‘effing Ham

Have you ever spent the first few hours of the morning thinking something wasn’t quite right? Then suddenly realised that you have done something in your life you have never done before. Well we have and guess what it was. OK, don’t guess, we’ll tell you… Last night we had Burgers (McDonalds to be precise) for dinner before going to bed and then burgers this morning for breakfast. The breakfast burgers weren’t actually made of beef; we think pork was the main ingredient. Nonetheless, they were the yummiest processed man-made food substitute we have ever tasted. Fortunately today was due to be a 5400 calories burn… “should have had two of those man-made miracles!"

The plan for today was to enter the wonderful state of Georgia, touching down in Savannah to witness a little piece of Surrey in America. You see; in 1732 James Edward Oglethorpe, a member of the English Parliament who grew up on his family estate in Godalming Surrey, founded the Colony of Georgia now called Savannah. This interesting chapter of English/American history is confirmed as soon as you enter Savannah…the English are everywhere!

So, spinning out of South Carolina at 59 rpm feeling the sun in our eyes, no rain on our faces and love in hearts, we set off on the 60-mile trip to Georgia. Unfortunately, an additional 15 miles were missing from the plan. Worse still it was 2pm, the Sun decided we had seen enough of him and we were 45 miles into the trip in the aptly named county of Effingham (excuse our French) before the calculation error decided to reveal itself. Panic would have been a natural response. Good thing we didn’t panic, we just gave each other the “YES WE CAN” stare then set off at 20mph with flames dancing off our back wheels…burning rubber! Overjoyed with the hard shoulder presented before us that rated on the Moss scale somewhere between Lebron James and Shakil O’Neil, we were hindered only by the appellation controlee. If you’re familiar with the evolution of the bicycle made in 1864 by the French Michaux family, you’ll know exactly what the ride felt like. We soldiered on and remarkably made it to the Hotel just before 4pm.

We’re now fed and tired watching Forest Gump on TV, which reminds us. We have not yet seen any of you join us on a stage of the trip. We suppose if it does eventually happen it’s likely y’all are waiting for the PCH stage. But before you jump to make arrangements with work, family etc. we need to tell you that we’re going to be spending the next 7 days in Savannah to make significant changes to the route through Georgia, the West coast of Florida (Ferry schedules etc.) and the Southern tier avoiding the Mexican border (don’t ask). Blog postings will be short and sweet over the next few days.

Us x