Day 18: Trying to breath

July 22, 2016

Taking in a concert with some of my friends in Davenport Iowa

Sweet Jesus it was hot today!

I slept pretty well last night but don't ask me how. I laid in on top of my sleeping bag, baking like a Thanksgiving turkey in my tent in pools of sweat, until the next thing I knew it was morning and time to get the show on the road.

I can't even describe how hot it was. By mid-day it even felt a little hard to breath because of the humidity. And part of it was my own fault because yesterday was predicted to be bad but didn't turn out to be as bad as they predicted, probably because there was some cloud cover, but what does it matter? I didn't get my show on the road soon enough and got caught in the heat.

"You all probably don't remember it," said an old timer where I stopped for breakfast, "but in 1935 it was really hot like this too, except back then we didn't have air conditioners. So we would go down to the cellar and sleep on the dirt at night just to try and stay cool."

He was talking to some friends so I was acting like a fly on the wall and eavesdropping. It made me wonder what other stories this guy had in his back pocket. I suppose I should have asked, it would have made for good reading, but my brain was baking so I didn't think of it.

Anyway, it was hot in 1935 and it was hot today. That much we know. We have also established that I was suffering badly because I lollygagged during the "cool" part of the day.

I was on my way to Muscatine, Iowa and was near the end of The Great River Trail, which I have enjoyed. Since I don't like riding through cities I didn't think I would like today but I did, except for the heat of course.

On the Illinois side I got to see the John Deere Museum, which was interesting in that it had some cool old tractors, even if the exhibits were, in my opinion, a little overboard on the benefits of modern farming and their ability to save the world from overpopulation. After my meeting yesterday with the butterfly woman I wasn't so confident. Still, I enjoyed the shinny tractors.

From there it was over to bridge to Davenport, Iowa and then on to Muscatine. I don't know how Huckleberry Finn would have managed but all I wanted to do was find an air conditioned hotel room to hide in. I didn't even care much that the Super 8 in Davenport was one of the more, well, crappy hotels I stayed in. The A.C. worked in the room so what else matters?

So I got a room fairly early in the day, blasted the A.C. and hoped that the promised rain storm (what else is new) would actually show up and cool things down for tomorrow.

Until then...

The Great River Trail near Moline, Illinois

Cool shinny old tractor. When I look at an old tractor like this I think of some farmer in the 30's, or whenever it was built, and the excitement he/she must have felt at such a modern piece of machinery. I wonder what people will be saying about our "modern wonders" in 75 or 100 years from now?

Rust on the bridge at Davenport. I don't know who is going to win this years election, Hillery or nutcase Trump, but whoever wins can you do something about our rusty bridges? How about a few less wars and we use the money we save blowing up stuff on our infrastructure?

Huckleberry Finn would have liked this stretch of River

Here is a perfectly good picture of a river boat shot to hell because some idiot parked his car in the way!

Today's ride: 47 miles (76 km)
Total: 1,190 miles (1,915 km)

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