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I still haven’t paid for my motel in Eulonia last night. I tried several times – Mr Brar told me twice that the computer wasn’t switched on and to come back later, and then later no one was at the office – so I’ve been feeling bad about it all day even though it’s not something I could do anything about! Yesterday Mr Brar showed me his prized possession: a certificate from the State of Arkansas that his wife was presented with in 1983, in acknowledgment of her services to travel, and making her an Ambassador of Goodwill for the great State of Arkansas. So who presented it to her? Mr Brar failed to even mention this bit, but I saw the signature at the bottom of the framed award – the Governor of Arkansas himself, who in 1983 was a certain Mr Bill Clinton:

• Today’s Distance (miles): 67
• Time in saddle: 4h 53
• Max/min temp (°c): 30°/21°
• Climbing (feet) : 958 (found that my altimeter is quite off so need to redo previous climbing stats! Today it said 82ft)
• Calories used: 3,564
• Today’s 2nd Breakfast: ‘Pre’ 2nd breakfast, boiled peanuts, donut and chocolate milk (a match made in hell) in Waverley, and ‘full’ 2nd brkfst: ‘All American Slam’ (eggs, sausage, rye toast, hashed potatoes, bacon, pancakes) and coffee, at Denny’s, Kingsland
• Cafe time: oh 15 (this is getting ridiculous!)

I decided to combine my plan for Saturday and Sunday’s cycling into one big day, because I suspected that sticking to the ‘17’ instead of following the Google Route would cut quite a lot off the day’s ride. So instead of the expected 85+ miles, it became ‘just’ 67. In was pan-flat again, as usual around here, and on mostly deserted roads, but humid and sweaty from the moment I set off.

Once the sun was up I reached a point on the map where I had expected to follow a Rail Trail for many miles beside the highway. When I was at home planning this trip, it was one section I remembered looking at and thinking: Oh that’s nice, there’s a bike trail! The reality this morning was something quite different:

The old Rail Trail did join me on the highway occasionally, when it came upon certain insurmountable obstacles:

Near the end of the day’s ride I stopped when I saw this nice, faded mural, and propped my iPad up on a smelly bin in order to get a timed selfie with it. I have used every single filter adjustment there is on iPhoto, having virtually no idea what I was doing, except that I could see it was making a terrible photo almost useable:

Apart from taking snaps, the only stop I made today was in Waverley, a tiny place where Highway 17 suddenly changed from heading west, to turning hard left and heading south again. Inside the Waverley Gas Station I met Jay, from Illinois originally but very happy living down here in Southern Georgia. We chatted for a while about England and the US and life down south. ‘Tell me now,’ Jay suddenly said as I paid for my donut and chocolate milk, ‘Did you ever try boiled peanuts?’ Oh well, I thought, here we go. The time has come. I’m going to have to try them now. ‘Let me get you some, on the house!’, he said, sealing my fate. ‘Spicy or Regular?’, he asked. I said Regular. He put a styrofoam cup down on the counter half-filled with damp, dark-brown peanuts still in their shells, then gave me a sheet of paper towel and a small plastic bag, for all the ‘bits’. ‘You put them in your mouth whole and just sort of bite the shell off and spit it out’, Jay said. That explained what I’d seen people spitting out on a couple of occasions recently. I apologised and said I was just going to peel mine, and went ahead and tried a few. They were absolutely revolting. They were soft, ‘bitty’ with all of the soggy shell fragments, and with a flavour like ‘essence of peanut’ that had been diluted with warm swamp water. I ate them all, from a combination of politeness and knowing that at least they were valuable cycling fuel. When Jay got on to politics and the fact that people should stop having so many children and expecting the state to pay for them, I made my excuses and left.

The highway then crossed several tributaries of the same river, the Saltilla, where the wide, still waters were occasionally disturbed by a fish leaping out of the water to catch something in the air. On a long straight stretch of highway I saw a group of what I thought were large crows up ahead. As I got nearer I realised that they were a lot bigger than that, and were actually Black Vultures (thanks to @Sam Buckton’s very helpful ID work in ‘Comments’!). They were all fighting over a large bit of road kill, playing a grisly game of tug-of-war with it right in the road, and barely flew off even for passing cars, let alone for a puny bike like mine. The scrappy start and finish are due to the obvious problems of combining cameraman with cyclist, but add to the sense of being there, don’t you think?

Between the time when I left and when I arrived at my 2nd Breakfast, the temperature had gone from 21° before sun-up to 30°. The forecast was for a high of 37° this afternoon, so an early finish plus a long ride was a really good result today. The comedy moment came in Denny’s next to my motel – I couldn’t check in for a few hours – when I ordered the ‘All American Slam’, having checked on the menu first that there wouldn’t be any surprise pancakes as happened the last time I ate in a Denny’s back in…back in…sorry, bike-brain failure. When the meal arrived, my waitress* put two plates down, one of which was pancakes. I laughed and explained about my careful ordering, and she laughed and said ‘Oh the All American doesn’t come with pancakes, but I just saw them sitting there in the kitchen without an order number, and I thought, Why not?’ So I ate them anyway (except for roughly a one-inch by one-inch section):

*She was from Connecticut originally but now living in a trailer on some land she’d bought, with three lively but lovely kids who really enjoy having a three acre garden with a river running through it. ‘When they’re bored I give them a tent and tell them to go find a spot in the shade somewheres and make a camp for a night or two. They mostly come home for meals, or I pack them something. But they love it’. See below for more on the life-in-a-peanutshell moments on this trip.

I was thinking today during my 2nd breakfast about the crazy number of great conversations I’ve had with the people who serve me in diners. It’s actually hard not to start a conversation when you’ve come in looking as freaky as I usually do – in full Lycra bike gear, mopping my brow, out of breath – but it is a daily pleasure. Waiters and waitresses always have a back story to tell you, given the chance, and I’ve been surprised by how often they’ll go from the small talk of ‘how ya doin’ today? to their concerns about their childrens’ schooling, or their own dreams of travelling to Europe one day. It’s costing me in tips though, because when the bill arrives with the tip options (usually 18%, 20% and 22%) I feel I have to reflect the pleasure I got from the service, and always go for the max.

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!: No, not another Campgraound celebration, but an unexpected flavour in the camp-kitchen area. I had to leave my bike in full sun whilst I was in Denny’s (sorry pal), because otherwise I couldn’t see it from my booth. When I tried the the trail mix later over in my motel room – it had been on top of the panniers in a bag – the raisins and pineapple and stuff were so intensely sunbaked that it tasted like a handful of plum duff, or a Christmas pudding. And the peanuts…they bore an unpleasant resemblance to those pesky boiled peanuts back in Waverley. I put the whole bag straight in the fridge along with two full bidon’s of fresh water, to get things back to normal – whatever the hell that actually is in this crazy climate.

JUST BECAUSE: Here’s some more cooling, calming photos from the lovely Savannah Academy Art Collection:

LEAST TEMPTING OR AFFORDABLE SIDE DISH IN AMERICA?: A nearby diner I (briefly) considered for my Saturday night supper is offering: ‘Baby carrots with a hint of margarine $16.87’. Tempting, isn’t it, even with the staggering price? Perhaps with a topping of boiled peanuts? I think it’s Denny’s again for me, Salmon, broccoli and wild rice. With a hint of margarine.

LOBSTERS TAKING OVER THE WORLD: Down here in Southern Georgia the lobsters have a different approach to their ongoing world domination plan, which has dogged the blog since the outset. At Captain Stan’s Smokehouse in Woodbine, they attack not singly but in numbers, utilising the Greek/Roman ‘phalanx’ formation:

SIGNS THAT ARE FUNNY: