Friday, July 27th

Friday, July 27th

Tim:  

Day 11 was an uneventful 110 mile ride, a sunny windy day transitioning from Indiana into Illinois. Kind of like riding bike paths, a lot of back farm roads, little traffic, with smooth surfaces. I saw a lot of kestrels. I am pleased that the body doesn’t feel the fatigue as it is settling in to its new normal. Heading west, I’m getting excited to enter Iowa, my home state, and continue this adventure. Marcia and I are doing well. We have our campsite roles with sleep getting better these last few days at quieter campgrounds with cicadas singing us lullabies to sleep. It was a pleasure riding into Kempton, Illinois with Marcia for our morning lunch stop.

Marcia:

Well, I’m not sure I’d agree that cicadas sing lullabies…there was a dead one on our makeshift picnic table a couple of nights ago and they are rather large hideous things. They start up as we are preparing our dinner and with decibels rising until we are settling down to sleep. I keep forgetting to dig out the earplugs from the depths of our tightly and efficiently packed car. Appreciating the wildlife up close has been fun though. Hawks flying low over cornfields, cattle braying in the fields, osprey carrying a meal off to a nest, woodpeckers, herons in the rivers, and I enjoyed a Baltimore oriole showing off in a sycamore tree as I waited for Tim’s morning water replenishment rendezvous. Owls at night have been amazing to listen to, and way on back at Lake Erie I had a face to face (well, nearly empty dumpster peek to frightened little eyes) encounter with a tiny raccoon who was way more adorable than I thought those creatures could be. At the Salomonie River State Park we looked into the water at the marina and saw a swirling mass of very large fish lifting their gaping mouths up to us in the weirdest greedy way that would have inspired Steven King to new heights of fiction had he seen it. Lets not tell him. 

Yesterday when Tim met me at the designated spot (by a cornfield, naturally) I was parked and saw him ride up making a loud and rather frightening noise. Concerned that he was hurt I jumped out of the car, and there he was, climbing off the bike, pulling out his earbuds (music), singing “Alice’s Restaurant” at the top of his lungs. He’s as happy as can be, and says the music helps him through the afternoon headwinds.

When a friend wondered how we could camp every night instead of staying in hotels, it got me thinking that it’s not just that it’s less expensive, which of course it is. There’s something about laying your head on the ground at night, trusting that you’ll be safe, and having faith in the goodness of people. One of those was a very interesting gentleman we met at the Bayou Bay Campground last night. He’s been running the place for 40 or more years, and has a sign that says “Sharon and Fred” at his counter in the camp store. Sharon is clearly no longer among us, and Fred carries on with a kind and simple spirit that is as endearing as it is contagious. I kept thinking how much my Dad would have loved to sit and chat with this man, and I loved watching Tim and Fred talk about the campsite, his mechanical engineering degree, how he worked as an electrician for Caterpillar, and his life in general.

The place is hard to describe. I had my doubts when I pulled in, as it is entirely cluttered with old machinery and rusted parts and pieces of a long life lived with Fred’s “toys,” as he described them. He said the campsites usually go for $30 a night, but when someone is ambitious enough to bike across the country, he only charges $15. He set us up in his own front yard (which was kind of a cluttered mess) and then we went to the showers…a pleasant surprise of a beautiful new tiled place, the best we’ve enjoyed yet. Out back was a gorgeous, clean swimming pool which we had all to ourselves. A wonderful way to end the day for us both. 

I was able to ride yesterday and today with Tim for a couple of good stretches. If he wasn’t so fast (I can’t get as far ahead of him as I’d like) I’d get more miles in, but I’ll take what I can get. The headwind doesn’t seem to bother him, but to me it feels like a great big hand on my forehead pushing me backward. So he has me tuck in behind him as close as I dare and take advantage of the tunnel his draft makes. Fun. 

The roads are like a board game grid…one mile west, one mile north, one mile west again, one mile south around the cornfields. Tim has mentioned that he’d rather not waste energy going north or south, but there really isn’t any choice. And the occasional tail wind is a gift. He rode 112 miles today and is going strong. He's amazing.

Tomorrow is another day…and the adventure continues…