What a difference a day makes...

I went to bed last night with a feeling bordering on dread thinking of today's ride. My legs were toast and my body was tired and the prospect of 87 miles was not something I wanted to deal with. We woke up this morning and at least we had no thunder and lightning and no rain. (Furthermore, I was just a bit disappointed that our day off was not in Springfield which is home to Lincoln museums, his home and so on).

What I did discover this morning and throughout the day was that over the past four weeks and 2,000 miles on the bike I have worked myself into pretty good shape, number one, and number two the body has some amazing recuperative powers. Today turned out to be a marvelous ride in just about every way. It started out with a cloud cover that kept things cool for the first twenty miles or so and just a bit of a headwind - enough to feel the breeze but the grasses on the side of the road were not bent back like yesterday. We had to move through Springfield's morning rush to get out to the country and I do believe we hit every red light from the hotel to the city limits. But I guess all the starting and stopping was good warm-up because once we got to the open road, we felt good and took off. We had a few rollers and then the road started following a railroad track about 50 yards to our left. Railroad tracks are always good because you know the railroad surveyors plan for level roads for the trains with only very gradual climbs and descents. More to the point, all the tiredness and sore thighs from yesterday were gone and I was really blown away by the ease of the ride. The sun came out, we had blue skys with just the right amount of puffy white clouds and it was just a beautiful day for a ride. The miles started to fly by and it turned into one of those days where you feel like the little boy on your first Schwinn and you can just ride forever...A wonderful feeling.

We were once again in farm country from beginning to end and virtually all of it was corn for as far as the eye could see. One of the things that struck me today was the appearance and upkeep of Illinois farms. Almost all the farms appear to be family owned (as opposed to the big agri-business farms we saw further west) but they are so well kept and neat they almost could be featured in House Beautiful. The houses are landscaped, lawns neatly cut, and the barnyards (for the most part) are clean and uncluttered. I took a couple of pictures and one is above. It is more modern than most of the farmhouses but the appearance is the same. And just behind it was the barn and a couple of equipment sheds and that area was just as neat as the front yard of the house.

Taking the state roads as we do we go through a ton of tiny little towns that may have populations of 239, 123 - saw one today that showed exactly 500. I wonder how they came up with such a round number? Most of them have no traffic lights, maybe one stop sign but all have a grain elevator - one of our group has termed them "America's castles". One of these towns we saw today with no traffic light or stop sign was named Cornland. And I thought how I would have loved to be present at the town council meeting that decided on that creative name. Another town was named Mt. Pulaski. Mt??? In the middle of this incredibly flat land of corn? Somebody either had a sense of humor or a very active imagination.

About 11 AM we pulled into a (what else?) a Dairy Queen for lunch - amazing how good a simple cheeseburger and Dr Pepper can taste after 50 miles or so (mind you, I had a more than ample breakfast but that was hours earlier). When we walked in there were 4 or 5 octogenarian ladies coming out, all laughing and giggling. It turns out that our own Senior Rider(almost 74) had been come in, taken his food and sat down with the ladies and started telling them of going across the country and how much fun it was etc, etc...and they just loved it. We are now referring to Hank as the Illinois boy toy.

Tom and I pulled in about 2 and of course it was time for lunch - of course, we had done another 35 miles since the cheeseburger. So to Chili's for a quesidilla. The manager actually seated us (still in our bike shorts and jersey) and asked us about the ride and were we doing it for a charity. We told him of Anchor House and to our great surprise when the bill came the only charge was for the beer that each of had and said please put the cost of your lunch toward the Anchor House collection - good feeling for both us.

And by the way half a dozen of us went to a steak house for dinner and we both realized that this was actually our fourth meal of the day...will make up for some of the 5,000 calories the computer says we consumed today.

All in all a really great day but I'm still looking forward to a day off the bike...and a sleep in tomorrow morning.