Here's Jody, at 7:10 a.m., standing next to our previous night's host, Kazuki, just before we headed out on our Day 5 ride to Tsuruoka. Even though we had our shortest ride of C2C scheduled for that day, we continued with our habit of getting an early start.
Backstory: Even though our host did tell us about the convenience store that was practically within arm's reach of his pad when we arrived, we were simply too tired for that information to register, so I think that night I just ate whatever snacks I had left from the day's ride and drank the one beer that our host provided for us, which was also the first beer we had on C2C. (Jody probably survived on just the one beer, since he's superhuman.) I then surfed the Internet for a few minutes, before zonking out on my futon. I was beat, so there was no way I was going to fulfill my (non-existent) contractual obligation to post to the blog that night. To explain just how tired I was: I think that was the one and only time I actually went to bed before Jody on both B2B and C2C! Lucky for me, I didn't realize that our host would be sleeping in the same room as us. I mean, I did notice that there were three futons laid out, but I didn't understand why. I just lay down on the futon on the far left and was out like a light.
Not so fast... Our first stop of the day was at the convenience store that was a mere 100 feet from Kazuki's front door. As you can see, I doubled up on three things: Pocari Sweat, an oddly-named (for foreigners like me) sports drink; tuna onigiris; and chocolate-chip scones. I probably consumed one of each right there and then and kept the other for later.
Not satisfied with my initial haul, I decided to buy some more provisions: a coffee for a little energy boost, as well as my favorite ride food, Calorie Mate, a.k.a. "chalk," according to Jody. Each piece of Calorie Mate has 100 calories, is lightweight, and sort of has a chalk-like consistency. Calorie Mate should have sponsored me, because I must have had at least two 4-packs (like the one pictured above) a day! This particular convenience store pit stop was very typical of C2C: Buy some food, eat it, buy some more food, eat it, relax for a few minutes, check the maps, and hit the road.
Here's Jody, demonstrating the "relax for a few minutes" part of the pit stop. This picture also tells a couple of other stories, however. For one, if you look at my shades (on the table), you'll see that I didn't bother to change out my clear lenses for darker ones, which again shows you how tired I must have been. (When you're really tired, you just don't care.) For two, you can also see some coins on the table. When we went into a convenience store, Jody and I often pooled together whatever change we had in our pockets and bought whatever we could for what we had, rather than going back to the bikes for bills. It was a very strange habit, but fun in a sense, since we were always begging each other for coins: "Hey Jeremy, you got 8 yen for me?" "Hey Jody, can I get 150 yen?" "What can I buy for 126 yen?" We didn't even really keep track of who spent what at most of our stops and one of my C2C nicknames became "The Bank of Yama," since I provided Jody with all of the Japanese money he needed/used on the trip.
A short while after leaving the convenience store, we pedaled across this bridge to make our way out of Akita. This is one of the few times on C2C that we weren't on the main road, so we relied on Jody's smart... er... umm... superphone to help us navigate the way. Also, see the cyclist on the sidewalk? Jody and I almost never rode anywhere but on the road, since riding on bike paths or sidewalks simply wasn't practical or safe at the speeds we were traveling at. Unfortunately, many drivers (mostly truck drivers) wished we would get off the (side of the) road. Or were they honking at us in support of our efforts? I wonder...
Backstory: For the most part, since I live in this country, I took responsibility for making sure we were always headed in the right direction. One thing I did in that respect was to pay real close attention to the road signs, and, if I thought Jody might not be sure which way to head when we arrived at an intersection, I'd let him know. He usually listened, but once in a while he'd start heading the wrong way and my gentle "Right." would then transform into a more urgent "Right! Jody, right! Riiiiight!" (The funny thing is, though, that even though I sometimes fell about 50 meters behind Jody because I was taking pictures [media, yo!], digging food out of my jersey pocket [hungry, yo!], stuck at an intersection that he made it through but I didn't because a vehicle suddenly appeared out of nowhere [%&*$, yo!], or panting for dear life trying to keep up with him [wait, yo!], for example, I always managed to catch up in time to let him know which way to go. To Jody, it must have seemed that I was on his back wheel the entire time. Little did he know...) I, too, however, was sometimes unsure of where to go, but somehow in those cases Jody always knew the way. I'm happy to report that each of us simply knew when to trust the other guy, so we never got lost. Teamwork, baby!
Here's one such time when there was no place to hide... Not all truck drivers gave us as "much" room as this guy, did, either...
Here we are, riding along the coast of the Sea of Japan, about 1 1/2 hours after leaving downtown Akita.
Twenty minutes later (at 9:24 a.m. and already about 40% done with the day's ride!) Jody and I made our one-and-only-one stop at a McDonald's on C2C and fueled up with, respectively a Sausage McMuffin and an Egg McMuffin. There is something about the expression on Jody's face in this picture that I really like...
About three hours after we stopped at McD's we made Pit Stop #100 at a convenience store. As you can see, it's raining, ever so slightly. Neither of us was all that happy about riding in the rain, but we were so close to our destination that we really didn't care. That kind of explains the smile on Jody's face...
Shortly after we arrived at our hotel, we decided to take pictures of our hands, since we were both suffering a bit. As you can see in this picture, both of Jody's hands were pretty irritated. He put the power of positive thinking to the test, however, which meant that somehow his hands never got worse than this.
The main problem I was having was with my right hand: I could barely squeeze my fingers together without my hand curling up. Luckily for me, the condition basically stabilized from that point on, so I was able to complete the ride. Neither Jody nor I had ever had a similar problem with our hands, including during B2B, so we were a bit baffled as to the cause. Could it have been all the rice we were eating? (Update: My right hand still isn't back to normal, but it is improving. I can use chopsticks again, for instance. I'd say I'm at about 85% right now, and I hope to be back to 100% in about two weeks.)
Can you tell how relieved I was to be able to stretch out my legs and just relax for a change? My legs had been aching for a couple of days already and I was pretty much ready to just fall asleep right then and there at the ramen restaurant that we found near our hotel in Tsuruoka. By the way, we drank all of the water in that pitcher and had to ask for another one.
Look at what a happy camper Jody is as he is about to devour a bowl of ramen! I wasn't as excited about having ramen as Jody was, but heck, I figured he was only here for a couple of weeks so we'd go eat whatever he wanted.
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