Molly's Journal: Week Five

On the road again

Today, I'm going to talk about sweat. I sure do enough of it, so it's time I inflicted it on you. For those of you who claim to be living vicariously through our adventures, well, it's time you got sweaty.

I should preface all this by saying that I really sweat quite a bit. I don't "glow". I sweat buckets. It's unappealing and gross. I don't deal well with heat, and part of that is because I sweat like the main course at a hog roast. I cannot for the life of me understand how joggers do what they do. No matter how hot and sunny it is, there's always a handful of dedicated joggers out there, grunting away, coated in sweat like some sort of waxy food-preserving agent. I am not this tough. I hate the entire business of sweating. This is why it came as a surprise to me that I seem to be dealing well with the heat.  Recently, it all came together. While we're biking, I never feel hot, but as soon as we stop, the temperature will reach up and swallow me whole.  Breaks, for once, are mildly unpleasant. Hey! That's sweat at work! I'm still sweating my normal ungodly amount, but since I'm biking, the breeze actually DOES evaporate it off my skin, leaving me a bit cooler and a lot more happy. It is a delightful thing to actually be happy to sweat.

Current list of weird body discoveries: sweating is good; I use my eyelashes a lot; rest is a mixed blessing. We rested two days, which I needed, but which left us a wee bit out of shape. We were in good form after our 3 70-mile days - two days of rest let our bodies go just long enough that this morning was a tad slower than we'd anticipated. David warned me that this might happen - it's just interesting to see.

In which we become unwitting stars

I can say without even having to check my notes on the matter that today was the very first time that I was ever asked for my autograph.

Before we left, Colleen and David and I went on a small day trip to Salem, MA. While there, we ate dinner at the Salem Beer Works. Our waiter saw that we'd been biking, and when he discovered that we had come all the way from Somerville, MA, he was completely astounded. "You ride your bikes from Somerville? Here? All the way? Whoa."  It had been my experience that people can only be really impressed by things that they can imagine doing. Anything beyond that is unreal, like light years or the number "one trillion". People would express the same amount of amazement when David and I would skate 10 miles to go to a restaurant within Chicago as they would when we would do something above and beyond the call of dumb, like skate to Wisconsin. It is equally unthinkable for most people to skate 10 miles as it is to skate 60, so both actions elicited the same response. I figured that people wouldn't be much more amazed by our cross-country , lasting  all summer, than they would be by a short weekend trip out of Boston. Boy, was I wrong.

Today, we stopped for lunch in charming Lewisburg, Ohio. The main drag appeared to have no eating establishments whatsoever, so we stopped in at the supermarket to pick up some nosh. One of the clerks expressed such frothy amazement at our journey that she actually asked to take our picture and have us autograph something. This was, as I mentioned, a first for me -- someone wanted our picture in order to prove that we'd actually visited their town in the flesh.  She was planning on taking a long road trip to all the lower 48 states with some friends this summer, and was trying to figure out how to get them to do it in bikes, instead. I'm all for it. If I inspire even one person to go on a bike tour who'd never considered it before, this will be a success.

One thing I've found is that we get very different questions from different people. Motorcyclists actually seem to be the most interested - I suppose it's the acknowledgement that we are both making unusual choices in our lives. Bikers seem to be a friendly lot; they will often toot their horn or wave in solidarity when passing us on the road.  Many of them seem to have taken long trips on their bikes, so they can understand where we're coming from in taking our own trek across the continent. One man stopped and chatted with us in the parking lot of a drug store, obviously intrigued by our trailers. It turned out that he was a motorcyclist, and really understood the value of having a low center of gravity. He discovered this the first time he took a long trip on his bike.  He cheerfully dumped all the weight on the back, strapping and piling heavy things on top of other heavy things, and had his wife riding behind him. This meant his center of gravity was incredibly high, leading to some unexpected wheelies in West Virginia and some scary hairpin turns. He never loaded his bike that way again, and was considering buying a trailer.  It's interesting to talk with someone with similar -- but not identical -- goals.

We ended the day with another cool turn of events -- one couple that we met in Amish country in Ohio, the Kennemanns, pulled over by the side of the road while we were stopped at a rest break. They live along Rt. 40, the road we were taking across Indiana, and were on their way back from an apple orchard when they saw us snackin' in the margin. "There's our girls!" they said, and pulled in behind us to say hello and see how we were doing. A nice surprise. We ended the day camping on the lawn of some friendly locals. I like this trend.

A most  undulating day

Boy, if I thought we were famous yesterday, I sure had it spelled out for me today.  We stopped for breakfast at a cafe in Knightstown, OH. The Kennemanns dropped by, having seen our bikes, and offered to buy our meal, saying that they would gladly have put us up for the night and given us a shower, if only they'd known we were staying so close to Knightstown.  Somehow word spread about what we were doing. One woman at a neighboring table called the local paper, the Knightstown Banner, and the reporter dropped by to interview us and take our picture.

Now, this was a lovely start to the day.  We talked with several people in town, including one man who had cycled to South Carolina for some archaeological digs, and our cool reporter Eric. We then biked on and had a lovely lunch in lovely downtown Indianapolis. We both thought the city had a good vibe to it -- especially when Colleen stepped off a curb wrong, twisted her ankle, and had four firemen run over to help her out before I could say "boo". They were very generous, wrapping her ankle in a cold pack and making sure she stayed off it for a bit, while also giving us good directions out of town.

Our collected wonderful experiences with Indiana had us brimming with hope. We were going to find a hotel for the night, allowing us to log in, read email, charge up computer batteries, bathe, all of those good creature comforts.  Unfortunately, when we were ready to pull in and call it a night, we were told that the only lodging was one bed and breakfast in town, and one lonely motel 16 miles down the road.  At this point, both of Colleen's arms were killing her whenever she got on the bike, so stopping sooner rather than later was our goal. The bed and breakfast had no vacancies. We decided that we would offer to pay the B&B a token fee to camp on their lawn and use showers - a simple proposition. However, the B&B owner was completely lacking in hospitality. Without being explicitly unfriendly (like the anti-biker mean B&B guy in Orford, NH), he managed to be both utterly unhelpful and depressing at the same time. "Gosh, you should have stayed in Avon," he kept repeating. "You should go back to Avon.  You can't shower anywhere in town. Maybe at the public pool. There's a Super 8 in Avon, you know. Have you thought about going back to Avon?" Well, sir, backtracking is not an option - I have a plane to catch in Bloomington, IL in four days, and being on a bike, every mile counts. We can't go forward, because my friend is injured and in pain. We can't stay here, because you have completely failed your thinking outside-the-box test.

There was the constant refrain: a mythical hotel in Bainbridge, which we saw as our last resort.  We figured we'd try camping on someone's lawn, like we did last night, and maybe we'd get lucky and get a shower or the use of an outlet for a bit. After all, how much trouble is it to surrender a spot of lawn for the night to help two tired, friendly chicks? Especially in a state like Indiana, which seemed to welcome us with open arms? We stopped at one seemingly welcoming home a few miles down the road. The woman who answered the bell would not open the screen door when she saw us, and was hiding behind it while she told us that no, no, no camping could happen on her lawn, no, she didn't think anyone around would do that sort of thing, no, maybe down the road a bit, maybe down the road a few miles, but no, no, she couldn't help us, no.

OK... maybe this was an isolated incident. Except there was also the B&B guy, so two isolated incidents. We decided to stop at the next house that had someone out in the lawn. After all, this tactic had worked for us the night before, and we got a lawn that had not only a hose for water and washin', but also some neighbor cats and plenty of fireflies.  We tried again, and got a woman who was mumbling to chairs. When I asked her if we could camp on her lawn, she replied, "Oh, NO. My husband wouldn't like THAT," as if we'd asked her to burn a flag or shoot kittens. "I could ask him anyway, if you want, but..." she trailed off, smiling falsely. I have even less respect for this sort of answer than I do for the uncharitable folks mentioned previously. Not only is she unwilling to extend herself or her two acres of nice flat unused lawn, but she's also passing the guilt off to her big mean husband. Mind you, we're not asking for showers or armchairs or a bedroom, just a patch of grass. No dice. We tried at the gas station. No dice. We met three friendly guys - one from Bloomington, one from Indianapolis, and one from a nameless town 12 miles away. No dice. Eventually, we just schlepped all the way to Bainbridge. Cee was resigned to it at this point. We pulled in to the lot of the Indiana Motel, a well kept "one-sider", as my brother Paul puts it, only to find out that it was both for sale and closed.

Closed!

We ended up sleeping on the lawn of the town marshall. A very friendly state trooper (thank you, DuJuan, if you read this) hooked us up with the marshal, who owned half the town. He let us wash up in the closet-toilet in his dairy shack and camp behind his horse trailer or whatever that was.

All this (which I'm sure Colleen will also relate to you in great detail) made me think about local character. It really did seem as if there was some sort of unease welling up out of the ground in this area, causing everybody to ooze ill-will and evil. It was like Canton, OH, only spread out over several small towns. Or possibly as if all of the good, pleasant people in the rest of Indiana had to be balanced out by a small enclave of desperate, frightened cave-dwellers. We really are incredibly unthreatening. I suppose if we were 65-year-old nuns on three-speed beach cruiser bikes, then we might possibly be less intimidating, but I think we cut a pretty trustworthy figure. Two women on bicycles, one of whom is injured. Why were we repeatedly and vociferously refused shelter? Why was it that last night, 65 miles away, we had no shortage of offers? What is it that defines the energy of an area, causing its inhabitants to be scared and inhospitable?

We get the hell outta Dodge

After last night's horrible sticky un-showered evil, my one wish was to put as much distance between myself and Bainbridge, IN as soon as possible. Thankfully, Colleen's goals were in line with my own, so we woke up and were on the road by 7 AM. We made it 20 miles to Rockville before having brunch, which we fell upon like the scarab beetles in The Mummy.  No sooner was it placed in front of us than we were inhaling it as fast as our bodies would allow. I actually had french toast AND a sweet roll, and followed it up with pie for dessert.

I had dessert at breakfast.

This is new to me. I like to make fun of "energy drinks" and "energy bars" because, on the nutrition label, they like to write "Calories (energy): xxx".  Just to make sure that we were aware that calories are a necessary part of food.  This means that some people are NOT aware that we need to ingest calories to have energy.  It is a fact that is depressingly easy to lose track of in our diet-crazy culture.  Biking 70 miles a day with an extra 50 pound load behind you burns a lot of calories. We try to stop and eat every hour or two, but sometimes we just can't (like if we have to pedal furiously to extract ourselves from a sucking void of evil, like we did this morning).  When this happens, we either "bonk", i.e. run out of energy completely, or just get insanely hungry and/or sick from lack of food.  We literally have to eat all day to keep up with our bodies' energy needs. This means we get to do fun things, like eat peanut-butter-and-cheese sandwiches and have dessert at breakfast.

I find that I eat a lot more sweets than I normally do.  Usually, I prefer salty and savory starch to dessert.  While I appreciate a good chocolate mousse or creme brulee, nothing can compete with salt-n-vinegar potato chips or a big bowl of goma-ae (cold spinach with sesame oil and seeds).  I never sweeten my drinks - I prefer the battery-acid rush of espresso to the sugary lethargy of a mochaccino. But I find myself ordering danishes and eating pie. I had sweet iced tea for lunch, and I did it on purpose. It's fun to see how my body changes its signals to me. Usually, I'm pretty in tune with what I should be eating. When I'm not eating well, it's immediately clear to me -- I don't have enough energy, or I feel icky or jittery or nauseated or weak. So I've learned to just sit back, listen to what my body wants, and then go for it. I find it works pretty well. But when it leads me down a path lined with sugar, it's more than a little startling.

I'm sure David is laughing right now, while reading this. We have a longstanding difference of opinion on how sweet things should be. As I said, I like my tea to taste like tea and my coffee to taste like coffee. He prefers both to taste like the glucose solution they give you to test for diabetes.  At restaurants, he will frequently have to ask for more sugar, so that he can continue to super-saturate his iced tea. When he was hiking the Appalachian Trail a few years ago, he would write me letters about the wonderful restaurants that would serve him pitcher after pitcher of sweet tea while he was eating his steak fried in butter (or whatever). It's fun to see this from the other side, to be able to relate. To look at a nutrition label and say, "Does this have enough calories for me? I need more fat. Is there enough fat?"

Perhaps it's only funny because of the conditioning I've had as an American woman. I've had it better than most - I've got a pretty healthy relationship to my body at this point - but I still sometimes fall prey to the media onslaught of Faster! Younger! Thinner! that seems to permeate our pop culture.  I like to rail against it, but I do still keep a mental checklist of what I put into my body. Did I eat too much today? How do I feel? Should I be eating less? Am I getting my leafy greens? Have I gained weight? Now, since all of my clothing is either loose or Lycra, and since I need energy all day long to keep doing what I'm doing, I have chucked the imaginary clipboard, stopped worrying about my waistline, and devoted my efforts to making sure we stay on a healthy balanced diet, where "diet" means "making sure we're eating enough fat and protein with our carbs".

Whee!

In which Coolness is preserved, and our heroines succumb to serendipity yet again

Short rundown of what was cool about today:
 

• Unending flatness of Illinois;
• Random guy-on-street in Urbana who pointed us to the Courier Cafe;
• Excellent salads and malteds at said cafe for lunch;
• Free net access at  Urbana Indymedia  shoplet around corner from said cafe;
• Janine Brock, who stopped and asked two weary cyclists if they would like a shower and a bed for the night (answer: a resounding HELL YEAH);
• Clean clothes.

George Brock saves my patootie

The Brocks, our gracious hosts last night of the would-you-two-scruffy-girls-like-a-shower fame, did me one of the most enormous favors that anyone has done me in a while. Tomorrow morning, I will be flying back to Maine for three days - my mother died in March and the interment is the day after tomorrow. I will be flying out of Bloomington airport - Michelle in Columbus helped me find a ticket on short notice (a week) because it was never clear where Colleen and I were going to be at this point. Chicago and St. Louis were two ideas bandied about -- I decided the best idea would be to wait and buy a ticket later, on the road. Better to pay a bit more than to try to make an impossible destination. At any rate, your brilliant numbskull of a heroine completely forgot to bring any ID with her. No driver's license, no passport, just a credit card with a photo.  Frantic with worry when I realized this, I called David who agreed to mail me my license General Delivery in a one-horse town somewhere. He located Wapella, IL, which was along our planned route to Bloomington, and dutifully posted a Priority Mail envelope off to Colleen, who DID bring ID and could therefore claim the package. ("Sure, ma'am, I'll show you my license just as soon as I open this here package....") This became a problem when we re-charted our route to go nowhere near Wapella. We had planned to go through Champaign-Urbana and cut over to Wapella, then head north to Bloomington, saving us quite a few miles from the original route, but still a bit longer than would have been strictly necessary, had we chosen the shortest route to begin with.

This is where the Brocks come in. We were initially reluctant to accept Janine's offer of laundry, bed, and shower, because we had to make time to git to Wapella. When we explained the situation, she said, "My husband isn't working tomorrow; I'm sure he'll drive you out there and back, and then you can set off from here. It's only 50 miles from Champaign, and going through Wapella will eat up quite a bit of time." I mean: Wow!  And sure enough, this morning George drove us out to beautiful historic Wapella Post Office, where simply knowing that you have a General Delivery package waiting is identification enough to pick it up. I got my license, we drove back to Champaign, and got a late but happy start. And tomorrow, I get to see David and Rory (my alien catloaf) and drive from Boston to Maine to see the rest of my family - a sad occasion, but a happy reunion and respite from the terrible rigors of a three-month vacation.

We spent the night with yet another Touring Cyclist Hospitality Directory family - the DePews in Bloomington, who also went out of their way to be extremely cool and helpful, including (but not limited to) giving me a ride to the airport at 6 AM. Tomorrow: travel.