As you can imagine, people you meet along the way, weather store clerks or bar tenders or people who just see you riding, are amazed at our undertaking. They ask “Where are you going?” Do we give them tonight’s destination or the ultimate destination? They can’t comprehend the trip. They think we’re doing the impossible. But they REALLY admire us. ‘Haven’t found anyone yet who thinks we’re crazy. I went to the bar at the Holiday Inn last night to get a glass of wine and unintentionally got into a conversation with a couple from Chicago. They were full of questions and observations – and admiration. A fun conversation. We live in different worlds.
The weather gods obviously didn’t consult Underground Weather; tailwinds were forecast but we felt none. We did feel some headwind however. Most unusual, we had an hour or more of fog this morning. The ride started with a tough climb (14%) two blocks from the hotel. And that set the tone for the day; we had considerably more climbing than the past four days; in fact about three times as much. So the winds and the hills sure slowed us down – another 102 mile day but a much longer one than yesterday.
At breakfast this morning I learned others are having difficulty in finding something worth photographing and Mike told us it will get much worse when we cross the Mississippi River. Also learned I’m not the only one who prefers riding alone over riding in a pace line; the other three riders at the table feel the same way.
At about mile 50 we had two traffic circles, very novel for this country. Which brings out one of my per peeves: stop signs and traffic lights. How stupid to stop, waste time (I only have so many minutes left!) and gasoline when there are no cars in sight. How did the British end up with a much more civilized and efficient system of traffic circles and we ended up with stop signs and stop lights? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Somewhere along the ride today I got to wondering how much time I’m spending, on average, in the saddle each day. The answer is 5.9 hours.
Additional B&W photos at end of blog, but shown here are Jerseys of John Damiano, the 80 year old rider. I think he has the best looking jerseys of anyone on the ride.
Day 31, 102 miles, 1,981 feet of climbing, 7.5 hrs, 2,337 miles so far
19 days remaining, 1,368 miles remaining
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