Another late start. I checked out of my motel at 11 and after a meal at subway, got on the road in earnest at noon. The headwinds persisted and slowed my progress.
Today was just a day of state highways. I was planning on taking route 15 west all the way but eventually veered north in search of closer food. Coming through a town, I found no restaurants open in the city, but a couple by the interstate a couple miles outside town. That’s often how it is, I’ll ride through a town with a boarded up main street only to arrive at a heavily populated series of sprawling strip malls outside the city. Kind of sad.
I tried to eat at a restaurant but after waiting for a few minutes and not getting any service, l relented and went to the place next door – subway for the second time of the trip and the second time of the day. I don’t mind subway, it’s just that I need to eat a lot of calories and so anything that advertises low calories is generally just a waste of money for me. I often find myself reading the nutrition information on packages just to choose the *highest* caloric food.
Outside the subway, a couple had pulled into the parking lot with two cars packed full of stuff and bikes hitched to the back. They were coming from Colorado and mentioned taking their bikes to Europe. It doesn’t make much sense for them to be driving their stuff from Colorado if they are moving to Europe so I must have been missing part of the story. Anyways, they wanted a photo of me so I smiled for the camera before heading off. It was now almost 5 and I had only covered 40 miles.
I hit my zone for today after this second meal. The wind had mostly subsided, fewer cars were on the road, and the sun was sinking in the sky. Besides the terrible headwinds of earlier, it was another day of perfect weather. The forecast shows three days of thunderstorms next week so I’ll have to cherish the good riding while it’s here.
I arrived in the city of Belleville, IL -about 10 miles from St. Louis – as dark was setting in and got a seedy motel room. All the campsites are taken this weekend due to the holiday, and it took me 5 calls to find a place to stay. Not cool. Being in a largish city, I had to eat ethnic food so I found a Thai restaurant. The ride home from my meal was absolutely frigid, looks like I might need my cold weather clothes before too long.
I still need to work on taking more interesting photos.
Today’s mileage: 71 miles
Total: 1415 miles
