Day 22

It seems that I've got a pretty good routine going. Despite the fact that I don't have an alarm clock, I've been waking up every single morning since Atlanta between 6:00 and 6:15. Then I eat a breakfast of two Honey Nut Cheerios bars, have a banana or two (or whatever other fruit I may have), a fruit drink if I remembered to buy one the day before, and perhaps some sort of snack cake. Then I pack up, and inevitably the time reads 7:30 when I hit the road. Somewhere between ten and twenty miles, it's time to stop for second-breakfast at a gas station, where I get a bottle of chocolate milk, and some sort of disgustingly-unhealthy but oh-so-good Little Debbie product. That's often about 1000 calories right there. Then somewhere between forty and fifty miles, I'll usually stop for lunch. Depending on how the day is looking, I'll either stop for a snack late in the afternoon and cook dinner at camp, or stop somewhere for dinner and eat snacks later in camp.

So today was no different. While I was standing at the gas station eating second-breakfast outside of Paducah, KY (which actually included two Little Debbie products and a Hostess product), a guy stopped and talked to me about my ride. He was quite amazed, and several times said "well bless your heart!" Seemed like a strange thing to say, but I guess that was his catch-phrase. He was wondering if I had a news crew following me. Also strange was that he was quite touchy-feely with my bike, investigating all the parts of it and even looking to see what I had in my handlebar bag. Anyway, a good guy, just a little weird.

Lunch was at Chris's Diner at 53 miles in Wickliffe. From there, it was just a short way to the Ohio River. There was no valley to descend into this time, although it was still a fairly dramatic crossing. The way the bridge was built, it was disturbingly easy to see straight down to the water, which was rushing and swirling well over 100 feet below on my right, as trucks were blasting by on my left. And then, I was in Illinois! Seemed a little strange to be back in my home state with over a week left in my trip, but it's just temporary. Cairo reminded me of Gary, IN; I'm surprised no one told me not to ride through there too. And then it was into the desolation. US 51 and then IL 3 are big, wide, poorly-maintained concrete roads in that area, with almost no traffic on them. The skies had been gray for awhile, and the whole region (including the impossibly-named "Future City") had a very post-apocalyptic feel about it. There's even this giant gate they can drop down to seal off the northern entrance to Cairo, I guess to keep the Psychlos out.

And boy was it flat. It's funny how "flat" becomes such a relative term. I'm sure I've commented several times over the past few days how flat things were, but I might as well have been crossing the Himalayas if I compare that to the elevation changes today. There was a long stretch for a while where the altimeter didn't budge at all from 320 feet. Then I could see a hill a couple miles ahead down the very straight road. When I finally got to it, I labored to the summit, and the altimeter then read a dizzying 340 feet, where it stayed for another few miles. I saw a threesome of cyclists passing in the other direction on this strech. They seemed to be touring, but it was a strange configuration. I believe one guy had rear panniers, one guy had rear panniers and was wearing a giant hiking backpack, and one guy might have had nothing. This is again an area where an Adventure Cycling route passes through, so I wasn't that surprised to see them.

I stopped for groceries in the not-quite-a-town of Olive Branch, and just after I left the gray skies finally started to drop rain on me. Not the gale-force winds and hail I had asked for yesterday, but just some good, steady showers. Certainly enough to get me completely soaked, as I did the last fifteen miles of the day in the stuff. I spotted the Mississippi through the rain on my way up IL 3, but I stopped just short of it at the East Cape Campground in East Cape Girardeau, IL. I think it's the first private campground I've been in since Indiana. It's really just the front yard of a mobile home park, so IL 146 is only about 50 yards away, and it's hardly scenic. But amazingly, the picnic tables at the tent sites have little shelters built over them; I've never seen anything like that at any other campgrounds I've been to, and it's absolutely what I needed since it was still raining. I could park my bike under there and unpack in the dry area, and even sit at the table. Soon the rain lightened up enough so I could set up the tent, though it continued to drizzle for a couple more hours. The showers had good hot water, which felt wonderful after I got out of my cold wet clothes. It's only $10, and the site even has water and electric, what a deal! I'll see if I can make it into Missouri tomorrow; I can see the bridge from here.