Hoping for a Tail Wind

“Somebody’s always got to be on the job because there’s always a job out there to do.” -Gil Scott-Heron

My consciousness is on full tilt this glamorous morning at East Bank Campground. The side effect of which is a monster headache. Like a weekend bender sort of headache. It’s actually a hydration issue. I got caught up in bike mechanics last night and didn’t drink nearly enough water. My head is pounding. I run through my cures: coffee, massive water intake, food, exercise, toothbrushing. None of it helps. I struggle through it and try to enjoy the campground oatmeal in front of me. What a wonderful campground this is. Shoutout to the US Army Corp of Engineers. And to the campground attendant and his “FBI (firm believer in) Jesus hat. He was a very nice man and I got no problem with his love of Yeshua, but couldn’t anyone put FBI in front of anything and make it work? FBI satanism, FBI necrophilia… the list is endless on how far one could take it. And for that it should not be allowed. No thank you. Damon is complimenting the campground bathrooms. The same one I took a massive a shit in — well before sunrise. Handicapped stall too. Thank god for handicapped people, they allow for gigantic sized spaces and so I get this massive shitter all to myself. It feels like an HGTV show or something.

The sun comes up and I’m popping ibuprofen into my tricked-out oatmeal as Damon explains how he just in there with “an expressive shitter” next to him, in the smaller non-handicapped stall. Damon uses the words emotive; tells me about all sorts grunts and groans. I don’t know why.

My slow leak issue is not resolved. It’s hottern hell. You’re gonna notice less words and less polishing because I’m doing a lot more work right now. The every ten mile pump up is now every six or seven miles. We cruise south through Chatahoochie. The town not the song. Also, no hoochies with whom to chat.

We leave the 90 for most of the day, making our way to Tallahassee on rural roads. It’s a nice safe haven from noise. My headache appreciates it. My slow leak too. My body is feeling on point but my mind is not. I haven’t found anything in my tire and have no idea why I keep going flat and it’s fucking with me. It makes it harder to ride too. I can’t keep checking and I can only implement the simplest, most direct solution in front of me: 100 pumps. Ride for an hour or so, repeat. Yup, that’s what I’m doing.

Fifty some miles later and we’re coming into Florida’s Capitol. I find a bike shop. $10 later and all my concerns are gone. They find the wire I could not. Maybe I’ve lost my mind due to dehydration but I seriously checked it over and over and over again. Time and again. The last two days. I don’t wanna think too much about it. I’m just ecstatic for resolution. I talk touring with the guys in the shop for a bit. Thanks University Bicycle. Damon books a cheap motel because our bike only camping fell though. Thanks Damon.

The heat is on, Steve Frye. Ferreals though. Damn near 90° F. I’m chilling outside of a very unique-to-Florida store slash taproom combination place we just happened upon. I’m not really chilling, cause it’s hot. There’s a patio. There’s also two TVs on the patio for me to ignore. Here we are. Tallahassee. Florida State University. What I can’t ignore is the spring break scenery going around this little Florida State campus strip of bars and restaurants. I’m talking about women younger than I am. Too young probably. Maybe. Age ain’t real. Time doesn’t exist and time travel is only a Hollywood hoax. So maybe not. Yeah, not at all. But yeah, the scenery is popping and it pairs perfectly with this refreshing Belgian trippel I’m idulging in after a long and hot and hard day on the bike. Butts in jean shorts galore. Also short black tight dresses. Literally that’s the dress code. And it’s strict. One after another. Thank you America. Or Jesus. Or whoever. Damon knows what I’m typing and chimes in “I shoulda went to Florida state. What the fuck was I thinking bro.”

We finish the beers and head up the block only to find the actual corner bar we were originally heading to is a absolutely mobbed with twenty one and twenty two year olds. A massive amount of people, on some “I’ll take two covid nineteens to go, please” shit. I’m fairly certain Harmony Korinne is filming this scene. Or that he already has and Now I’m looking for James Franco or Selena Gomes. Instead, I come back to the reality where Damon and I eat an entire vegan pizza. Plus another beer, which is really like a salad. And also I have a salad, which is nothing like a beer. It all equals sleeping.

I don’t feel any younger when I wake up. Older in fact. Always, really. My shoulder is killing me. In my professional emergency medical opinion, it’s the result of something somewhere somehow. It really hurts too. To add insult to injury, my bicycle — beautifully leaning against the table next to me — now has a flat back tire. What the fuck? I pull the wheel off, can’t figure out the cause. New tube. In the process I figure out my cone is quite loose. I tighten it up as best I can with an adjustable and feel fortunate to have found that before it got much worse. Kinda need you back wheel, hang in there pal.

Now pulling inland away from the gulf coast, we’ve got partly cloudy skies and a hefty wind out of the south. Roaring twenties. Mid to upper miles per hour twenty somethings. I sound like a pilot or a weatherman. Florida US-90 has that same Texas US-90 appeal to me. As I’m thinking this, in cue Damon says “Yo, I’ll take Florida 90 over Texas 90 all day bro”. Hmm. Ok then. To each his own.

This wind is half and half on my right side of and in my face. The wind never gives us a break. Not one. I’m doing my best to push along miles and gain momentum over what has become a more rolling terrain than there’s been in quite a while. The environment has changed once again. Hills and tiny cute climbs and descents. You go Florida! Distracted drivers operating death machines are passing me at a furious rate and much closer in fact. A fucking sheriff’s car passes a foot away from me! I can hear it when they are super close. I let out loud a sounds as they narrowly let me live in peace.

The flag fanaticism of Texas is back too. Louisiana and Mississippi were pretty solidly flying a singular American flag. While I do like me some flags, the “one flag at a time” display is my fave. Keep it simple stupid. Florida likes them in bunches. They fly a lot of ones with expiration dates. I fight a headwind downhill at 12mph and think about how strange it is that there’s legitimately less flat earth and yet more flat earthers round these parts. The thought is interrupted by an actual flat. Science damnit. Not again. Kind of a slow leak. I find the hole and patch it outside a gas station.

15 miles later and I’m half flat again. Super softie. Fuck. This explains why I’m feeling so strong at the start and so weak toward the end of each chunk of miles. Lower and lower pressure. The 85° heat and humidity has me exhausted and I don’t feel like patching or anything. And I’m not gonna apologize for not using the metric system to anyone either. I just put 80 hand pumps in the slow leaking tube. We make our merry way up the 90 to a place called Marianna. As far as I can tell Marianna isn’t much. Really a pretty shitty town outside of a very Havana-like United States Post Office building. Godless commie bastards… the USPS, not the Cubans. I love them both either way.

Further up the 90, I am now completely employing the “stop every 12 miles and give it 100 hand pumps” technique. There’s a long history of this cultural strategy, all of it in coded oral tradition until just now. Whoops. It all adds up to some good old fashioned time traveling into the Eastern time zone and Chattahoochie Florida. We immediately turn north off of the 90 instead. Like flipping from FOX to CNN or something, I make a hard left and into Georgia – our ninth state of the ride!

Two miles up and $14 later and we’re set up luxuriously at East Bank Campground. It is maintained by the US Army Corp of Engineers and is a magnificent campground. It is worth the detour to pop up the portable penthouse right on the shores of Lake Seminole. I’m gonna enjoy it instead of writing about it now. Good night.