Robbie and I drove all over Walterboro to get our laundry clean. We started at the 24Hour Laundry Hut, which was no good because they required laundry cards. We then drove to three motels, all without luck. Next stop was Reid’s grocery store where we got a sweet deal on an enormous jug of detergent, and finally off to the laundromat across town.

The clean laundry in this story is the unexciting part. I had been reading a while waiting for the dryer to do its job when my mind started to wonder. Just when I was thinking that things in this neighborhood looked rather ghetto, I saw a cop chasing a dude around the back of a convenient store right across the street! Cool! (For the sake of ease in the rest of the story, I’ll call the guy being chased, “Bill” and the cop, “Officer Friendly.”) When they came back in sight, Bill sprinted across the street towards us, while Officer Friendly was forced to wait on the original side of the road due to traffic. Huffing and puffing, Officer Friendly looked incredibly winded, so he called his buddies at the station for back-up. Within 60 seconds there were seven police cars strewn about the road and surrounding parking lots. Meanwhile, Bill never continued to flee. He just stayed on the opposite side of the street from the original chase shouting at Officer Friendly.

At this point, one of the cops from the seven partol cars easily grabbed Bill and had him in control. Well, Officer Friendly apparently wasn’t pleased that he had been outrun just minutes before, so he came flying across the street and spear tackled Bill and the cop taking all three to the ground! It was awesome.

Apparently when everything calmed down, I learned that Bill is a little bit crazy and he was being chased for standing on top of Officer Friendly’s car while Officer Friendly was inside the convenient store.

(In the sweet picture, you can see two of the cop cars and a little bit of a scrum of cops and criminals on the ground on the right.)

Things are good this morning. As I type this, it’s 8:24am, and I’m in the dining room area of the Sleep Inn of Walterboro, SC. Things are good because I’m accompanied by my morning coffee and my morning SportsCenter. I could be in a completely foul mood, but then be given coffee and SportsCenter and I’d probably be happy.

Yesterday we packed up shop and left Roswell at the leisurely hour of 11 in the morning. Robbie and I are the only two Americans AND new guys on the team, so we’ve pretty much adopted the role of team driver in the absence of Ben (Ben Oliver is our mechanic and generally drives the van; he’s been at the Tour of Shenandoah and therefore isn’t currently carting us around). It’s partially for insurance reasons, but I think even if everyone were insured, us rookies would be the ones behind the wheel.

Here’s a fine shot of Richard loading the van. With just us five cyclist driving around to races we have what you might call a skeleton crew. Hence, we’ve adopted different roles to make for a full squad. Rich is the director sportif and co-captain. Tommy “Pew Pew” Nankervis is team entertainment. Robbie operates as a fine navitagor and really compliments my driving skills of the ginormous 15-passenger van, since I’m pretty much team taxi driver this week. Glen is the other co-captain and throws in witty bits of Kiwi humor and wisdom throughout the day.

Five hours of driving later, we arrived in lovely Walterboro and were greeted by more fireworks stores in one town than I’ve ever seen before. Our Sleep Inn is a pretty nice place, albeit plain. I really need to do some laundry, but there’s no danged laundry machines. This place looks like it can’t be more than 2 years old, so I was surprised. Glen tells us about the less-than-desireable Rice Planters’ Inn that he’s stayed at in years past, where the place wreaks and the floor is sopping wet! I suppose I should be happy.

In addition to the lack of laundry facilities, there are no refridgerators nor microwaves, so we walked down the street to Waffle House for din din. Waffle house is a kick; it’s a staple of seemingly every highway exit from Virginia to Texas and not a single one has been renovated, redecorated, or cleaned since the mid-70s. It’s a real classy joint. Our server was a really nice, four foot tall, permed hair, elderly southern woman who liked to laugh. I think she was plenty entertained by the two Aussies, a Kiwi, and the two northerners in our table of five. It was also my first experience with true southern grits; I stole a bite of Robbie’s, which where smothered deliciously in butter, salt, and pepper. Good form bro.

In other news, after Tommy and I reunited in early April in Michigan, we had our Side-Burn-Challenge. As previously mentioned, Tommy took me in fullness, but I smoked him in facial area(mine were full on CHOPS), resulting in a draw. Tommy and I both have shaved our oh-so-stylish facial hair, but now he has a very professional looking flavor savor. Although, it’s way more than just that; it’s the full strip going down from his lip to his chin, and never is more than an inch wide. It looks niiiIIIiiice.

The best news of the morning is that Johnny “I-Suck” Damon, returned to Fenway to a barage of boos. Damon was 0-for-4 and the Yankees lost in the 8th inning. Wicked.