Team 242: Day Ten

Day 10: Greenville, Illinois to Murphysboro/Carbondale, Illinois.  86.25 miles.

Despite all of yesterday's miles, I was still able to move and still able to sit on a bicycle seat.  My Brooks leather saddle is starting to break in, or maybe (as Dave put it) my butt is breaking in.  I do know that 10 years ago at this same point I was having considerable saddle issues, but those have not appeared this year.  Whew.

No tail wind.  No head wind.  Not a lot of anything.  I found myself pedaling with my head down which is something I try to avoid.  So I made a point to sit up and take in the space around me, to soak in the natural beauty of central Illinois.  Look left: corn field.  Look right: corn field.  And the fields were slightly elevated above the roadway so you couldn't see anything behind them.  Gorgeous.

So I put my head back down and kept pedaling.

And again I found myself aware that I was not taking in the scenery.  So I'd sit up again and the right looked exactly the same, but the left corn had been replaced by soy.  Joy.

I tried to link a Google Street View so you'd get a better idea, but I was not successful. Instead just surround yourself with feed corn (not sweet) and turn the heat up to 100.  And for good measure throw in a few roadkilled raccoons with the corn.  Yep, I think that's about it.

A recurrence from yesterday: as we pedaled we watched thunderstorms building in the (not so far) distance.  At a rest stop we took a long look at the clouds, decided we probably had another window of opportunity, and on we went.  Again: no rain for us, but lightning was visible (and thunder audible).  We were close enough to the storm and perfectly (sadly) situated that for 10 miles we had to fight a strong head wind from the outflow boundary.  But at least the clouds were pretty.

Initially we had planned to ride our bicycles into Carbondale, but after some map checking, we realized we could follow the same route as 10 years ago and it would save us a few miles on tomorrow's ride.  We would, however, have to bring back the strategy we applied during the first year's ride.  We finished at a safe location just south of Murphysboro and loaded the trailer and truck with our bicycles and gear and drove to the church in Carbondale.  To mark the location of our stopping point (so we can begin at the exact point of stopping) we chalked a 242 on the street.

Sidenote 1: Route 127 is absolutely boring, but just south of Murphysboro where the discarded dirty underwear sits on the shoulder, the scenery makes a change for the better.

Sidenote 2: Getting to spend time with Beloiter and good friend Karen Baumann in Carbondale literally buoyed my spirit.

Track 11: K'naan - Struggling.  My season will come, it has to.