On Friday morning, Phil and I woke up and walked to the cafeteria for breakfast. Danielle got us in again for free on her points, and we filled up on waffles, yogurt, granola, bananas, and (at least for me) soft-serve ice-cream. We also grabbed a few slices of bread, peanut butter and jelly to make sandwiches on the road.

Me, Danielle and Phil before leaving Boiling Springs

We ended up getting a rather late start for the distance we had ahead of us. After saying goodbye to Danielle and her friends, we had a hilly course to travel with the wind in our faces.  We ran into two segments where the road had been closed for construction, including one area where we had to walk our bikes over a steel plank to cross a river.  We never would have been able to pass that way had we been driving a car.

The setting sun casts shadows on this field, about ten miles outside of Greenville

Shortly after we started, I got a text message from Brian, who we stayed with in Raleigh, saying that he was driving to Greenville and could meet up with us to carry our panniers if we wanted some relief from the weight we were carrying.  We gladly accepted, and Brian eventually found us about halfway through the journey, a few miles after an ice-cream stop we made at a strawberry farm/peach orchard.  The going was a little easier without our bags, and we made it to our host Bryon’s house in Greenville just before it got too dark.

Bryon brought us to a restaurant called The Velo Fellow for dinner in downtown Greenville, and then he showed us a suspension bridge nearby that was only supported by suspension cables on one side.  Unfortunately, it was too dark to take photos, but the view of the small, rocky river below was gorgeous.  Bryon and Brian (his roommate) were having a gathering around a fire in their backyard that evening, and other couchsurfers were invited.  We spent the rest of the evening standing around the fire, meeting new people and making s’mores with homemade marshmallows and graham crackers that another guest had made.