DAY SEVEN 

Mama said there’d be days like this, there’d be days like this my mama said.

Rain. It swirls around in front of my window. I have until 11 to check out of this Airbnb and the weather forecast is for showers with sporadic thunderstorms until nearly 4. Tracy and Michael have been on the road since 9, traveling by car, to meet me near Hyde Park, Chicago this afternoon. Our original destination was Grant Park but there’s a NASCAR street event happening and no other cars are getting down there. We have a place to stay the 2nd until the 5th. At that point I plan to pedal off again on my own towards St Louis while they return to Dayton.

I’m ready to go at 9. I get up and look outside, sit back down, check the radar and do it all over again. I make it to 9:30 and during a slump in the rain I leave. By the time I’m outside and loaded it is pouring. 

The bike and bags seem fine. I’m moving now and using my phone for navigation though, so I need it up top to get me back to the route and I forgot any kind of baggie to slip over the screen. The individual drops are large and act like fingers, touching the screen and messing up my works. I pull over beneath an old closed down business with still intact, albeit shoddy, awnings. There is nothing else to do. Nowhere else to hide. I’m just a few feet from the road, lifting my raincoat and rubbing my phone screen against my still dry shirt, watching the pools from near the curb. One large passing vehicle a bit too close and I’ll be devastated. 

Okay, my navigation is back and I turn the volume up to full blast and slip it into my pocket before setting out again. 

Less than a mile from my route the road I need to cross is gone. The pavement drops 18” into a long perpendicular pit filled with dirt, rocks and gathering water. The detour is not the worst but I have to get off the bike and push through soft earth twice. 

Back on route the rain begins to really, really pour. I’m humping it over some long and filthy concrete city bridge when I see the sky flash bright silver and I begin to count my Mississippi’s. 10. 

On the other side of the bridge I swing into a golf course because I need more trees, right? The pro shop is miraculously open and the guy welcomes me in. I’m dripping wet but I have half a cup of coffee in my hand and as many napkins as I want within minutes. 

Tracy is about an hour and a half away. How long have I been out here? How much farther do I need to go? The bulk of the storms pass, and as the rain turns back to a simple downpour, I belly up to the bar. Dude gave me a plastic food glove that I slip over my phone and I steel myself for 6.8 miles more to the rendezvous.

I swing right out of the golf course yelling four into the howling squall. I make it another mile before I get stopped by a train crossing, except that train ain’t moving. Not even creeping. I find a tiny bus stop shelter and squeeze in with Fanchon. I’m between a rail yard and two bodies of water and I have no clue how long that train is physically or scheduley. I give up as the sky flashes again.

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I drop a pin on the map and call Tracy, explaining the train and my troubles and woes. I’m wet through and through. The car changes direction easily and before long I am throwing wet bags, clothes and shoes into the trunk of my car with god on my side.

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