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Daily Journal - July 17th - July 23nd

Friday, July 17th, 1998 - Day 33Picture Page for this day

The dorms are a great place to sleep in. White noise of the window air conditioner masked the muffled people murmurs that resonate through thin-concrete dorm rooms. Our tents start to heat up by 7am on days off. Stephanie is slowly recovering from a high fever and nausea, but is up for a breakfast/brunch search. Madison is already bustling - a street fair that is held twice a year is in full swing. Our usual bland eye-fare of cornfields and red barns is replaced with hawkers, ethnic food vendors, and street entertainers. Big riders stroll by like zombies. Everyone's walk has taken on a slight straddle from sitting on a bike seat all day. We find a nice second floor café that serves up real lattes, scones, and homemade soups and salads. Later, the local paper is selling "Jim" t-shirts with a great biking shirt. I find an XXL, but there are no sizes for Cathy. We go on a search for the newspaper headquarters downtown and get a chance to see the state capital on the way. Without a map, Cathy and I abandon our search and head back to the hotel to get errands done. At a Mailboxes Etc a long line of bikers waits to send/receive bike parts, wheels, cold weather clothing, etc. We manage to find 12 pounds of items we no longer want to haul around now that we are two-thirds of the way to DC and ship it off to that foreign world called "home". Later, Rob, Cath and I see "The Truman Show" at the movie theatre across from the dorms. After so many hours of humdrum at 12 mph, Hollywood pacing seems overwhelming. I have trouble concentrating on the film and think about errands we need to do, cleaning my bike chain, etc. Maybe the movie just wasn't that engaging to begin with. Rob gives Cathy a present - he has found the t-shirt store downtown and picked up a "Jim" for Cathy. Thanks Rob. My turn to do laundry at the dorm, while Cathy does email. The laundry room is a basement mausoleum dedicated to better living through clean clothes, with an entire wall of dryers. An overly complicated cardkey system requires you to load your clothes, note the machine #, cross the room, and swipe a card to start a machine. Once started, dryers cannot be reset, requiring a repeat of the above step if the machine is left with a few minutes left from the previous user. Each dryer shares UI with the dryer next to it using a toggle switch, creating confusion as riders keep accidentally changing the settings for someone else's dryer. There are no on/off buttons. A classic case of technology misused and poorly thought through. I listen to stories from the other riders. A large group is going to combine the next 2 days and ride straight through to Chicago - 150 miles - meeting at 5am out front the next day. Many of the same group talked about how they stayed out all night dancing till 6am? I don't remember ever being this energetic even in my teens. We stay up too late reading email.

Saturday, July 18th, 1998 - Day 34Picture Page for this day

Leaving Madison is a quick Sunday morning exit, unlike our twisted twisting entry route. Rolling hills and hot weather are the tune of the day. At lunchtime Cathy and I happen upon Duane in Orfordville. Duane asks a local where good local food can be found. There is only one spot to choose - a local diner filled with farmers. Nice barley beef soup. My standard selection algorithm for lunch is "anyplace with soup". Homemade soup is a statistical indicator of better things. Later in the day we hit the border town of Beloit - a working town to spin it nicely. Monster street conditions - I wouldn't own a car here. The techs will be fixing a lot of broken spokes today. The 3 of us make a 2 mile detour off the route in search of ice cream, but settle for a Micky-D's. I order a large milkshake and diet coke, and am surprised to be served the new "tanker"sizes - 44oz containers. I am not sure even my kidneys can handle 88oz of fluid, but I give it my best shot. A mild but persistent cough is starting to annoy me. At mile 58 we cross a nondescript brown river into Illinois. Down the road we are given a warm greeting and soda by the Illinois ALA chapter. Twenty five miles later we roll into Belvidere, IL ending a 80+ mile day. Spencer Park is a few miles past town. I break a spoke on a railroad crossing 1 mile from camp, and drop my wheel off at tech services when we arrive. We hear about a great Mexican restaurant back in town, but a 2 mile walk back to town sounds overwhelming. Chicken Dijon with new potatoes from OK Cascade are actually tastier than usual. To give Cascade credit they have managed to go 21 days without repeating a dinner menu. "Red Band" lunches are another story. Hammer (aka Hammer Spice) gives announcements and route reviews every night at 7:30 on the stage truck. They are where the real information is transferred between crew and riders. Missing them often leaves you in the dark. Wally is asked to introduce the state of Illinois to the team, and offer suggestions on tourist opportunities in Chicago. He announces that a famous Chicago citizen - who because of his contract with Gatorade and genuine interest in our ride, is coming to give us a pep talk. None other than Michael Jordan. Hushed whispers in walkie-talkies add to the suspense as Michael is rushed from a car to the stage. Anyone with a sense of how tall 6'6" is knew immediately that we were being hoaxed. Wally was taller than our guest. But the cameras flashed, and the guest did a great impersonation. Afterwards I am convinced there were many who don't follow sports that really believe Michael was with us. Some people complained to the staff that we were "deceived". Some people have a hard time having fun. As the sun set, Cathy is amazed by the fireflies. WA doesn't have fireflies. They are everywhere - a nice change after killer mosquitoes. We fall asleep slowly in the humid hot air.

Sunday, July 19th, 1998 - Day 35Picture Page for this day

At 4am we are awakened by a light show. High winds threaten to blow over our tent. We arrange the heavy objects in our tent on the windward side of the tent. Guess we should start actually using our tent stakes - huh? I fall back asleep holding a tent pole in one hand. Cathy is amazed at the intensity of the lightening - another phenomenon you just don't get in Seattle. You need warm and cold air masses. We only have the cold and colder ones. Someone from crew walks through the tents with a megaphone basically reading a personal liability statement - we have the option to evacuate to the bus if we desire. Stay in the tent at your own risk. But there is no mention of twister sighting, so we fall back asleep. One of our tent neighbors must have bought their tent at K-Mart - it appears to absorb water. He also extends the ground cloth outside the tent edge, creating a great water collection system. I guess everyone didn't go through scouts. His curses as he seeks high ground within his tent keep waking us up. The rain breaks before we pack up. My cough has worsened to a dry hack. My wheel is not fixed, so I have to wait another half-hour before we hit the road and we don't get out until 8:00 am. Today is a short day, but it is urban riding. Lots of starts and stops, lights, and crossings. It takes much longer than it should. For lunch we stop at a Greek diner in Burlington. These are a class of restaurant you only find on the East coast that I remember well living in Chicago. The menu offers 9 pages of options - everything from teriyaki chicken to classic American casseroles. It is a hangout on a Sunday morning for locals. Cathy is starting to experience bits of culture shock. We are moving from middle America to urban America. People sound like they walked off the "Hill Street Blues" set - people and cars are becoming more confrontational and direct. We ride through town after town, and are pleasantly surprised by Geneva - a Starbucks does wonders for our appreciation of any town. We add several Starbucks coffee stickers to our helmets. We could be back home in Bellevue. Camp tonight is at the Benedictine College in Lisle. Tonight we have planned dinner with old friends from Northwestern. I worked at the Vogelback computer center back in the early 80s while in grad school. Bruce and John find us at our tent site - I'm glad we gave them the address. At Leonardo's we meet up with Karen and Bob, and William. We have the opportunity to catch up on old times a bit, but Cathy and I have a hard time not talking about the ride. It is all consuming right now. Hope we didn't bore anyone. We tackle a couple of large Chicago deep-dish pizzas. Cathy has never had spinach deep dish. It is more than pizza. We are definitely out of her comfort zone. Back at camp I realize I am not feeling well at all, and I am just not cooling off. The medical tent finds my temp at 101.8. With the cough it could be a lot of things. We decide to wait till morning.

Monday, July 20th, 1998 - Day 36Picture Page for this day

Kevin's Day: Cathy wakes me at 4:30am. It is a long century day taking us into Indiana. Feeling horrible, I just can't get up. I spent most of the night semi-awake coughing; I'm afraid I kept Cathy up as well. I know I am not riding today, but wish Cathy well before falling back asleep. I wake up in time to pack our gear in the morning heat, drag it over the grass to the gear trucks, and stumble over to medical. I would pay big bucks for a real bed right now. My temperature is now almost 103. I am lucky that we have a volunteer doctor on staff today from a nearby hospital who can make a prescription. Time to start antibiotics. I am 1 of 6 riders with bronchitis. There are 2 vehicles reserved for special situations like this. Glenn is a volunteer from Albany who drives a suburban van as "Taxi One". His wife is a rider. We go in search of a pharmacy. I feel like I am playing hooky. My antibiotic is a regiment of 6 pills over 5 days - almost 9 bucks each. Amazing. I am designated the navigator, and help Glenn as we follow the route looking for bikers in distress. Riding the route in the car is a different experience altogether - particularly having to pass several hundred bikers on the narrow shoulders. For lunch we stop a dive called "Mom's". My mom was a better cook. I learn about a "gorilla" which is a fried chicken sandwich. After pit 2, we take a more direct route to camp along I80/90. I fade out occasionally. In La Porte I find a cot in medical and escape the heat while sleeping the afternoon away. I know Cathy won't be in anytime soon, with 107 miles to complete. Later I pull myself together and lethargically setup our tent, and collapse inside. Cathy arrived by 6pm and we shared our day's stories. At dinner the mayor presented the key to the city. I'm not planning on seeing much more than the inside of my tent.

Cathy's Day:
The alarm clock went off entirely too early, as it was just starting to get cool at 4:30am. As we had gone to bed the night before at 9, the temperature on the local university thermometer still read 90 degrees. It is going to be another hot and humid day, with temperatures and humidity in the nineties. Kevin has really gotten sicker, and so he decides (rather sleepily) that he's taking the day off. A smart move---better to nip this cough in the bud. I trundle off to breakfast, which is being served in the Benedictine cafeteria, and run into David from Seattle, who tells a great story about his spending an extra day in Madison, then having to take a Greyhound Bus to Chicago (arriving at midnight) and then taking the train out to Lisle. The story involves a Timothy McVeigh wannabe (moving from Seattle to someplace "meaner"), taxi drivers who won't pick him up for a half-mile fare, and several drunken Big Riders coming back from a day in Chicago. At 5:50, I check out my bike and plan to head out. I run into Alison and Patty, who are just leaving, and join them for the day. We take off as the sun rises; it's easily 75 already. As we pass the policeman who is guarding the entrance to the university, he mentions how fortunate we are to be getting out early; the traffic gets really bad around 7. I can't imagine how it could be any worse. This is clearly going to be the most urban ride aside from DC; we are in the middle of the morning commute from the suburbs into the city. We are clearly an irritant to the drivers; it is a complete change from the exceedingly polite drivers of the Midwest and the tolerant drivers of the West. After finally making it to Pit one, we meet up with Martha from Massachusetts. The four of us then take off, in search of real breakfast (as opposed to the cereal most of us had at the university). We find a Polish-American diner, where I order potato pancakes. Listening to the locals brings out the linguist in me; it's an accent I've only heard in parodies on Saturday Night Live. (They say "youse" here!). We chat a bit with the locals before heading out into the heat again. Stopping for a drink at a convenience store 15 miles later, the clerk (who is of either Eastern Indian or Pakistani descent) gives us the customary recommendation for keeping cool in the heat in her country: cut an onion in two, and place it in your bra. I wonder what that would smell like with the sweat. Just before pit two, I'm stung by a bee. Having not been stung since I was really young, I wonder---am I allergic? Five miles into my internal debate, I determine I must not be, since we're still making good time and I'm not dead. Good thing, since it seems that I react strongly to just about any other bug that bites me. We cross the state line into Indiana after pit two and spend the next twenty miles on Interstate 30. In theory, there should be more pictures of this day (living up to Kevin's photographic legacy here is not easy!). However, most of the day can be summed up as follows: Go take a picture of your local Wal-Mart. Then go take a picture of a pothole, then a convenience store. Repeat for 20 miles. This was easily the worst ride of the trip, road and traffic-wise. For those of you in the Seattle area, the closest analogy I can give you is Highway 99 at rush hour. Ick. We finally leave the interstate and head into Valparaiso for a quick meal. Dottie of D'Oeurves serves us up great sandwiches on the house. Clouds move in during the interim, cooling off the last 20 miles of this 105 mile day.

Tuesday, July 21st, 1998 - Day 37Picture Page for this day

Kevin's Day: I wake up with a fever still. I miss the ride. But if was going to get sick on the ride, these are the 2 days to miss. Nothing against Illinois or Indiana, but I can ride suburban roads in Seattle. Once again, Cathy leaves early and I sleep in. Today I ride the sag bus. I have my first shower in 2 days just 10 minutes before they close down the shower trailers. Simple joys. The morning sag bus is a new experience. There are 2 groups of passengers. The ill and feeble of which I am a member, and the joy riders. The joy riders are just tired of riding, or worse are using the bus as a tour bus. Some riders are looking for a shortcut to visit Notre Dame. A list is passed around asking if anyone is well enough to volunteer for crew, but there are no takers. Camp is a beautiful location along lakes outside Kendallville. I lay down under the large flap-oak trees and watch the large limbs sway in the cooling wind and nap away the afternoon. I hope for the rider's sake that his is a tailwind. Reaching camp early I have the opportunity to see how camp comes together. I am amazed that riders are already rolling in, covering the 90 miles in 5 hours or less. There are whole teams of volunteers who are a day ahead prepping the camps, and a day behind doing cleanup. My fever breaks, and I start feeling much better. I take the time to replace my clicking pedals with the ones I bought several states back, oil my chain, and re-tape my handlebars. Cathy rolls in early - around 4:30 - and we take a look at the sky, and decide a hotel might be a good idea. Neither of us has had a good night sleep for 3 nights. The Day's Inn has room. There are no shuttles or taxi service in town, but word has gone out to the locals that we all need rides into town, who respond wonderfully. A nice gentleman with a van takes Patty, Alison, Cath and I to our hotel. Bob Scaggs plays a John Denver song on the stereo. We check-in, clean-up, and go looking for some food. A local chinese joint serves up a wonderful garlic chicken. An hour latter watching CNN the storm hits. It goes on forever. We open up the curtains and pray for our colleagues in tent-city. The sky glows emerald green with each strike. The ground shudders. The lights go out, and back on 10 or more times as transformers are switched over. This is one of the worst storms that has hit Northern Indiana in some time. Flooding is rampant south of town. Bad weather seems to follow the BigRide. Luckily back at camp they miss the worst of the storm. The lightening does strike the lake and shakes some people up. Stephanie and Duane were out having dinner and end up spending the night at the local fire station.

Cathy's Day:
I get up at 4:30 again, get dressed and head off to breakfast. I could get used to having someone pack up my things and my tent here; too bad Kevin has to be sick for me to get my own valet. It has been another hot and muggy evening. The clouds that moved in the afternoon prior (that were supposed to bring rain and cooler temperatures) only served to trap the heat in; it never cooled off last night. I really miss our Seattle summer evenings in the 50s; I'm getting very sleep deprived. After breakfast, I head out at 6:00 on the road. With the chronic sleep deprivation and the fact I went decaf a while ago (call me a coffee snob, but when I heard that Folgers was sponsoring the ride, I sure wasn't going to cultivate my morning coffee habit), it makes mornings rather rough. I ride for a while with Marilyn from Minnesota, who puts up with my sluggishness. I could use a latte, but in a pinch, a Coke could do. I meet up with Patty and Alison at Pit one, who had the same hot weather we had, but in a motel; their room had no AC. They are on the hunt for a meal, and I could sure use some AC and caffeine, so I join them. We stop at a sports bar in Wakarusa. Kevin comes by for a visit; the shame train had stopped at Pit two (50 yards down the street) and someone knew I was in the bar. We decide to at least reserve a room in Kendallville, because if it doesn't cool off considerably, I will need a real night's sleep somewhere other than tent city tonight. Leaving Pit two, we enter Amish/Mennonite country. Buggies and horses on the road, and lots of people in traditional dress working their fields. Also lots and lots of kids sitting on porches, waving and yelling hello. It would be a wonderful Kodak moment, were it not offensive to the Anabaptists to take their pictures. We appear to have finally left the greater Chicago area today, and have reentered rural life. The wind has picked up out of the southwest, which would be a wonderful tailwind, if we were actually going east all day. But Murphy's Law can also apply to bike rides, and it seems that every time we go east, we are on horrible roads. We only seem to have nice roads today when we are going south-into the wind. Despite the roads and wind, we still make pretty good time to Kendallville

Wednesday, July 22nd, 1998 - Day 38Picture Page for this day

Today we cross into Ohio. Another state - we are rocking. Today Kevin rides again. Gotta ride skippy. We sleep in knowing we have a shorter day. We got to the lobby for the freebie breakfast and meet up with all the other hotel riders. We must have ˝ the rooms. Most people have their bikes at the hotel. A rider reminds us that camp has moved an hour ahead this morning - before we cross the border. We have 15 minutes to checkout and get a ride to camp to grab out bikes before they are sagged without us. Lucky for us the checkout assistant is willing to drive us over. I love small towns. Cathy grabs her bike just before it is loaded. It is a great day to be back in the saddle. A short 70 miles with a tailwind to carry us to Napolean, OH. We are one of the last to leave which has the side affect of not having to be passed by several hundred riders. We ride again fast in the light rain, with thunder in the distance. We stop for sausage biscuits - a new rider tradition, and meet up with Patty and Alison. We decide to ride the rest of the day together. The rain breaks soon after. We cross into Ohio, and jog the corn and soybean fields. We follow the old Eire Canal, with old red brick buildings that once served as tollhouses. Where do tollhouse cookies come from again? For lunch we stop at a great local diner - Lester's - that serves a mean wedding soup - orzo, meatballs, and spinach. Good fuel. We are lunching with the Maine team. I have decided that the people from Maine are a lot like Seattlites. The team from Texas scares me a bit. It is a fast day. We arrive early, with a short stop at "Frosty Boy's" to carry us the last 4 miles. Napolean is a cute town. We are leaning a lot about Ohio. We pass the Etch-A-Sketch factory, the town where all Dum-Dums are made. 100% of marshmallows are made just miles away - including lucky charms. I can smell s'mores in the air. Campbell's is handing out free samples of their new fruit drinks that are make locally. After dinner we have a special guest - the designer of the modem American flag, who submitted his flag design from his high school art class to Congress for a new design when the 50th state was admitted. He brought the actually original flag for us to see. Two accidents today. One occurred when a bike was hit by a camper. The biker was off the route, and suffered a broken clavicle. We are reminded to stay on the route for our own safety. The other occurred when a rider's cleats broke off while pedaling hard on a straight stretch of road at 30mph. Rob was there. The rider's wheel turned to the side, and the tire was ripped off. The bike collapsed under him. He slid for many feet on top of his bike - luckily only suffering bad road rash, gashes and bruises - ouch. We will all be extra careful tomorrow. Looks like rain again. Button down the hatches. Tomorrow is our last day in 6 straight of riding (4 for me) - we are all looking forward to a day off in Sandusky.

Thursday, July 23rd, 1998 - Day 39Picture Page for this day

I think we can now take our tent down and pack in the dark. Weeks ago what required much discussion, is now done in silence. We are an assembly line - our thoughts are elsewhere. It is an 85-mile day - much saner than the 115 miler into Madison. We hope to make it there early, and spend some time vegging out in a hotel. We find out later that some riders chose to combine THREE days of riding and covering nearly 250 miles in a single day. It makes me tired thinking about it. After today we have just 7 more days of riding, crossing 3 more states. People are in good spirits. It is a great riding day. I am feeling much much better back on the saddle. It is a cool misty morning - no need for suntan lotion this morning. At Bowling Green we stop for espresso. We talk with 3 nice ladies - Kathleen, Janet, and Arleen - about the ride. I break ANOTHER spoke 2 miles out of pit 2. I am just standing up on my bike talking to a local girl who is selling sport drinks to help finance her horse riding, and PING - everyone hears it. What am I doing to my wheel? Chris is at pit 2 and helps me out again. Big mansions line the streets. We meet up with Duane, David, and Stephanie and decide to head into town for lunch together, where we find a locally owned fast food chain. They have great shredded chicken sandwiches with BBQ sauce. Followed with a banana milkshake - yumm. The wind is still at our backs. We make good time into Sandusky. A 2 mile backtrack against the wind reminds us how long the day could have been. The fairgrounds are noisy, open, and cramped. People are required to stay "within the lines" tonight. On many nights if you are feeling a bit crowded, you can move your tent a few yards away to a clearing. Anything to break the monotony. But the local fire and health authorities are wary of 700 bikers, and want us to be sure to stay in our place. We catch a shuttle to the Holiday Inn, find some VH1, work on the website, and order out some pizza - sweet freedom.


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