It’s the last day of July today, and 31 days since my trip started. It was a great day on and off the bike to mark the occasion.

• Today’s Distance (miles): 44
• Time in saddle: 3h 18
• Max/min temp – in full sun (°c): 38°/24°
• Climbing (feet) : 223
• Calories used: 2,010
• Today’s 2nd Breakfast: Iced tea, coffee, cinnamon roll and toasted chicken salad bagel at Eastern Perk, Smyrna
• Cafe time: 3h 02

This morning’s ride was a real Nature Day here on Incidents of Travel.

I loved being in a such a quiet campground again. I slept with the ‘roof’ off, even though there was slight chance of a shower – the stars were out and bright, and the wetlands behind my tent were full of a mesmerising chorus of small (I hoped) creature-noises. However, my closest encounter with nature came in the shower block, or Bath House, as they call it around here. I was just doing my three bits of washing up when something shockingly green leapt out of nowhere and attached itself to my right arm. In shock, I threw everything I had just cleaned straight up in the air and thwhacked it off. It flew threw the air and landed cleanly on the wall, where it posed for this photo:

The campground was quiet as I prepared to hit the road, but I did have a small brown bunny as company as I packed up my tent. He/she just stayed over by this old branch and watched me, barely moving and giving me that sideways look.

I left by 7am. Cooler temperatures and a slight tailwind made it a nice easy start.

Joe had told me yesterday that the stretch to Smyrna wouldn’t have anywhere to stop (we were discussing coffee) but what I didn’t give him time to tell me was that it was also an idyllic National Wildlife Refuge.

I’d stopped at a Dollar General (supermarket chain) just before entering the refuge area, and as I took the packaging off my purchases outside, the manager came out and we got talking. He was a giant of a man, several inches taller than me and built like a boulder, but was clearly also a nature lover. He used to run a seafood restaurant up in New Jersey, but had returned home in semi-retirement. He itemised the amazing amount of wildlife in this region. Let’s start with the familiar: any rescue cats or kittens found locally are brought to him, and he feeds them and lets them live around the outside of the store (I woke up one cat that was dozing on a stack of old cardboard when I parked my bike). And there are tree frogs, as we know: My wife didn’t like ‘em at first, specially when they stuck to her face at night’. I’m very much on his wife’s side on this one. Then there are the coyotes, which will eat the cats if they get the chance. A local woman had her small dog taken by a coyote last week, he told me, lead and all, whilst she was walking it. Then he told me there were bobcats, but I honestly don’t really know what they are. Then there’s the snakes: rattlesnakes, cotton-mouth snake (‘They open up their big ol’ mouth and its nothing but white and venomous’ he told me, opening his own mouth to demonstrate). Plus a few more snakes I’ve forgotten. And also a few wild turkeys. And now we move on to the Black Bears. They’re feeding really well here so they grow to, I think he said, 600lbs. Lastly come the alligators. There were 5 or 6 living in the pond behind the supermarket, he said. Some were small, others the size of a small dinghy. He said people only think of gators further south, but they’re definitely up here too.

So I was fairly mindful of these potential road-sharers this morning, but the Nature Refuge was just an Eden of birds and fish – a long smooth road with a water channel on either side, and beyond that, on both sides also, were densely packed tufts of marshland grasses as far as the eye could see. I’m so sorry not to know more bird species, but there were lots. Some that reminded me of sanderlings, some waders like oyster catchers, but that doesn’t really help! Oh, and pelicans!

I rode through it for the best part of an hour, with a great tailwind and travelling swiftly. This optimum bike speed is the best way to travel through an area like this, in near-silence and high enough from the ground to spot anything of interest, like fish jumping out of the water. I could smell the sea all morning too, because of the easterly wind.

On reaching Smyrna, I then pulled in for one of the nicest coffee stops I’ve ever had. Run by a woman and a local young chap who helps her, it’s a business started after the pandemic. Lockdown left her feeling frustrated and ready for a change of lifestyle, and she followed her instincts, opening her new cafe in February this year. She called it Eastern Perk

I had my favourite 2nd breakfast for some while: several tall cups of a Peruvian organic coffee, iced lemon tea, cinnamon roll (warm, fabulous) and the highlight, a chicken and walnut salad stuffed-and-toasted onion bagel. Just great, and I even sat in a white wicker rocking chair with comfortable cushions. No photos of the food, and I suspect you can guess why. Scone. I also got into a conversation with the owner and a regular customer in his sixties that kept me there for best part of another hour, just shooting the breeze about Cedar Island, his jobs on Hatteras OBX working on the huge stilted holiday homes I posted photos of the other day, climate change, the steep decline in the fishing industry, the pandemic, and music – he was a drummer and bass player with a love of all things jazz, but especially Wynton Marsalis. When he told me he was also getting into classical music, I told him to have a listen to a recording of the Haydn trumpet concerto that Marsalis recorded about 30 years ago with the English Chamber Orchestra, when I was a (recently joined) member. He was googling it before my eyes and saying he was going to spend the whole afternoon playing it on repeat. Here’s the last movement:

Joe had offered to put me up for the night, and I’d said it might work out, but I discovered last night that I my motel booking was non-cancelable, so it sadly wasn’t possible. These moments can be frustrating but it’s just part of planning your life day by day, and quite last minute too. I had to cross a few more road bridges to get there, but without the 35c temp and headwind they were far more straightforward. (Susie suggested a piece for the day to the Outer Banks: Headwind’s Theme from Harry Potter). At the top of the last bridge, I saw a single sunflower growing straight up out of a 2in square hole in the concrete. Very distracting!

Then it was a straightforward run into Moorhead, and a relatively early finish for the day’s riding, which as you know is very much part of the plan this week.

NOT QUITE SIGNS THAT ARE FUNNY: