The Explorers left the Cedar Island Ranch Motel after a decent night’s sleep. They headed up Route 12. Like the day before, there was very little traffic coming up behind them because there wasn’t a lot of places for traffic to come from given that the traffic generally had to come over to Cedar Island via ferry.
After the first few miles, the Explorers biked into the Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge. They were basically surrounded by marshland on both sides. They saw lots of egret-type birds, both bright-white and brown and one water snake wriggling through the water. They passed through several swarms of very aggressive mosquitos with Sidekick Sue swatting at Captain Mark’s back and trying to wriggle her own jersey around since there was no one to watch her back. Still, buy the time they reached their first 12-mile break at a Dollar General, they had both acquired a new set of mosquito bites. They enjoyed their morning caffeine (soda) break, and managed to find a new tube of “Boudreax’s Butt Paste”, a baby diaper ointment that works pretty good as a chamois cream without the high price. Their grand-daughter highly recommends it. 🙂
After leaving the wildlife refuge, the mosquitos became less of a problem. There were still intervals of swampy land, but now they were interrupted with intermittent groupings of homes. The road was very flat except for the inclines on several bridges that the The Explorers had to climb in order to cross spanned creek outlets; they saw lots of fishermen both along the shore and in flat-bottom boats moving through the channels. They took their second break at a “Jim Dandy’s” which seems to be a popular convenience store in the area. There, they found the protein bars that Sidekick Sue is willing to eat (since she really doesn’t like protein bars) which they need for breakfasts (when not at a hotel featuring breakfast) and for a mid-morning energy boost. They made one more rest stop at a defunct gas station before heading into the Beaufort, Morehead City area which was much more urban.
Captain Mark’s had planned a route to go to Morehead City and stay in a hotel, which was a little off the official route, because he wasn’t expecting to be able to find their shopping list items as they rode through the swamp. Sidekick Sue was happy to learn that he had already booked the hotel, so she was still going to get a comfortable bed for the night, even though they no longer had to search around for supplies. The Explorers had been to Morehead City before. It was their second night’s stop during the 2021 trip to bring their trawler from Myrtle Beach to Plattsburgh NY. They had even had to stick around for a few extra days because Sidekick Sue had to go see an Ophthalmologist because she had experienced a little medical emergency, a vitreous separation in her left eye and needed to make sure it hadn’t ripped the retina. She had been worried about ruining their trip, right at the onset, but her retina was fine and she was given the green flag to continue. Whew! There were no such issues on this trip (just sore butts), but the Explorers stopped briefly at the town docks,where they had stayed the previous year, and then headed to their hotel (which took them right by the ER and the ophthalmologist’s office that they had walked to the year before).
Another 8 mile ride took them to The Holiday Inn where they are staying; it is on the opposite side of Morehead City. They dined at a Waffle House, having some great breakfast food for dinner and retired to their room to enjoy the comfortable bed and what was left of Sunday football. Captain Mark is busy planning for the next few days because the Explorers are getting close to the point where they need to veer off the Adventure Cycling Association trail for good and start heading inland to Sidekick Sue’s sister’s house in Columbia, SC.
