Day 13

Last night as after it got dark, there was a strange flashing light that I kept noticing out of the corner of my eye. It took me a long time to convince myself that it was lightning, since I could see the moon and stars, and through the trees I couldn't see any obvious source for the light. I thought maybe it was lightning bugs, someone with a flashlight in the woods, or maybe I was just flipping out. I guess it was just really far away. Anyway, sometime during the night it got a lot closer, and I got rained on quite a lot. Definitely the heaviest rain so far, enough to cause the tent to start dripping a bit inside, as I'd been warned about. It was really only one spot though, so I just put a towel there and everything was fine.

I tried to get going quickly, because I wanted to be in Duluth by lunchtime. Thankfully the rain had stopped before sunrise. Winding my way out of Lake Lanier I encountered a lot of steep and annoying hills, but eventually it flattened out. And it was really quite amazing to be riding on relatively flat ground once again. Normally when I ride around home, my cruising speed is around 18-20mph. But for at least the last week, that speed had been no greater than 12mph. I actually had begun to think that I had changed my riding style, or that my muscles had adapted to long, slow distance instead of more intense efforts. But no, apparently it was just the hills (and the headwinds before that), because I spent much of the way into Atlanta cruising at 20mph.

So I was able to cover the 44 miles into Duluth before noon, to make a stop at the Atlanta office of my group at work. I really just wanted to use their high-speed network connection, but first I had to endure a bunch of talk about my trip, and then they even forced me into letting them treat me to a really nice lunch. Jerks. And the motel here in Atlanta has wi-fi access anyway, so what a waste that was!

Atlanta is one heck of a sprawling place. Basically all the way into Duluth I was riding through exurbs and suburbs, and I still had over twenty miles to go to even get to Atlanta-proper! And those twenty miles were done as the afternoon rush was getting into full-swing, so that made it a lot of fun. At least I could go fast, except when hitting traffic lights.

Around 5:30 I arrived at my final destination (or half-way destination, I suppose), the Fairfield Inn - Atlanta Midtown. As I walked into the lobby I got a nice round of applause from a bunch of people from the Perpetual Motion Board, so that was cool. My room was on the second floor, but they had no problem with me rolling the bike through the lobby and up in the elevator.

So now it's a few days of relaxation and good music. It's been just over 1000 miles so far, and while I don't feel worn out at all, the change of pace will be nice. Everything has gone just as well as I could have hoped so far, and if it continues on like this for the ride home, I'll really have a month to remember.