Day 21

The distance I rode today is not the amazing thing. The amazing thing is how easy it was.

As of a couple days ago, my route had me staying on the east side of the Tennessee River, and riding up to the Land Between the Lakes region, probably stopping at Piney Campground after a distance of about 83 miles. Well, it turns out that my campground last night wasn't quite as far north as I thought it would be, so when I re-did the route planning to Piney Campground, it actually showed a route of 80 miles by crossing back west over the river from whence I came, and 87 miles if I stayed on the east side. So I was left with a decision: take the longer route on the more scenic country roads which would no doubt be full of packs of wild dogs and unnecessarily steep hills, or take the shorter route on the less scenic US 641, which would be flatter, straighter, and dog free. I chose the latter.

And what a great choice it was. Although it felt weird to be backtracking, once I got back north of Parsons on US 641, I knew I had made the right decision. It was still marked as a bike route, and now I could see why. The shoulder was a full-width lane of smooth, debris-free asphalt, and while there were constant hills, they were very low and and very gradual. And it was still just a two-lane road, so it wasn't even that bad from a scenic perspective.

But that alone wouldn't have been enough to get me 116 miles. There was another, all-important factor: the wind. It was coming behind me from the south the entire day, probably around 10-15mph most of the time. As evidenced by my average speed (which blows away any other average speeds of the trip), I was regularly doing 25mph for long stretches on the slight downhills, and could still do 15-16mph on the uphills.

When I reached Camden, the halfway point of the day, at 10:30AM, I knew that going only 80 miles would be a waste of the wind (and the 10 hours of sleep I'd gotten last night). Due to the spacing of towns and campgrounds, my planning actually did have a 115 mile day scheduled, for my ride into St. Louis. With the amazing weather I've had the whole trip, I figured there was a good chance that that day could have gale-force headwinds, 49-degree temperatures, and hail, which I'm sure is being saved up for me somewhere. So I figured if I could knock out that distance today, when conditions are perfect, I would have it easy the whole rest of the way home. My first thought was to stop at a more northerly campground in the Land Between the Lakes, or maybe even do some backcountry camping there (although I'd been wearing the same clothes for at least the last four days and hadn't showered last night, so that wasn't too appealing). I stopped at the library to do some investigating. I could do about 115 miles to Birmingham Ferry Campground in the LBL, but that would still leave me with about 100 miles the next day. After all, if I couldn't cut out the 115 miles into St. Louis, there was no point in going that far today. Another possibility was Kentucky Dam State Park, just west of the northwest corner of the LBL, also about 115 miles away, but it would leave me with only 87 the next day. So, I decided to skip the LBL. I figured I've been following, crossing, and camping alongside rivers/lakes for much of the trip, so how much more exciting would the fact that I'm between two of them really be? Kentucky Dam it was. Still on the lake, just not between the lakes.

Now, it was time to cover some ground. First, a quick fuel-up at McDonald's. Then, I covered the 20 miles from Camden to Paris in just over an hour. Stopped at a small grocery there, and the guy tells me about a tourist who stopped in several years ago from Great Britain, and was riding from New York to California. Wanted to see Kentucky Lake, apparently the biggest manmade lake in the world(?) The main thing he seemed to remember was that the man wasn't lacking for money! Another 15 miles and I'm in Kentucky. Ten miles to Murray. Fifteen miles to Benton. Stopped at the Dairy Queen for a Banana Split, and there was a woman there who asked if I knew where Cairo, Illinois was. Of course I did, I was going through there tomorrow! Turns out she was from Chicago too, but if she could find her way, she would probably be home sooner than me. So I got out the computer, put in the route, and let her copy down the directions. And I thought I was supposed to be the one asking people for directions! I didn't seem like she actually needed to go through Cairo, she just knew I-57 went through there and she knew her way back after that. Anyway, it was nice to help someone out. Then another ten miles, and I'm at the campground. And it's only 5:30! As usual, I didn't really feel tired, so I cooked myself a meal (Stove Top Stuffing with tuna; those tear-open tuna packets are great). Then showered and did some much-needed laundry, and finally wrote two days of journal entries before hitting the sack. I'm glad I was able to stay flexible, and take advantage of the conditions I was given today. Hopefully it'll pay off over the next week.