When we arrived in Ikuno, just about everything we were carrying along was (soaking) wet, so we spread it all out to dry. From our experience of riding through, or at least on the edge of, a typhoon, we learned that the only 100% waterproof item is human skin...
Here's Jody having a piece of toast for breakfast, along with some piping hot coffee.
Here's a shot of Jody saying goodbye to our gracious host Miriam, a fellow English teacher on the JET Program that I met in August in Tokyo. When we arrived in Ikuno at the end of Day 9, Miriam was still at school, so we met her there. When she busted out a huge bag of freshly baked cookies, neither of us could resist. We were probably only supposed to eat two or three each, but we were so tired, cold, wet, and hungry that we chowed down on all of the cookies like a pair of voracious dogs. Sorry, Miriam! By the way, the biggest climb of the day was just before the end of the ride and before the cookies arrived, Jody was a wreck. I think that was the only time on C2C that he was really exhausted, even if only temporarily. That just goes to show that Jody's human, after all! Well, semi-human, anyway.
Our Day 10 ride began with a short, 10-minute climb, which was then followed by approximately 25 miles of down, down, down as we headed closer and closer to the southern coastline of Honshu. You can see that Jody decided to put his arm warmers on that morning (I did, too), even though it was about 70 F that morning.
For a while, the road we were on went alongside a river. This was one of the few roads we biked on that really wasn't that crowded.
Since we had a pretty small breakfast, as we set out I asked Jody to stop at a convenience store so we could consume some calories. Naturally, he passed by countless convenience stores before finally stopping at this one, over an hour after we left Miriam's place. He chose this 7-11 on purpose, however, because I needed cash and was able to withdraw money at 7-11 ATMs. Still worried about his camera, Jody was testing it out. Also note that he is no longer wearing his arm warmers, since there really was no need for them.
As soon as we got very close to the coast, traffic picked up in a hurry.
I took this picture about an hour after we stopped at the 7-11. Normally, we didn't stop every hour for provisions, but we made this pit stop at a Lawson to make sure we were on the most direct road to our destination, since, at that point, we had made a sharp right turn and had started to head west along the coast. This apple pie was one of my favorite snacks of the ride, since it tasted great and provided me with a whopping 462 calories!
I didn't choose the best angle for this picture, so you can't tell that Jody is actually pumping up my rear tire for me, since it was a little low on air. He added some air to his tires, too. We probably should have added air to the tires a few days earlier, but we were a bit careless in that regard. Anyway, Jody's a real champ, helping me out like that!
Here's a look at Jody in "I'm a bad ass!" mode...
Road construction in Japan is about as common as rice. Here we are, waiting our turn to head down the one-way road that lies ahead of us.
Here's another shot of Jody with his favorite onigiri, this time in "sea chicken" form.
Do you remember that I had a broken spoke on Day 10? Well, here's my wheel being repaired. I first noticed it was broken at around 2 p.m. while we were traveling at a high rate of speed on a so-called "bypass" that we really weren't supposed to be on. From what I remember, when the road morphed from a major road to more of a highway, there were no signs posted prohibiting bicycles. Nevertheless, as we continued along, I looked down whenever I saw an on-ramp and certainly noticed that there were such signs posted then. Since the highway was the most-direct way to get to our destination, however, we planned to stay on it as long as possible. Unfortunately, my broken spoke put an end to that plan.
To be continued...
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