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<\/p>\nI left the RV park before 7:30 am.<\/p>\n
The roads had wide shoulders all day, and little traffic. I had a light tailwind, and no hills. And no shade. And no, well, anything else. At 32 km I stopped under the only shade I’d seen. Normally the levys are kept tree-free, so no shade, and no good way off the levy. The next shade was at the 80 km mark! I stopped there on the shoulder and just collapsed (OK not quite collapsed, or I’d have someone stop to see why I was laying on the shoulder). I’d also been wearing my windbreaker as a sun shield, since I’d burned my arms badly the day before. I’d meant to take the jacket off earlier, and overheated. I sat there in the shade until I cooled off.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nothing else, and the heat, meant no water. I pulled into a church in the middle of nowhere seeking shade. And found Jonathan, a cyclist also running the East\/West Southern tier (who first thought I was there to run him off), and a spigot to refill my water in the nick of time. I would otherwise have run out of water before the end of the day. Phew!<\/p>\n
My day ended with an 8% climb on the bridge over the Mississippi, and then a ~12% climb into Natchez. After a long exhausting day, it’s best not to end with hills! Fortunately my motel was at the top of the hill.<\/p>\n
At the motel I met Kurt again! We’d messaged during the day, and his eastern route had converged with my western one, and we’d decided to split a room again. My day was flat and no shade. His had been shade and hills. I’d never have made the distance with hills; he had e-assist.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow I’m taking shelter here in Natchez from the impending storms that lead to my arrival. As a huge bonus, old friends from college are driving out to spend the day with me. One problem with planning a day off due to weather is when the weather changes, but in this case my friends will be here, so I no longer care!<\/p>\n
Saturday I head out again, likely with Kurt for the next day and a half before our destinations truly diverge.<\/p>\n
So the plan worked. I was exhausted. I almost ran out of water. I came close to heat exhaustion. It was 350 km in 3 days.<\/p>\n
But, worked!<\/p>\n
That said, long, flat roads with nothing are boring. Traffic has generally been fine, but at times it’s been insane. I go into a tour, every time, knowing the first week will, well, suck. Going too far. Being out-of-shape. But long flat boring nothing interspersed with American high-traffic boring? Hmm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I left the RV park before 7:30 am. The roads had wide shoulders all day, and little traffic. I had a light tailwind, and no hills. And no shade. And no, well, anything else. At 32 km I stopped under the only shade I’d seen. Normally the levys are kept tree-free, so no shade, and … Continue reading “230420-Damn that worked”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-touring"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3554"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3559,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions\/3559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}