From my upcoming book: An Excerpt on Food

Here's a short excerpt from my upcoming book (estimated release date: Nov 2015) for your enjoyment - on the topic of food during my cross country bicycle ride (note: this is not a final draft - this is work in progress):

I had the grandiose idea of rolling into town for a good plate of lunch, and at the end of the day, I’d check into a motel, shower, and present myself clean in a restaurant for dinner deserving a 100-mile ride. I even went so far as to prepare a spreadsheet of miles I expected to log in a day, with lunch and dinner stops along the way and available restaurants in those towns, relying on Yelp and TripAdvisor for restaurant reviews and guidance.

How naive I was! I later found out, while on the road, that 98% of my research went to nought. I did not stop at the towns as I had planned - either because:

• We (my cycling buddy Derek and I) had made several short stops at gas stations or convenience stores along the way prior to the designated lunch stop such that we didn’t have the stomach for a full lunch at that moment; or
• The long-drawn steep hill climbs so depleted us of energy we needed some perking up and we had stuffed our faces full with $2-a-piece-pizza and chocolate milk at a local gas station prior to the designated lunch stop; or worse still,
• We had been grueling uphill in a national park amidst great beauty but such remoteness that we haven’t had anything to eat for more than three hours and we were on the brink of bonking (athletes’ lingo for running out of fuel) and despite our most valiant efforts to pedal as fast as our legs would turn over quick enough, by the time we got into the nearest town to find not one but several restaurants for us to choose from, our spirits soared a little before being hit and run over by yet another despairing news - that we were a half hour too late - the restaurants were all closed for their mid-day break. No!!!

The disappointments were real. When I say real, I don’t mean to say every other part in this book isn’t real. I mean to say, we really felt the disappointment. It cuts through to the heart, flesh and bone. It was utterly heart-breaking and nerve-wrecking when the one thing you look forward to, your one beacon of hope, your one dim ray of light, is snuffed out right under your nose, and you can smell the burning smoke of the ash. It was gut-wrenchingly sad. And we experienced that very frequently - so frequently we were dying a little on the inside each day...

Jul 14 #angieacrossamerica Day 38: Happy to have found some decent civilization and fresh made-to-order croissants and specialty coffee in West Virginia. In a gas station, at that! Oh West Virginia, you are Wild and Wonderful indeed (that's the slogan for the state). Location: Romney, WV