Cycling Across America #24
Part 24 of the Cycle-Across-America series relayed day by day, exactly ten years after it happened. (Read from the start in Boston)
Ten Years ago today I was somewhere near Atlanta, a long way from the west coast, and talking to a tape recorder again:
Sunday the 25th, Tallapoosa in West Georgia. Watching the Weather Channel in a motel run by an Asian Indian.My Atlanta host videoed me this morning as he dropped me back east of Atlanta and Stone Mountain so I could pick up the line and continue with my trip.
I didn’t think I’d get to Tallapoosa. I wasn’t really aiming for it. I was aiming for Breman, which is ten miles away. But it being a Sunday I came right through down on 78, which was Ponce de Leon, into the very centre of Atlanta. And I came out on something that went on for about forty miles. Dankhead Highway.
So I cycled right down by the Olympic stuff I’d seen yesterday, right down by the stadiums including the flame. And down Martin Luther King Junior Drive, before I came out.
Largely after that it was pretty uninteresting because it was, not nice suburbs, not nice countryside, not nice anything, just scruffy.
For breakfast in East Atlanta, in a Hardees, I had more French Toast Sticks, pancakes for the first time, and a Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit. That food did me for the next forty-two miles, though I probably should have made it last fifty.
After the road works it was very busy despite it being a Sunday. So an awful lot of concentration the whole time watching vehicles go past. It didn’t frighten me but it drained me a bit.
Lithia Springs. I’d been in Cobb County, then Douglas County, which is where Douglasville was. It’s also where Winston was and Villa Rica was. Villa Rica was nice, which reminds me of all the Spanish names back this morning in Centerville. Then I ended up in Caroll County, and Carollton the capital. Here is about twenty miles past Carollton in Harrelson County four miles from the border.At one stage my Atlanta host was saying I’m going to be so close today he could come and pick me up again, which he could do but then he wouldn’t be able to drop me off tomorrow because he’s got to go to work, and that would be a problem. I’m not that close as it’s turned out. I must be sixty miles away. I did ninety today.
I’ve got to have a look at my map now. I’ve cut this very tight. I think one storm could mean my plan is out the window. So I might have to cut more corners. In my original plan I had three nights in Oklahoma, but that’s now down to one.
My back tyre is a lot more worn than I thought it was. I could just switch it with the front, though I can’t be bothered with the messing. I should really just get a new back one and the front one will certainly do until Kansas City. I reckon it’s about one thousand one hundred miles to Kansas City.
This is going to be the longest stretch without being with anybody. It’s going to be thirteen days or fourteen. From the Sunday night through to the Saturday. Can I go thirteen days without a rest?
Bought some Tylenol, extra-strong, today, after that wonderful advert yesterday showing the two girl cyclists where one was recommending it to the other one, actually as they were cycling around, and saying how much fun cycling was.
But for my left hip, which is sore, and as I get better from the crash I feel the pain more in the hip rather than the bruising on the cheek. But my right leg today worried me a lot. It finally kicked back. It was not quite a cramp but the whole lower right leg just completely tightened up and seemed to pull. That happened twice in the space of five miles.
This was on the far side of Atlanta so I rolled into Atlanta and didn’t push it. Certainly going up any hills I couldn’t get aggressive. I do feel weakness, in knees, in my upper legs, and the next two days I believe, perhaps wrongly, will be the toughest two in terms of climbing until I get to the Rockies –because it’s Alabama. I only want to spend two nights in Alabama, so –Ouch! What’s biting into my back? –I can creep over the border into Mississippi. Spend maybe three nights there.
I saw some more election posters outside of someone Watts for Congress. The posters are discreet. Generally it’s a single colour and it’s a name, and it’s Congress or it’s Sheriff, or it’s County Commissioner, or it’s Clerk of Court.
There was one, which wasn’t a poster, but it was like the shop sign. They’d put up the letters on it, like the way you’d put up letters on a cinema. And it was “Make your Vote Count”, or “Get Out and Vote” and then it said, “Vote Pat Buchanan”.
My favourite poster didn’t say “Vote” like all the other ones, or it didn’t say “Keep so-and-so in Congress”, or “Keep so-and-so a Commissioner”, or “Elect so-and so”, or “Vote for so-and-so”. It actually said, I forget his first name -it might’ve been Dave but, “Dave Beasley IS Governor”. So all that was missing was the nah-nah ne-nah-nah.
Lots of things beside me moving in the grass today. Lots of these horrible grasshoppers, which flutter and buzzzz. They’re not like the big floppy ones, or even like other ones I’ve seen. But these ones were coming onto me and the bike as I went along –you’d disturb them –which is a bit of a nuisance, because one of them crashed into me neck. Ah they’re horrible things as they flutter and buzz around your neck.
The long grass on the side of the road –because most times today I had no shoulder and I had just had, well maybe two inches or six inches - was whipping my legs and almost cutting it. But it’s not cut. At least the right leg isn’t, which is the one that would be affected. But my left leg is in fact cut. It’s like an insect or something got at it.
This is a historical town. It looks perhaps even nicer than Breman, so that was good. It certainly sounds nicer –Tallapoosa. There’s a railroad right through the middle of it, or on the left-hand side. We’re running parallel with it.
They frighten the life out of you, trains, when they they hoot. Which they have to because there’s level-crossings all over the place. And they do have accidents. I saw a feature on television in, I think it was North Carolina, the number of crashes you had when motorists deliberately try and race the trains, across. But if they’re behind trees or something the noise they make is absolutely terrifying.
Let me see, Paylos Park is a suburb of South Chicago. Presumably that’s where Dole-Kemp are on this evening.
In town here there’s also an old steam engine. It was made in the 1800’s, and used in the 30’s and 40’s to power a mill. It looks like a little train engine.
I left other bits of my written journal to date, in Atlanta, along with my used-up maps, to be forwarded on to Kansas City so I’ll have them.
Looking at the weather, temperatures will be well in the 90’s here for the next few days. And there’s storms all over the place, moving very slowly. Yesterday I saw the Weather Channel when they were talking about the lightning. They said,
–Look, if you can even hear the thunder and you’re outside –get inside, because that lightning can strike you from ten miles away. So don’t be out in it.I’ve to go through National Tal, National Talladega Division Forest. I don’t know. Ah we’ll see. I might end up using one of these unpaved ones. Would I do that? That’d be really mucky if I get caught in the rain. For five miles? Ah we’ll see.
My legs could really do with a bath –but they can’t have one.
I’ve got to get something to eat. There’s a Tastee Treat across the road. Well I think that’s an ice cream place according to the woman in the shop back in Breman. She told me that God would look after my legs if I asked Him.
Read the Next Entry in My Bicycle Trip Across America
Read from the beginning of the Cycle Across America
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