52 miles
Today was a pleasant, fairly easy day. My actual travel mileage was about 40 miles, maybe, but I did a lot of pottering around Watkins Mill and then Weston Bend and the city of Weston. Another miserable road today, 92. It started off cool today, but got quite hot, and I was struggling for the last few miles.
87 miles
The light-play and thunder turned into some serious business. My tent is old and poorly taken care of, but beyond a little spray now and again, things seemed to be alright. However, as time passed the lightning drew closer, until I became increasingly uncomfortable lying on the ground beneath a stand of trees. Lightning struck, lighting up my tent, and not seconds later the crash of thunder, muffled by my rain tarp, then lightning, until it was so constant that I could not tell how far away the storm was--it felt that lightning would strike a tree at any moment and fry me, and that would be the end of my trip and life. So uncomfortable did I become as the lightning and accompanying thunder grew closer and closer that I decided to make a run for it. I decided to weather out the... weather... in a shower facility nearby.
65 miles
Today was the reverse of yesterday.
I slept well (enough) and long, but felt awful all day. I kept waiting for the energy of the day before to kick in, but despite a great tailwind and less significant hills, I trudged sluggishly through.
68 miles
Strange how circumstances that should have made things miserable today worked to somehow make it the best day yet.
16 miles (plus hiking)
I'd hoped to have a bit of a rest today, and I suppose I did, with conditions. I didn't sleep well last night, between worrying about my bike and various forest noises. At one point I heard a horrific burst of howling too close for comfort; I don't know what they were, perhaps coyotes, but not dogs, I think. They must have been welcoming the moon after it reappeared from behind a cloud. Similar things happened all night.