This Train Stops For No Train But That Train

Wednesday, we left our Savannah hotel at 8:00 am in warm, humid fog for our 82-mile ride to Brunswick, GA.  Within ten minutes we were at a railroad crossing 2.3 miles from the hotel.  Twenty minutes later we were still 2.3 miles from the hotel.  A freight train with no head or tail visible to us was stopped at the crossing.  We cheered when the train moved slowly left and groaned when it moved slowly right.  Eventually it again moved left with gathering speed and cleared the crossing so we could resume our ride in earnest.  After clearing city traffic, some of us formed two pacelines, or trains, of four each in order to share the work and the benefit of drafting into a SW headwind for 30 miles to the SAG stop.  Just out of the SAG, I stopped to photograph some marshes and the "Smallest Church in America."  In a moment, the pacelines were past me and I did not see them again for the rest of the ride.  I paid for my photos by riding solo into the wind for another 30 miles until the route turned out of the wind to the hotel.  At "route rap" we discussed not only Thursday's ride into Florida, but parting arrangements in Daytona Beach on Saturday.  The tour is nearing its end.  For dinner we split up depending on our taste for barbecue, Italian or seafood.  Six of us chose Captain Joe's Seafood Restaurant where every page of the menu (including the beer and wine list) warned of the risks, including death, of eating undercooked seafood.  Nonetheless, we put our lives in the chef's hands by ordering various fish, all - it was to be hoped - properly cooked, and hush puppies (fried balls of corn meal, a southern specialty).  So far we have avoided the fate of Captain Joe himself who sits stuffed and motionless on a couch by the cash register.