Ride Update: I've now ridden 2,588 miles (80% completed), climbed 79,182' and have 8 more riding days remaining.
Today's ride was a pretty one. Nothing breathtaking about it, but pretty decent roads, no climbs worth discussing. We were on rural county roads with decent shoulders and light traffic. There were several cutsey small towns like Packwaukee ( hey Wisconsin, you came up with one good town using the "aukee" ending- isn't that sufficient?), and Monticello. Monticello had a really cute falls- and they didn't try to oversell it like those people in Sioux Falls did either- and one of the busiest convenience store/gas stations I've ever seen. For chrissake, the line to the toilet was 20 people. Fortunately, there was a porta john out behind the store, but man, the smell was a doosey. The store had a pretty good donut selection and the smart riders doubled down on those bad boys.
The weather was right out of the Chamber of Commerce brochure again. Absolutely gorgeous day- high around 80, 95% sunny, light winds and no humidity at all. Man, somebody on this trip did something right. I have never seen a string of great weather days like this.
At lunch today, I was thinking about my ride today and the kind of physical condition that I've gotten into. Our pace today was varied- sometimes we'd poke along and other times we were sprinting uphill or to a town limit sign. What's cool is how rapidly I recover now from a serious output like that- just a minute to catch my breath and do it again. I have no muscle soreness and can pretty much just ride all day- easily 6 to 8 hours. We've ridden now for six days since our day off in Sioux Falls and have covered about 560 miles since Monday- an average of 93 miles a day. And I feel great.
Tomorrow will be a short day- I think under 60 miles and then we'll have a quasi-rest day and a ferry ride across Lake Michigan. That sets up my last full leg across Michigan and Ontario and into Niagara Falls. After that, one day into Henrietta and I get off the train. Good news/bad news.
Now I've been debating on whether to include this last entry, but since I know Mike Miller will beat me to it, I guess it can't be avoided. The Millers and I stopped for lunch at an Arby's today. There was a family seated behind us and Mike noticed that they had a wedding veil hung over one of the seats and was giggling like a third grader about what the story might be. Try as I might to stop him, he asked them what was going on. As I'm trying to get out of the store, he says "Hey Bob, look at this".
The woman is standing next to him with a T-shirt that had been hand printed with these words, "I was engaged to a psychopath and all I got was this t-shirt". Turns out that she was supposed to have gotten married today, but she'd found out that he was a nut case and called it off. I decided that it would be fun to pose with her. Lot a laughs, she thought it was fun, Mike put it up on his web site. End of story. Honest. Really.
