June 2, 2006
Day 23: Utica to Marion: How much rain can one little biker handle?
It was easy to wake up super early this morning since my body thought I was still on Eastern time even though I'd crossed into Central time, so I took advantage of that and was on the road as soon as it was light enough to be safe. It wasn't raining when I left, but my friend the rain didn't sleep in too long, catching up with me soon after I left.
I rode about 20 miles to Beech Grove and got a flat rate box at the post office to mail a bunch of stuff home, including the leftover fruitcake from the monestary (can only eat so much fruitcake) and the giant bottle of honey Rick had given me a couple of days earlier. There was another patron there, a bitter older lady, who was just mad at the world and told me what a terrible place it was and why didn't I just stay home. When the lady at the post office tried to ask me whether I'd met mostly nice people, the older lady interrupted with more bad things she'd heard on the news. I thanked the postal clerk and left with that old lady still talking. I haven't heard hardly any news for the last three weeks--and the world is still going on, but I'm seeing more good than bad this way.
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Then on to Sebree, where I stopped at the church to pick up a tube Jonathan had left for me there (he'd had so much tire/tube/wheel trouble that I'd given him one of my extras just in case). Violet, the pastor's wife, was so hospitable and made me hot chocolate and asked if I wanted to stay the night, but it wasn't even 10 a.m. yet, so I ate some doughnuts and headed on my way. I guess my plan to let the boys go ahead was almost foiled by my early start--they had left Sebree about 15 minutes before I got there! Violet seemed to think I was better off on my own, too, and sent me off with well-wishes for the trip and directions for an optional shortcut (which I didn't take since I wanted to ride the ferry into Illinois). I should have taken her up on her offer to dry my jacket, though...it was still dry inside, but when I stepped out into the rain again, I realized a dryer-warmed jacket would have felt good, at least for a little while.
The rain let up soon after, and I dried off at the library in Dixon while updating part of this site, but it wouldn't recognize my drive and I couldn't load any pictures. The person next to me smelled funny anyway, so I didn't want to stay too long. Not that I'm one to talk some days, but if the rain's done one thing, it's kept me kind of clean and fresh smelling!
I bought some BBQ chicken from people raising money for somebody and rode an awesome 11 miles to Clay (two syllables in Kentuckian--Clay-yuh) for some yummy ice cream (Moosic City Madness), and offer of a church yard for the night (turned it down as it was just after lunch time) and good water from an old-time service station. Everything was looking more familiar--familiar farm fields and agricultural equipment and good farm dogs that just barked at you to let you know they were guarding the place but didn't run out into the road to chase you. I felt like I was in Illinois already.
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But the last miles into Marion were drudgery for some reason. Maybe it was just a longer day of riding, but my butt was hurting and I was starting to plan for a 9 pm bedtime at the city park in Marion. Plus it was getting hillier as I got closer to the Ohio River.
The city park was about a mile off the route, and I had lots of company as there were three or 4 little league games going on at the same time. I let the concession stand cook dinner and watched part of a game with some grandmas, kind of asking about how long the games went and trying to figure out when I could set up camp. I happily heard the game would be over within an inning, but then they had ANOTHER game after that to try to make up for the games that had been cancelled by all the rain I'd run into. So much for an early night.
Today's ride: 72 miles (116 km)
Total: 1,093 miles (1,759 km)
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