June 20, Wednesday

Yesterday was a long day. Had to physically fight the wind all day and it was a 500 mile day. And Hot. Everyone was giving me reports of severe thunderstorms coming and 8" of rain up in Minneapolis that was coming this way. I started out in overcast skies but was able to outrun it.  I could actually see the line where the weather front was. If I put my hand in front of my face at arms length, the clear skies were about two fingers high and ran the length of the horizon. It took a couple hours to reach that line, but when I did, the temp went from 68 degrees to 84 degrees within about a mile. It did eventually go up into the high nineties.


I was so tired that I was yelling at the top of my lungs and shaking my head and anything else I could think of to keep alert (and awake). I finally pulled off into a little gas station to get a coffee, but then saw that 18 oz Monster drink that I have never tried. I guzzled the whole thing and was thinking to myself that this isn't working, but then hit the road. I have to tell you that it worked excellent and I was wide awake and ready to go until at least midnight, which was 8 hours later. No rush, no side effects, I will probably be having my second one ever this afternoon.


Took a detour to check out the Wall Drug Store. Very cool place and Wall is a very cool town.


I was woken up this morning by the sound of rain on my tent, bent fortunately is was just a brief shower and I was able to get out of town before it turned into anything. That meant that I hit Chicago at about 8:30 am, not what I wanted to do!  It was okay though, slow going for about an hour, but I'm through and sitting in a McD's in Gary Indiana.


I don't know if Gary is a black town or not, but every person in here (and there are about 30-40) are black. Except me.  It really is awesome to see. There are people here that I know have been here for well over an hour sitting with an empty coffee or juice cup, chatting. There talk about college basketball, get a job, politics, etc.  A guy came over and was talking about my bike and how long I had been riding and where I was from and going to.  I told him about the trip and then he asked what my longest trip was besides this one. I told him it was about 200 miles and he almost dropped his coffee.




While I have been typing this, we've had the police here and there rescue wagon is here with a stretcher about 5 feet away from me. The guy is refusing to go, don't know what happened, but I thought I'd be stealth and sneak a pic with my iphone. Oops, did know the flash was on, so much for stealth.

I've been sitting here for a while, very comfortable, but I better get going.