I’m never in bed by 9 PM, but I crawled into my sleeping bag early last night. I slept fitfully. Terribly, actually. I woke at least hourly to roll over onto a side that didn’t hurt. And here’s the weird thing: yesterday, I unchained the beast.

Up and out early from the Olympic Club in Centralia. This is another of the McMenamin brothers’ restored historic buildings, now serving as quaint and interesting restaurants, hotels, and in the case of the Olympic Club, a pool hall.

Today’s ride was on familiar roads, following the Seattle to Portland (STP) ride route that I have done many times with my strong-riding brothers. This year’s STP was just a couple of weeks ago and the painted route markers are still on the road. Hard to get lost. 

Today’s route took me down the east side of Lake Washington, then due south along the Interurban Trail through the Kent Valley to Sumner, and finally a right hook into Puyallup, to stay with my brother Paul and his wife Anita. Nice pavement, mostly not in traffic, under a sunny sky and (finally) something of a tailwind.

Training continues, which is another way of saying I’m not yet in touring condition, physically. At some point I’ll write more on this topic, but for now I’ll simply say that there are basically three kinds of suffering, the first imposed by conditions, the second imposed by the will of others, and the third imposed only by an intrinsic motivation to do or be something different.

Today’s ride included one of my favorite stretches of cycling, Chuckanut Drive, south out of Bellingham, which is cut into the side of the mountains and winds mid-slope between Bellingham Bay and the summit of Chuckanut Mountain. Looking out on the bay to my right (as I ride southbound), there is a stiff breeze and whitecaps, but on the road I am riding, very little wind.

Today, I started my ride of the West Coast from Blaine, WA to Imperial Beach, CA, the Canadian border to the Mexican border.. This ride will complete my 11,600 circumnavigation of the contiguous United States.

I woke up early and my mind was already buzzing.

The big daily miles I’ve been doing recently put me a day ahead of schedule.

Today I rode from Daytona Beach to Melbourne, Florida. I did not take many pictures. In fact, I hardly stopped.

I have been asked what I'm riding. My bike is a Cannondale CAADX Cyclocross, aluminum with a carbon fork, 2x10 gears and hydraulic disc brakes.

Epic day. The most epic day. 129.4 miles. Numbers speak for themselves. 

I'm not sure if it came across in yesterday's post, but yesterday's ride from Bristol to Perry was tediously long. The country is green and pretty, the road good, but the highway felt like an unending furrow through the swampy forest.

The most important thing first: The Starliner launch at Kennedy Space Center has been pushed from May 21 to May 25. This means there is no way I can see it (I'll be out of the area) so I cannot contort the ride schedule to get to the Cape two days early to watch the launch

Up and out pretty early. It was already heating up. I rode past several promising breakfast joints, but they weren’t open yet. Ah, a Waffle House! I just couldn’t. I needed something else.

I'm still getting up later than I want to. I was up late last night as I banged out the daily blog. I'm afraid I'm getting a little long with these. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "I'm sorry I wrote so much. I was too tired to write less."

Last night I was gently rocked to sleep by lightning, thunder and rain sheeting against the windows. So calming! Why, because the storm came early, at bedtime, instead of a few hours later, after midnight. It was moving faster than predicted, which means it would be well past me sooner than predicted. Furthermore, the winds following it would be veering to the southwest, which means...tailwind!

I'm holding west of Mobile, Alabama, as this powerful storm system blows through. Inches of rain, flash flood warnings, lightning, hail, winds gusts predicted to reach 70 mph in places. East Texas is flooded. Again. Tallahassee is cleaning up after getting hammered with rain and 80 mph winds few days ago, and they are about to get hammered again.

Yesterday's monster miles meant fewer miles today to get me to today's objective: a visit with Ranell and Cherish Franklin in Mobile, Alabama. I'm here now as I write this, next to Ranell's pool, sitting in the backyard cabana, while Ranell grills dinner. The Southern way: charcoal, not propane.

This morning came early and often. At 1:30 am, again at 3:00, again at 4:30 and I just got up at 5:30 because I just wasn't going to sleep any more. I was so ready to get on the road.