Susan with 'coffin-size tent'.I woke up this morning, crawled out of my tent, gave myself a hefty slap across the face and yelled out 'Carpe Diem' before legging it to the shower block for what I hoped would be an invigorating and inspiring shower. What I in fact got was three large insects of unknown species landing on my face, causing me to skid naked out of the cubicle and into the path of an unsuspecting dog walker. That little morale booster hadn't quite worked out as I planned.
It has certainly been a testing few days. What with the rain and the strained knee ligament (which I think I can trace back to the 'great snapping turtle incident') progress has been frustratingly slow. It has also been a gut-gnawingly hungry few days as being the July 4th weekend, all the shops are shut. There's only so far a girl can cycle on organic cashew nuts.
But on the upside, hitting the TransAm trail has put me in contact with a lot more cyclists and people in the towns along the way are used to seeing human tortoises go past, so are on hand to offer jelly babies and advice.
I've been staying in some lovely campsites recently with pitches by lakes and streams. Having been brought up in the English style of camping (five family members in one three-man tent, on a 10% incline with a Portaloo 500 metres away), it's been a bit of an eye-opener. Yesterday I stayed at a site which had 85 pitches and only 10 were for tents. Everybody else had these massive trailers complete with water fountains, fairy lights and even picket fences. And obviously they require huge cars to drag them around. So whereas in England campers are united in their misery and tend to mingle, here people just settle into their own compounds and that's that. It almost isn't camping really and certainly doesn't feel particularly eco-friendly. Then I arrive. The moment I've pulled into the campground on a bike everybody has decided I'm half-baked anyway so by the time I've set up my coffin-size tent between two apartment-size caravans the picture is complete.
Then I skid naked out of the shower manically clutching my face. And I wonder why people never approach me.
