Day 65

Dog barking
I wanted to get up early to get out of there without being detected, but of course I slept in anyways. Once a four-wheeler went by on the trail, that was my sign of a missed opportunity. I packed up quietly. There were spiderwebs everywhere. I pushed my bike out of the forest and pedalled away. The houses came into view. I took a few minutes on the main road before I relaxed. That's also about how long it took for the road to turn and reveal a huge forest with no houses around. I really hate not have service and having limited battery power. Oh well, I got sleep. I pedaled on, past a historic cemetery, up and down hills, and I was in Columbia. Gotta love the names of cities here. I got a pint of icecream and ate it under the shade of some bushes while I watched the cars go by. Navigating through the large city was a pain. Google took me through a college campus and down some steps, but eventually I got to a bike shop- one that finally claimed they had thorn resistent tubes. I bought two. They were rated for 35-43mm- seems like a huge range to me. They weren't as wide as the first ones I got, hopefully they sill work. They only had presta valves- good thing my pump works on either valve. I then headed south-west in order to meet up with a bike trail that went north-west. Kinda annoying but there was no other way. A bit after I found the trail, another biker asked about my trip and we talked for a few minutes. Then he took off- he was pretty fast. 30 minutes or so later, he passed by going the other way. He stopped, told me about the storm coming in and offered his house to me so that I could wait it out. Before, I was trying to figure out where I was going to stop to get my stuff charged up- I was down to my last 30%. I also needed to do laundry. I've ridden through storms and they usually don't last long, but this was a perfect opportunity to get some stuff done. Plus, if this guy thought it was bad enough to come back and offer shelter, maybe it was worse than I had experienced. We pedaled back to Columbia- only a few miles. After meeting his family's 6 month old puppy, starting laundry, taking a shower and plugging all my electronics in to charge, I got to feast on some delicious pasta. The storm didn't last as long as the laundry. Once it was folded and packed, I was ready to get moving again. I thanked him and headed back to the trail. It had some fantastic views. I saw a cave, and I just had to check it out. Tons of frogs jumped out of my way as I tried not to step in the stream that cut through the middle of the cave. I couldn't go far- the flashlight on my phone wasn't very effective and the stream soon took up the whole cave floor. I headed back out a different way, and that where I saw the sign- apparently I wasn't supposed to go in there. It houses grey bats, which are indangered. Oops. I didn't see any, so hopefully I didn't disturb them. Later, there was an abandoned brick structure built into the cliff wall. This is where runners started to be on the trail- probably a cross country team. Finally it was dark enough to start looking for camp. I looked near a creak, but the ground was too sloped. I ended up just finding a spot off the trail. There was some cover, but not enough to be completely hidden. Oh well. Night was coming.