Jul/092
Day 4 – The Disadvantages and Advantages of Laziness (58 miles)
Disadvantage: waking up late when the sun is at it’s highest, most ridiculously scorching hot position and starting a 60 mile ride as trees, people, road surfaces and the whole world seems to begin to melt around us. Add in a slight hangover and you can probably guess this wasn’t so much a bike ride as a dehydrated crawl through Satan’s arse. We vowed never to leave so late again.
Advantage: arrived in Ashland, the point where we meet up with the Transamerica Trail which takes us across the USA, at around 4pm. Tired and thirsty, we couldn’t be bothered cycling the extra 3 miles or so to the (overpriced) campground, so after an all-you-can-eat buffet at Ponderosa’s we hunted around for a cheap motel. After checking out a few places we finally settled on one for $43.50 with a pool, close proximity to a gas station and a disturbingly high police presence. On a completely unrelated note, not at all relevant to the price we paid, if anyone asks, we are not three adults, we are in fact two Old Age Pensioners. We didn’t lie but the front desk clerk may have cut us a deal out of pity. It’s around this point we’ve realised that “sending in the Reidy” is the best thing to do in these situations – people just love to take care of him and mother him. If Callum had been captured as a POW in WW2, Adolf and Eva would have sent him on his way with a shower, some clean clothes and a packed lunch before they knew what was happening. That boy has powers.