Day Thirty: A Mid-Day’s Stormy Night

Distance: 63 mi.

Song of the Day: Bola Sete and Vince Guaraldi — Black Orpheus Suite

9:15: Slink down creaky stairs in Cindy and Mike’s wondrously expansive wooden manor home, find household rugrats David (4YO?) and Hannah (7?) watching their favorite dinosaur action hero cartoons. David not so much watching tv as ramming toys around on the couch, which is easily 20 or 30 times his size, must be a vast felted fantasy land he lives in…

Impressive by Cindy’s attentiveness to Hannah and David, who are sharply different creatures: Hannah, contemplative and acrobatic; David, the miniature surfer, smashes into everything, flings his legs in front of his stout body, wobble-dashes to and fro. Cindy does not instruct, only guides, letting children form their own opinions about what’s jelly: “Your friends birthday party is in two hours, and it will rain. Is it better to get dressed now, or wait an hour and then get ready?” We spend an hour horsing around in kitchen and playrooms; learn that all rooms are playrooms. Everybody eats chocolate kale smoothies. Cindy gives me a box of 12 oddly shaped eggs from neighbor’s chicken; crack ‘em and fry ‘em with olive oil and toast, we’ll need all the calories we can get today.

BOOM CACKLE BOOM the air and clouds rage above us, force an early escape into Richmond Hill car park as we shirk the worst of a tremulous seizure in the sky.

I eat a pound of Italian pasta salad and some mac n’ cheese, Lizzie forsakes her grilled cheese & risks it all on a tuna melt. A father enters with two shin-guarded girls who flop sandals in obdurate manner on the deli’s cold tile floor, as is customary after soccer practices. I cause trouble when interrogated about our journey, tell the father with a wink to daughters that we eat ice cream three times per day and sleep twelve hours each night.

As soon as the rain softens we saddle up and ride out, storms not far on horizon, but far enough.

Five miles of fractured, grungy railroad-era roads and traffic thins out, exposes serene Route Seventeen, ample room on right of rumblestrip, my preferred biking position as cars that transgress the border will be detected, increasing chances we can react, haven’t needed to as of yet. Miles turn quickly by on invisible odometers — its accuracy is improving, I promise you. Twenty pass by in an augenblick and we cruise through Midway. Last night’s research suggested vestigial ghost stories and cemetary mysticism would reveal themselves to a careful study of the town center. Wanted to stop but the oncoming thunder storms were too damning to justify it.

Rain picks up again as we approach upturn to Hinesville. Flash in sky, pause, CHAAAKA-BOOM!, I count the seconds quickly, try to impress upon Lizzie my sense that storm is miles away; wind up in a complicated discussion about the speed of light & soundand how it impacts human sense perception (“wait, so sound travels at 20,000 meters per second, and light at 200,000 meters per second?” I was WAY off on both…) We decide to trust Google’s advice to undercut Hinesville and turn left onto Holmesville Road.

The turnoffs are all dirt roads, so we ignore them and tread due south. Soon our road becomes a dirt road. With two miles and more minutes invested in our shortcut, we plunge ahead. Half a mile further the rain pounds harder, it’s more or less OK under the meaty cypress and oak trees; what’s not OK are the perpendicular dugouts in the dirt from water runoff. We stand on pedals and loosen our muscles to compensate, but the vibrations are backbreaking; my four panniers flap like gull wings and everything creaks, driving us to dismount bikes and walk.

If the rain pours here we are toast. The roads won’t be rideable or walkable.

The dugouts subside with .7 miles to go before we intersect 119, we’re praying to pick up pavement again. Rain picks up hard with .3 miles to go, but we make it without a problem — YES we have found pavement. Though needed, it’s a temporary respect, as the sky booms and the rain pounds the pavement into a frothy whiteout. Rain hammers even harder as entire seas of water gush beneath our tires off the road. Lizzie yells STOP WE NEED TO STOP RIGHT NOW, so we do. We huddle under pathetic twining bines and shrubs, but they offer no protection. Water pools around our ankles, as if seeping from the earth itself. As if invoked by ancient druid lore. I’m pissed off. Sitting here is miserable. I implore Lizzie that we should get back on the road and find real shelter, but she dissents. We fuss and fume for two minutes of eternal hell before Gaia rescues us, lets off the rain from its white sizzle, now we can see — now cars can see — and we resume a droopy slow pedal, waterlogged bikes, cuffs, brims, socks and gloves weighing at least another 20 wet pounds.

Things calm down.

The spanish moss, once blowing in pre-storm breeze is dismal under the rain’s oppression.

It’s really quiet.

As soon as we resolve to stop for a long recovery and dryoff, the sun begins to radiate.

So we keep going.