America 2015: Day Thirty-Two (30 August 2015)

Doesn't matter where you are,
It's the same old stripes,
The same old stars,
The same old highways cuttin' across,
The same old moon turnin' on and off,
Canned up Chevy at a traffic light,
With a pretty girl on a Saturday night,
And Willie Nelson singin' "On The Road" again,
Lookin' around it's good to see,
Everybody out there keepin' it country

                                                                                               - Jake Owen

Sunday 30 August

Yesterday we had lunch at the East Bay Deli, and I had a giant baked potato with all sorts of Mexican trimmings. It seemed like a good idea – and it was, until about dinner time when I found myself feeling progressively worse. It was so bad, in the end, that I didn’t even eat dinner. I went back to the hotel room, and only just made it before…well, let’s just say some unpleasantness followed, then a very long sleep, and this morning, I woke up feeling fine. The real shame of it is that the food last night looked excellent, and I wasn't around to enjoy any of it.

The weather has finally taken a turn for the worse down here. The tropical storm that’s sweeping up into Florida has something to do with local conditions. We saw some rain on the two-hour drive from Charleston down to Hilton Head Island, but it wasn't until we’d gotten here, had lunch, wandered over to the bike hire place and hired bikes for a couple days that the heavens really opened.

I’m talking torrential stuff. We were 0.4 miles from the hotel – the very excellent Beach House Resort, literally right on the beach – but with the way the rain was coming down, it felt like four miles! Also, the bikes here are very old-school. No gears and back-pedal braking, which is something I’m still getting used to. In the rain, with limited visibility on pathways I don’t know, it was pretty interesting. The amount of times I went to use the brakes over the handles, only to remember they weren’t there.

Oh, and there was this sign along the pathways coming back from the shop.

 



 

I saw one alligator in the stream below – you ride across a raised pathway over a stream in the midst of a grove of trees – but didn’t stop to take photos or anything. Not when it was pouring with rain. Oh, and there was a freakin’ alligator like a foot away! It’s fair to say I’m going to have to dry out some very wet clothes tonight!

Hilton Head has more than fifty miles of bike paths, plus there’s the long, low and very flat beach which you can ride along, and probably completely circle the island if you’re of a mind to do so. The people – two insanely funny guys who helped us out with a few riding suggestions – running the bike hire shop told us that, during peak summer time, there are around 20,000 people riding around the paths. You look at a map of the island and see why. There isn’t anywhere on Hilton Head Island that you can’t get to on a bike.

The storm has really set in. It’s dark now, and pretty unpleasant, definitely one of those nights I’m glad to have a roof over my head. There are big waves rolling in, and the wind is strong enough that it’s really flailing the palm trees around. Hopefully the weather will improve tomorrow!