I woke up to a few last mosquitos hanging inside my tent. I slapped away at my roof until they were nice and dead. Great way to get the body moving in the morning.

It was a little chilly and I didn’t want to do the “bundle up, strip, unpack, repack” move…so I headed to the bathroom. I’ve found that I’m not above breakfast in the heated bathroom, in fact, I have absolutely no problem with it. I also have no qualms wearing the same clothes everyday, licking my spoon until I see my reflection (hence, clean), or giving my water bottles the old sniff test to make sure they’re usable for the day’s ride. And if they fail the test, I just throw some water in there and splash it around. Then they pass with flying colors.

I stopped in town at a library to use their computer and update my site. Apparently, Thursday mornings is “teach the elderly how to use Facebook” class, and there were no computers available.

I headed south to Mims. The wind was straight onshore, so the crosswind was running me off the road all the way there. When I pulled into town, I was craving a real meal. All I got was a gas station, but they sold holiday-themed cliff bars, so I was happy. I plopped down on a curb, munched away, and contacted my friend, Jake, who lived outside of Orlando.

He goes to UCF and lives in Oviedo, which is northeast of the city. It was a straight shot west from Mims, and I hopped on my bike and let the wind do a lot of the work. I felt like Nemo on the EAC. Then I saw Crush on the side of the road. He was cool, but I totally almost clipped shell, bro.

I also knew that Miami was in my future, so I have been listening to a “Learn Spanish” audiobook. I took my time rolling westward, and most of it was spent yelling Spanish vocabulary as I headed into town.

It was absolutely beautiful out. It was the first day all trip that I went short sleeves the whole time. Jake had work through the afternoon, but he sent me his address and I pulled into his neighborhood before he was done. I unhitched, and sprawled out on the soft grass. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was because my legs felt great due to the helpful tailwind, maybe it was all the pretty ladies in the neighborhood who walked their dogs at this time of day, or maybe it was because I was going to see a familiar face, but I was straight up giddy.

Jake pulled into his neighborhood horn blaring. I jumped up and we greeted each other with open arms and huge smiles. He’s a fellow Bethany guard, and we quickly caught up about life since the summer. That patrol is awesome–we can go months and months without seeing each other, and within five minutes, we’re right back at it.

There’s something to be said about “riding the pine” together. On those real long days, you end up “doin’ time” with your stand partner–you’re not getting down unless you have to pee or there’s an emergency. Either way, you log a lot of hours together, and you end up knowing everything you’d want to know about them and then some. Whether its sweating through workouts, getting drilled countless times to simulate every scenario possible, recounting stories of rescues and after-hours debauchery, or actually experiencing those things, you do them all together, and you end up getting pretty close in 3 months.

We enjoyed some killer fish tacos over a few beers and decided to chill for the night.

It gets a little nippy post sun-down (almost forgot it was December), so we built a fire in his backyard and I got to know the good people he surrounds himself with down south. Jake on the bean bag, Evan, who surfs his face off, neighbor Briana, and boyfriend of Briana/Jake’s roommate, James.

They were awesome people–made me feel a little old when they spoke about their upcoming finals, but I wasn’t really envious of that part of college. They were really diggin’ my trip, and we had great conversations ranging from school to travel to the future and to the past. I’ve also noticed young people have a certain excitement about life, which is contagious and so refreshing.