Our first real training ride - 7 March

Arrived Saturday afternoon at our rental in South Carolina. The place reminds me of Birchcrest before Paul Nyren started gentrifying it. Point Road is a little spur off that heads toward the water in an area of scrubby pine and sandy soil. Not very scenic actually except for the view over the water. The place we are in is clearly the replacement for an older building-- all of the places around us are far more modest. John searched the web for a local bike ride and bought a PDF for $2.00 and off we headed, about 11 am. The map quickly proved to be full of misinformation but we blundered along with a general sense of the direction we wanted to go in and ultimately made a 44 mile circuit and arrived safely back at the "Crystal Coast Cabin". This area is flat! Except for bridges, built high to permit the passage of large boats, there were truly no hills. Sounds easy but there is a different challenge to endless flat where one must pedal endlessly. Our average, or my average, was 12.4. John's must have been the same since we stayed together for the whole ride. An indication of what the ride was like? I took only one picture and that was of a roadside shrine. A very humdrum area. The developed parts consist of urban sprawl and high traffic, the rural parts are essentially featureless. Am I doing this place an injustice? Someone must love it.