39 – Your Own Personal Lake - Travels with Walter

July 7, 2015

39 – Your Own Personal Lake

The problem with feeling over-tired is that if you manage to get about a solid hour of sleep your body forgets that you're over-tired. At that point any small noise will wake you up. It turns out the mini-mart in Ridgeway sits at the center of a bunch of big noises and that's bad news for the three of us.

It's not just the trains that pass every hour, but how the train engineers lay on the horn long and loud even though there's never a car or person or anything but darkness waiting at the crossing. Whenever a truck passes through town it clanks and clatters over the uneven surface of the railroad lines that sit only a few hundred feet away from us. We also have to deal with the rattle and hum of dueling air conditioners, one of which is close enough to touch. Then there's the hot and humid air that means we never stop sweating, not even in at three in the morning. Worst of all is the fact that Walter once again ate something unknown but horrible off the ground yesterday. This causes him to puke on the sleeping bag or the floor or the tent three times during the night.

Our morning welcome is the army of mosquitoes that descend on us as soon as the door flap opens. All of it means that before we even step out of the tent we agree that it's going to be a motel night.

Covered in a thick layer of bug spray we ride out of town just before six. Thunderstorms and heavy winds are coming this afternoon and we want to be a long way down the road before they get here. But we don't even make it five miles before a southwest wind already has the flags in front of the farmhouses pointed straight out to the side.

We take great care in planning our routes. Good roads that pass through small towns and beautiful country are such a big part of what makes cycle-touring so wonderful. But if something better shows up we won't hesitate to dump those plans faster than you can say Yubba gum summa dum grits. That's one of the great freedoms that comes with choosing not to follow a set route like the Northern Tier. And that's what happens this morning when we reach Belle Center. We know that the southwest wind is sticking around all day. We also know it's switching to northeast tomorrow. To take advantage of both, and to try and outrun the heavy rain headed our way, we plot a course due north to put the wind at our backs.

We shift into our big chain rings and stay there. Instead of hard cranking at seven miles per hour it's easy pedaling at twelve to fifteen. With the freight trains we're riding this is the kind of speed that sends us to the brink of insane giddiness. Thousands of acres of soybeans and corn zoom past, one farm after the next after the next. Instead of cursing at the wind like it just kicked Walter in the face we have the clarity of thought to notice how the sign of wealth out here isn't a luxury car or an in-ground pool but the having the means to dig a massive hole in your front yard, fill it with water dyed an unnatural shade of turquoise, throw a dock up at the edge, and call it your own personal lake.

The clouds grow thicker and the wind picks up more strength as the morning grows older. We also seem to have passed into a part of the country where grain elevators announce the towns ahead on the horizon five or six miles before we get there. One of these is the little town of Alger.

In front of the mini-mart, half a block from its dying Main Street, Kristen turns to me and asks, "Am I the only person you know who slams V8?"

Long pause.

Incredulous stare.

"Um, yeah."

We stuff our faces at high speed because the weather radar shows a massive line of rain showers and thunderstorms charging east, straight toward Bluffton. We might make it before they show up. We might not. But we decide to give it everything we have and hope for the best.

We speed north on smooth but empty back roads with no center line, past unfenced 150-year-old cemeteries surrounded on three sides by soybean fields. All of the houses are also surrounded by working fields, but only some are farmhouses. As farming continues to yield fewer and fewer dollars per acre, some land owners have decided to sell off property for homes built for people who want to live in the country but have no need or desire to farm for themselves. Most of the farmers wave when they drive past us. Most of the homeowners who commute to jobs somewhere else do not.

Because I can see a half mile in any direction, I blow through the stop signs that show up in exact one-mile intervals so that I can keep my speed up. With no breeze blowing over us and the humidity beyond ninety percent we sweat and sweat and sweat. The tailwind makes it seems like if we keep pushing hard we'll be able to ride straight into Lake Erie by nightfall, but when we reach Bluffton just before noon the skies to the west loom bruised and angry and ready to punish any bad decisions.

We grab a room in a small, tired-looking motel a few hundred feet away from the roar of Interstate 75 and don't look back. Almost as soon we wheel the bikes into the room I lay down on the bed and fall asleep. It's a preview of what's to come. I leave the room twice only twice for the rest of the day and Kristen goes out just once. The rain falls in sheets and waves for hours. It's not like we're the most motivated people you'll meet even in the best of times, so rather than ride a mile into town and back for a pizza we get it delivered. Then we spend the rest of the afternoon and evening laying around in our underwear and talking far more about the work we're going to get done than doing the work itself.

We want to feel excited about crossing into Indiana tomorrow and all that waits for us there, but our mood is missing its normal excitement and joy. Walter is still sick. He has only eaten a few scraps of food all day and won't drink any more than the smallest amount of water. He's slow and lethargic and sleeps even more than normal. It's almost certain that whatever's wrong will pass in the next day or two, but until that happens we can't help but keep one eye focused on our sick little guy.

Today's ride: 45 miles (72 km)
Total: 1,481 miles (2,383 km)

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