Elf-help

Total distance: 2976.4 km

By Sundance:

Our list of helpful friends just keeps growing, last night we got taken in for the night  - by Santa!

We set out yesterday morning from Hazlehurst, with patches of the night's snowfall peppering the trees and the roadside. It was extremely pretty, as our photos will attest when we get around to uploading them. At the moment our 'net connection is a bit slow so we'll wait until another day. We wound our way out of town along a back road and headed through the countryside along Monticello rd. We stopped briefly to check out Katie's Cake Shop (the thougt of pecan pie was making my mouth water) but Katie was busy having a family reunion and quite impolitely told us the shop was closed. So yar boo sucks to her! We rode on, enjoying the sunshine and the clear blue sky, stopped for sandwiches by the roadside and chatted about our expectations and plans for this trip, now that the cold weather has arrived and we may wind up travelling further south than we initially planned.

As we approached Monticello, a fellow in red trousers pulled up next to us, and asked us where we were travelling. It turned out he had walked across the USA for two-and-a-half years, and would love to help us out with accommodation and showers and food. He was also the Santa for the Monticello christmas parade, so we rode into Monticello, watched the parade, and then loaded our bikes into his and his wife's van to spend the night at their place.

So another wonderful act of generosity and kindness has dropped from the sky - we spent the night in a warm bed, had a good meal (plus french toast for breakfast this morning) and a nice discussion about life, travel, religious and political attitudes in the South, and more. Plus we got to watch a few episodes of 'Meet the Natives USA', a show about some polynesian islanders who visit America to learn about the differences and similarities between lifestyles in the two countries. That was kinda cool, since we are also travelling through the USA, having come from an island in the Pacific.

What's the opposite of "Bah, humbug!"?