Thursday, June 21, 2007

Onward to Carbondale it is...and Our first 100 Mile Day!!



So we did our first century today (100-mile ride). and got to Carbondale Illinois. I didn't realize it, but we almost went through Illinois in one day! pretty crazy. It was flat the entire time and there were corn fields galore. Its interesting to see the different stages of development vary from field to field. I always imagined that it was pretty uniform from field to field. It's not though. Maybe that's a dumb assumption, but I never grew up on a farm, so I don't know these things.
I wasn't that tired considering we did 100 pretty quick miles today. My but hurt a little, but my legs were fine. We ate at Taco Bell and slept behind a fence in a brush field behind a ball park. It was okay except it rained just enough to require a rain-fly at about 4 AM. and Then it got so hot at 6 AM I had to remove it again. Not such a great night's sleep. We all woke up pretty early because of the heat, packed up, and searched for a hotel we could sleep at for tonight. We found one and hit up downtown Carbondale's bike shop scene because Jacob's chain stay broke yesterday morning. Not a good thing... Jacob bought a new bike, a pretty sweet Raleigh bike with a carbon fork and STI shifters. He got it for a steal too. So while they were moving all the crap from his old bike onto the new one, we went down to the local coffee shop/bar and had a beer or 3 or 4...
We ended up meeting a crazy old Vietnam Vet sitting outside. He told us about growing up in Chicago, a little about guns and a lot about life, or something like that. His voice reminded me of Tommy Chong a little bit. He was entertaining to say the least. He brought us across the street and bought us all a bunch of shots and beers and talked to us for a few hours. After that we went up to the bike store for a bit, got Jake's bike, did some adjustments on mine, and finally went home to the hotel, a little more tipsy than originally planned...but whatever...it's vacation.

2 comments:

Mom said...

S.till love Rich's headings

I love Mexican food anywhere too. And I always have to carry a sweater in my car in the summer for the air-conitioning. It makes my nose run and my toes turn blue. Nice getting to know you and share.

Anonymous said...

glad to see you are getting the required dietary intake of taco bell