Days 2, 3 & 4

Hey everyone we just got to Columbus, GA and we finally have a hotel with a computer so I guess we'll give you a day by day run down of the last three days.

Day 2
Our ride from Savannah to Vidalia was pretty painful for both Chris and I. It ended up being a total of 87.5 miles, which was a lot more than we originally expected and I'm not sure we were ready for it. The five dogs that chased us (2 pit bulls, 2 rottweilers and a lab) and the pouring rain that soaked all our gear and made everything weigh twice as much definitely didn't make the ride any easier. Oh yeah and there was a pretty terrible headwind coming out of Savannah. The whole ride took us 6hours 42minutes and somehow we managed to average thirteen mph again.

Day 3
On our third day we road from Vidalia to Hawkinsville, GA. We picked up some pepper spray to protect ourselves from the vicious dogs and instead had a very different dog encounter. About half way through our ride we came across a box of puppies that someone dumped on the side of the road. There were six of them and they were absolutely adorable. We gave them all the water we had and a few clif bars and crackers and played with them while we called every humane society, animal control and vet in the area. After about an hour we realized that people in Georgia for some reason don't care about abandoned puppies so we put five of them in the box and strapped it to the rack on the back of my bike. The sixth one was too small to put in with the others so Chris carried it in one of his bags. We rode off with them about 35 miles from any kind of town not exactly sure what we were going to do. About ten miles down the road we waved down a woman delivering mail to ask her if she had any idea what we could do. It turned out that her daughter was a veterinarian a few counties over that does pet adoption so she took the puppies and was taking them there right after she was done with her route. Thankfully everything worked out and I plan to send her a thank you card when we get to California. Other than that the day went well and felt pretty easy. We went about 74 miles and averaged about 13.5 mph. It was a really hot day and we got some pretty funny tan lines.

Day 4
We didn't know that there would be this much climbing in Georgia. Today we rode from Hawkinsville to Columbus, GA, a total of 98.3 miles. Basically it was our first century. We did well though averaging over 13 mph even with the roughly 5000 ft of elevation we faced today. It was a lot of up and down all day long. The whole ride took us 7 and a half hours and was pretty uneventful other than the dreadful heat, although I don't think it's gonna get any cooler any time soon.

Well thanks to everyone who looks at this and is keeping tabs on us along the way. Ross we love you too. Hopefully we'll be able to post again soon.

Don & Chris