Hot + Humid = Awesome

Ok, so I changed the equation a bit from the weather channel's report, hot + humid = miserable. But yes, the last few days have been record breaking heat here in south alabama, which for those of you back home in Virginia means about 20 degrees hotter than the hottest day you can remember.
So taking off were my travelling companion left off, after a big night in La Grange (ZZ Top was right about the girls down there), we took off bright and early headed for the border, the chattahoochie river, and our first time-zone change of the trip. Somehow we covered a ridiculous 50 miles before 9:15 in the morning. Naturally we thought it would be the perfect opportunity for our first century ride, but what we didn't realize is that in summer in Alabama from about 9-12 in the morning you can basically add a zero to the hour and that's the temperature. So by 11AM it was already 110 degrees and rising, not to mention the heat index. At this point, we were around Tuskegee, home to a big lake, which we naturally decided to dive into. To our surprise, we had jumped into the hottest freshwater lake in the world, little bubbles made there way to the surface as the water began to boil. We hopped back on the bikes and headed west to a town named Shorter, a suburb of Montgomery known for the Victoryland casino, aka the boulevard of broken dreams. On our long walk up said boulevard, we hitched a ride from Tom, ironically an ethics professor at Troy University. Tom took us under his wing and taught us not only about ethics but also about the intricacies of betting on greyhound racing. We left down $40.
Today was a long hot trek into even hotter southern alabama. We dodged a few bullets (and tractor trailors) outside Montgomery, and then made our way south to Greenville, AL, meeting a number of memorable folks all flabbergasted when we said we were going to Texas. They had never seen cyclists before much less cross-country tourers. Some promised to pray for us; others just shook their heads and said we were crazy. Once again the mercury rose to unprecedented levels, and we sweated faster than we could drink water. Luckily a cool down is in the forecast- only a high of 97 tomorrow. Oh, and we're still averaging 17.5.
Half-way to San-Anton!
Judah