The next morning, we packed up and carried our bikes outside. A group of motorcyclists was also getting ready to go riding and they were really interested in our trip. We chatted while packing our bikes, and when we were ready we got on the road. We took a detour through the olde town so Tim could look at a music shop with handmade banjos but they were closed since it was Sunday. He contented himself with looking through the windows. It was a cute area of town, but we soon got on the road again. The terrain was hilly but so much easier than the past few days. We felt great and after about 25 miles or so I saw some tour bikes at a gas station. I called to Tim and we decided to eat lunch at the gas station. We met the touring touple and their names were Lynn and Jerry. I guess Jerry used to weigh 300 pounds and went on some reality TV show called "The Biggest Loser" and lost 110 pounds over 10 months. Now he and his wife are biking the TransAm to Oregon and they started on May 1st in Yorktown, VA. It was kind of sad because Lynn looked absolutely miserable. She was not having fun at all. She dreaded every mountain and looked like she just wanted to go home. We all took photos and Tim and I were back on the road. We met two Belgians who had started biking with recumbents in Guatemala, and biked through Mexico, Texas, Florida, Virginia, and were now in KY going to San Francisco! Tim asked them what they would do when they arrived in San Francisco, and the man responded that he was thinking to hop onto a plane when they arrived in SF and go ride around Australia. Wow. They had been biking for seven months so far! They stank to the high heavens. and the man had a very very thick, bushy beard that I doubt he has shaved in the seven months. By the time we finished biking, we were in Springfield. The police let you camp in the town park so we called them up to let them know we were there and they said we could camp anywhere. We chose to camp under a pavilion because its nice when you can pack up a dry tent in the morning. Tim cooked up some food while I walked to the nearby grocery store to pick up some drinks. I ended up getting a carton of peach mango Dole juice and half a gallon of chocolate milk. The food was ready when I got back to the tend so we ate, drank, cleaned up and went to bed. I fell asleep quickly but I guess kids came to that park late at night so they kept Tim awake for a while.
Time with Tim!
While reading Marc's blog about the trip, I saw that they went to some little old music store in town. It was basically on the way so I hoped it would be open, but 7:30 AM on a Sunday kind of killed that. They had some swanky banjos made out of gourds and other such instruments as found in "Deliverance." Incidentally, Dennis had a friend biking NOT on the TransAM trail through KY and a store keeper told him "You better watch out, the boys play a little.....different out here." That would be the second I bought a bus ticket to Indiana. At lunch we saw two tour bikes so we go in to talk to the folks. The guy was apparently on the "Biggest Loser" (season 4?). I've seen four minutes of this show one time when Dan Summers was flipping channels and all I remember is some huge people standing on scales with more lights than a vegas casino and more capacity than a CAT scale. It's cool he went from 300ish to 190 or so but the guy acted like Paris Hilton and then criticized MY drink of choise for having 72g of sugar....back off my food! His wife was horribly unhappy with the trip and had fancy jewelry on and only about five pounds of stuff in her trailer; she was making Jerry carry it all. Someone mistakenly told her that this was the last day of hills, but they actually don't end until you leave Missourii. She has many days of misery ahead but I didn't want to burst her bubble. While we were chatting in the parking lot, two Belgians on recumbents cruised by. Their english wasn't great, but they stopped to chat. It was 7 months of biking for these days and their equipment and their persons were looking pretty beat. We camped that night in a city park under a pavillion. All was going well until the local kids came by (after curfew and park closing, mind you). The first set decided to knock on the top of my tent. I gave them a ten second grace period and then was like "Could you stop that?" They did and skedaddled. The second set was backlit so I could see them creeping around to our open fly-door (it was hot) like "RAWG, WUT IZ INSIDE THIS TENT?!?" They managed to scare themselves and shoved off before investigating further. Silly small town kids.
Time with Tim!
While reading Marc's blog about the trip, I saw that they went to some little old music store in town. It was basically on the way so I hoped it would be open, but 7:30 AM on a Sunday kind of killed that. They had some swanky banjos made out of gourds and other such instruments as found in "Deliverance." Incidentally, Dennis had a friend biking NOT on the TransAM trail through KY and a store keeper told him "You better watch out, the boys play a little.....different out here." That would be the second I bought a bus ticket to Indiana. At lunch we saw two tour bikes so we go in to talk to the folks. The guy was apparently on the "Biggest Loser" (season 4?). I've seen four minutes of this show one time when Dan Summers was flipping channels and all I remember is some huge people standing on scales with more lights than a vegas casino and more capacity than a CAT scale. It's cool he went from 300ish to 190 or so but the guy acted like Paris Hilton and then criticized MY drink of choise for having 72g of sugar....back off my food! His wife was horribly unhappy with the trip and had fancy jewelry on and only about five pounds of stuff in her trailer; she was making Jerry carry it all. Someone mistakenly told her that this was the last day of hills, but they actually don't end until you leave Missourii. She has many days of misery ahead but I didn't want to burst her bubble. While we were chatting in the parking lot, two Belgians on recumbents cruised by. Their english wasn't great, but they stopped to chat. It was 7 months of biking for these days and their equipment and their persons were looking pretty beat. We camped that night in a city park under a pavillion. All was going well until the local kids came by (after curfew and park closing, mind you). The first set decided to knock on the top of my tent. I gave them a ten second grace period and then was like "Could you stop that?" They did and skedaddled. The second set was backlit so I could see them creeping around to our open fly-door (it was hot) like "RAWG, WUT IZ INSIDE THIS TENT?!?" They managed to scare themselves and shoved off before investigating further. Silly small town kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment