any reason.

3. If you are riding in the lane (as long as traffic is not too heavy), people will tend to pass you correctly by moving over (or mostly over) into the other lane. (If traffic is heavy and there is no where for them to move over to, they will try to pass you in the same lane, granted they will probably slow down some to do so, alerting those behind them that something is up ahead--YOU! Please use your best judgment.)

Therefore, if the shoulder is less than 1.5 feet wide (not including the rumble strip), is really crappy (with lots of crap or crumbling pavement or encroaching grass), then I have found it’s probably best to ride in the lane. If the shoulders are at least 2 feet wide and are decently clear, I go ahead and ride there. Part of me does like the rumble strips in this situation because I feel like it's just a tiny bit of extra insurance against distracted drivers. Just remember, if you choose to ride in the lane, own it. Ride right in the right tire line. I accidentally found myself riding too close to the rumble strip a few times (within an inch...) and saw bad things happening as cars whizzed by me too close because I had given up my space in the lane. Also, I try to recognize potential situations where people in cars that are going at certain speeds might not have the time to stop and take measures to help avoid those situations. Right hand curves in the road and the downhill side of bridges can create a sort of blind spot where they are going too fast to react in a timely fashion to any sort of obstacle they might not be expecting.

The bridges into Georgetown were a real challenge. One of them was very steep and the "shoulder" and raised "sidewalk" combines were barely big enough to walk a bike across safely--with the bike in the shoulder and me walking on a raised platform a good 8-12 inches above that, the cars passing by literally inches away as the lanes were very narrow as well. I had to go back to the same numb place as when I crossed the Wilmington bridge: just focus on taking one step at a time, don't pay any attention to the cars. Don't notice, don't react. Once I got halfway down the other side, riding my brakes the whole way to prevent my heavy bike from just taking off without me, I had had enough. So, I waited for a break in traffic and hopped on as fast as I could, and zoomed on down to the bottom.

The first thing I did once I got into town was stop at a pizza hut. I had made it and I was alive! Unfortunately, I had to sit for a good half hour before the stress came down enough to eat. Then I found the library, where I met my newest best friend, Joe. All I wanted to do was update my blog and take a nice long break from riding for a few hours, as I hadn't decided if I would continue on and try to make it to the national forest that was coming up before dark. Unfortunately, the people working the desk kept sending me back to the computers, where the computer helper person had gone off to lunch. There was Joe, sitting at a table in the middle of the floor, working on a paper. I asked him if the password for the internet as a general thing like "GeorgetownLibrary" or something, and, as they say, the rest is history. Just kidding!

We got to talking, and I started sending out feelers about the local park, which had a few baseball diamonds with dugouts. Do they get locked at night, is it a nice area, that sort of thing. I had sent out 2 couch surfing requests, but had yet to hear anything back. Eventually, he figured out what I was getting at and suggested he might be able to get me into a church for the night, or maybe he could find a friend I could stay with. I thanked him, and after finally getting on the computer, went to check out the park for myself, as there was still a couple of hours of daylight left.

Georgetown is just dripping with Southern charm. The streets are lined with huge live oaks, creating the most wonderful shaded streets with a tunnel-of-trees effect, and the houses were big and elegant. The park was really like a set of three parks, one with a playground, then a set of baseball fields, and finally, in the way back, Morgan Park. It had a nice walkway over the marsh, where I got to scare the crabs for fun in the low tide mud. There was a sort of clearing in the back with a covered picnic area and a beach (no swimming allowed though), and plenty of trees for me to hang from. The only real problem was how busy it all was! Several of the baseball diamonds were being used for football practice, and there were some cheerleaders practicing as well. There were just loads of people out enjoying the nice day at the park.

After about an hour, I started to feel particularly sticky, and decided that I should clear out and come back much later, hopefully after everyone had gone home, anyway. So I went to look for a gym where I could take a shower. This led me on a sort of wild goose chase through the city, between finding a Curved that closed 20 minutes before they were supposed to, and old converted high school gyms that didn't even have showers. I also found the ghetto in my quest for a bath... The sunset was absolutely spectacular, and I kind of wished I was back in the park for it.

As the couch surfers had let me down again, and it was getting dark fast now, I texted Joe to see if he had found something, or if that was going to be a dead end as well. Honestly, I didn’t think the park was that bad at all. I think I would have rather enjoyed sleeping in the back of Morgan Park, with the waterfront as my view from my hammock. He invited me to his choir practice, where a family agreed to take me in for the night. I was so happy to have a nice shower in my near future, and I knew my mom should be happy as well with me having a real roof over my head, and with church people to boot.

Gary and Laura and their kids are absolutely the nicest people! We all sat and chatted for a while, before I finally went to take my shower. Gary made me an omelet with toast and apple butter for dinner, and the bed was super fluffy. The bike was put on the screened-in porch, which turned out to be even better when I woke up to it raining hard at about 6:30 the next morning.