Was out at 6.30am on a dark gloomy misty morning. There was no breeze so I made good time, initially. I hoped to do about 96 miles this day as far as Decatur but, as it turned out, I would do 60, arriving at Tuscola.
The first village I passed through had the colourful name of Montezuma, at a crossing of the river Wasbah river. Now there's a couple of mouthfuls for ye. Hope they go down ok! Not long after I crossed into Illinois & changed time zones into Central time. (A wee sign of progress). The road I was following became dead straight & flat, and, as it turned out, there would not be a single turn or bend in the road for the next 60 miles.
After 20 miles or so I got breakfast at a crossroads Diner. The humidity up to now had been very high & as I walked into that Diner I was soaked in sweat from head to foot. It was here that I found out I'd changed timezones. When I got back on the 40 mins later the wind had picked up and for the next 35 miles into Tuscola I would face 25-30mph head winds. With the strong breeze the humidity lessened.
The landscape became very flat & open with huge fields either side of the road with crops of sweetcorn, wheat & occasionally cattle, which you could smell from a distance. I passed through an occassional small village but otherwise it was almost endless fields with the road stretching away to a distant horizon.
In the afternoon the skies cleared up, the heat rose & the winds got stronger. Eventually I stopped to eat & have a rest I didn't know how far I was from Tuscola. I stopped under a tree on the front lawn of some business centre & became a spectacle of interest for almost every driver who passed along the road. After a short snooze I was back on the bike. It turned out I was only a mile and a half from Tuscola. Had I looked up the road I would hace caught a glimpse of the town in the distance.
On the edge of town a car pulled in to the side in front of me. The driver got out & waved at me to stop. He came up to me & started asking what I was doing etc. But he was standing too close to me for comfort & I felt edgy. Then he said 'so you're travelling alone?' & little alarm bells started going off in my mind. He asked me where I was staying that night & I pointed to a motel in the distance & said 'there' . It turned out he had done long distance cycling himself in the past & just wanted to 'hear my story'. He was genuine enough, his wife was in the car so perhaps I needn't have been so jittery but he was almost too friendly...... & much too close.
About a minute after yer man left, wishing me safe travels, two lads came along. They had been hitching lifts on freight trains for the past four nights. They had left Houston & were heading for Baltimore. When they heard what I was doing they shouted 'Wow, that's awesome, man!' I thought their adventure was pretty out there aswell.
10 mins later I was in my room, a cheap $30. I took a stroll to see what the town looked like but it was nothing, another administrative centre. On the way back I had a good dinner with the nicest bread I've tasted for a long while.
The first village I passed through had the colourful name of Montezuma, at a crossing of the river Wasbah river. Now there's a couple of mouthfuls for ye. Hope they go down ok! Not long after I crossed into Illinois & changed time zones into Central time. (A wee sign of progress). The road I was following became dead straight & flat, and, as it turned out, there would not be a single turn or bend in the road for the next 60 miles.
After 20 miles or so I got breakfast at a crossroads Diner. The humidity up to now had been very high & as I walked into that Diner I was soaked in sweat from head to foot. It was here that I found out I'd changed timezones. When I got back on the 40 mins later the wind had picked up and for the next 35 miles into Tuscola I would face 25-30mph head winds. With the strong breeze the humidity lessened.
The landscape became very flat & open with huge fields either side of the road with crops of sweetcorn, wheat & occasionally cattle, which you could smell from a distance. I passed through an occassional small village but otherwise it was almost endless fields with the road stretching away to a distant horizon.
In the afternoon the skies cleared up, the heat rose & the winds got stronger. Eventually I stopped to eat & have a rest I didn't know how far I was from Tuscola. I stopped under a tree on the front lawn of some business centre & became a spectacle of interest for almost every driver who passed along the road. After a short snooze I was back on the bike. It turned out I was only a mile and a half from Tuscola. Had I looked up the road I would hace caught a glimpse of the town in the distance.
On the edge of town a car pulled in to the side in front of me. The driver got out & waved at me to stop. He came up to me & started asking what I was doing etc. But he was standing too close to me for comfort & I felt edgy. Then he said 'so you're travelling alone?' & little alarm bells started going off in my mind. He asked me where I was staying that night & I pointed to a motel in the distance & said 'there' . It turned out he had done long distance cycling himself in the past & just wanted to 'hear my story'. He was genuine enough, his wife was in the car so perhaps I needn't have been so jittery but he was almost too friendly...... & much too close.
About a minute after yer man left, wishing me safe travels, two lads came along. They had been hitching lifts on freight trains for the past four nights. They had left Houston & were heading for Baltimore. When they heard what I was doing they shouted 'Wow, that's awesome, man!' I thought their adventure was pretty out there aswell.
10 mins later I was in my room, a cheap $30. I took a stroll to see what the town looked like but it was nothing, another administrative centre. On the way back I had a good dinner with the nicest bread I've tasted for a long while.
No comments:
Post a Comment