Tour Day 78 A Day To Think And Remember Sept 11 2010

I feel that today is a good day to elk about this. When I left I said that this trip was about self-discovery. Now when I said that I honestly did not know what to expect, or if anything would happen at all. What has changed is I have become comfortable in my own skin. I now know that I can do whatever I set my mind to. I know that if I set my mind to something im not going to stop until it is complete. And I now realize that my priorities when I left where wrong. I was so focused on myself that I did not focus any attention on my community or more importantly my friends.

Over the space of the last few weeks I have made an effort to open up a little bit more and tell people how I feel, and how I am I am sorry for what I have or haven’t done. The easiest way to reference it is like this. What does an animal born in a zoo think is normal?
We are those animals in the zoo. I will leave it at that.

As for the days ride I got out the door and felt my legs were toasted. Not even a honey bun could save me today. At one point I stopped on the side of the road because I thought I had a wicked head wind. When I stopped I found out I infact had a tailwind and was still going less then the speed of smell.

Things got worse when I forgot to drink as much as I should. It was mainly because the water I had tasted like a pool when you drank it. When I stopped at a gas bar to get some fresh water and ice the lady said that the ice would be a dollar to which I just walked right out the door.

Once I realized I was getting dehydrated I started cramming. Which is almost worse then not drinking at all because your body cant take it all in. When I started to dry heave up my honey bun I was regretting it.

What saved me was the view, and some prospective. I was riding right next to the water for the better part of the day which meant it was only 97 degrees with humity not the 110 it was when I got inland a couple kilometres. One thing I found amazing was the differences here in Florida. I was riding through a less then beautiful city when I looked over and saw nothing but huge hotels on the other side of the river. It is shocking to see such a difference in just a few kilometres.

It was at lunchtime I decided to stop. It was worth taking half a day off to rest, recharge as much as possible, and just enjoy some time to myself. Two things have me concerned. One is the fact that every 10th add here seems to be for a cancer agency. Which usually means that something is causing cancer around here (rockets if you ask me). The other is my hand. What was happening to my left hand back in Canada is now happening to my right hand. To the point that last night I told the guy he had to fill out the form for me because if I did it, it would just look like a scribble. Luckily my signature is a scribble so I can still fudge that.

To go back to the first things I said today. I am still young and I have a lot of time to make a difference in the world. I have a lot of time to take this piece of mind that I now have and put it to good use.

On the anniversary of 9/11 one thing disturbed me. I don’t think that it is right that on a day that brought so much tragedy as this they should be airing commercials that crack jokes and push products down my throat after showing me images of real people dieing, real people loosing families, and really people coming together. It just goes to show you what a consumerist society we live in. Mind you I am kind of a hypocrite as I sit here typing on a name brand computer, and eating name brand ice cream. In all honesty I don’t know what I am trying to say here, so hopefully you can read between the lines and enlighten me.
Trip Distance: 119km
Ride Time: 5:29hr
Avg. Speed: 21.83km/h
Total Distance: 11565km
Total Ride Time: 540hr
Destination: Ft. Pierce, Florida