Guest Blog: Cross-Country Bike-packing at 62: Indiana to Florida

By Craig Davis, PhD

Day Twenty-Four 

July 28, 2022: Thursday, Panama City Beach, Florida (53 miles)

Today was a really good day. Despite the rain, I made best time to date. Just under 10 mph.  Overall, I completed 804 miles in 24 days.

Last night I couldn’t stay awake. I fell asleep about 7 pm, which was for the best. I woke up with energy around 3 am ready to get an early start. I knew rain posted a threat, but after checking the weather in both Bonifay and Panama City Beach, I felt that I could dodge the showers that were coming. If not, I would just get wet. After the five hours of peddling in thunderstorms in Indiana, I am not afraid to ride in the rain. It is unpleasant and dangerous, but if that is the only way to make important progress, I can do it. 

Getting home today on schedule in order to make a doctor’s appointment and have two days’ rest before boarding a plane on Sunday was definitely a huge priority. I had things to buy before departing—like bongo drums for a family video we are making, a suitcase, Starbucks coffee pods, Orville Redenbacker popcorn and other things I can’t find in Honduras—so I needed a minimum of two days. That is one reason I have been pushing so hard. Why I did not take a few more rest days, when my body definitely needed it. 

Depending on the factors of rain, heat, hills, and the distance (53 miles to cover), this last leg could take seven hours to cover. At 4:20 am, I led Lucy out of the motel room and into the dark. Sunrise was an hour away. The temperature was a cool 72 degrees. Traffic was light at this hour.

The first miles of darkness were pleasant. There were plenty of hills, but most were gradual inclines. I could shift down and make them. There was no wind, which is unusual for Florida. There almost always is some type of wind. I stopped and took a few breathers, but I knew I was making good time. 

After about 20 miles, I found myself pushing Lucy up a hill in the middle of a construction site, where SR 79 narrowed to two lanes. There was plenty of traffic by now. I was ready for a break. At the top of the hill, I saw a gas station. I peddled Lucy the last block into the parking lot, where I found Johnson sitting in the middle of a bench and drinking a cup of coffee. He was a black man in his late 60s wearing a baseball cap that read: Johnson. On his left sat a white woman who looked to be slightly older than him. She was not drinking coffee or eating. She held her purse on her lap. I thought they were partners, but I was never sure. 

Johnson was friendly. We all know these people. Intelligent and talkative. Always in a good mood. After five minutes of conversation, you feel you could share anything with them. After purchasing a cup of coffee inside, I sat down on the curb near Johnson and his friend, careful not to share the stench with them. 

“See this,” Johnson said, turning his cap around so that I could read the “11” on the back. “I am the 11th child out of 13… My daddy taught us to provide… Disciplined us. Didn’t beat us. Disciplined us…”

He marked the sidewalk with his finger, indicating his father and six uncles’ land. His father’s ten sons “farmed 700 acres… We did all the farming… I plowed behind a mule until I graduated high school. When I left home, my daddy had to buy a tractor. Only had three boys left at home… None of us boys ever got a divorce…”

It was hard not to be impressed with Johnson. Just as a human being. Nearly every one of the five or six black and white customers knew Johnson and joked with him both entering and leaving the store. 

“When you win that $1.1 billion,” said one black man, “I’m gonna come and find you. I’m gonna put a tracker on your truck.”

I laughed hard.

“Some of these idiots win the lottery and do something stupid… And a year later, they’re broke.”

When each customer left, Johnson always turned his attention to me. 

“I don’t like retirement. All I know is work. I have worked all my life… I retired after 20 years in the US military and 23 years at the airport… I would still be working if I hadn’t had heart surgery.” He went on to tell me about his job at the airport.

A lady about my age with gray hair got out of her car and walked toward the store. 

“Are you going to or from the beach?” She asked me. 

“To the beach,” I said.

“Oh no, don’t go on Back Beach Road,” she said. “They’ll run you over.”

“I don’t owe anyone anything. Everything in my house is mine… I didn’t have fun… I thought about buying one of those electric bikes, but I know I would use it three or four times, and then it would be parked in the garage… People buy things they want, not things they need… I only bought what I needed… If I wanted to play, I went to church… Now that I’m retired, I can play… I have been to 37 states… Including Hawaii… Next year I’m gonna go up east and take my time and visit all them eastern states, Maine, Delaware…”

I could have listened to Johnson for another hour, but I needed to try to beat the heat. So I bid my farewell.

The hills gave way to flatter blacktop, and the roads were great, so I was able to keep up a steadier pace. I was not flying, but I was covering more miles each hour. When I reached Ebro, I was happy. Home was not far away. Although for me, most of my life “home” has been a relative term. Was home the condo in Panama City Beach? Was it the rental in Honduras? Was it wherever I lay my head? Where my wife and grandchildren reside now, which is different from February 2022, different from January 2022, different from July 2021. Different from September 2020. And continually changing as we go back in time. 

I admire those who can stay at one company for 20 years, one factory, one job. I really do. I have been with my current company now almost nine years. The longest I have been with any company before this was five years. But even with this company, this is my fourth project in two different countries. Even within the framework of nine-years’ stability, there had been change.

My parents moved around a lot when I was a child. I counted 17 school moves from the time I was in kindergarten till fourth grade. The disadvantage for an introverted child is that you find it really hard to make friends, establish a sense of permanence and security, and identify a stable home. You don’t become close with people: Friends, teachers, neighbors because a few months later, you are gone and have to begin to negotiate a new set of relationships. You are always the new kid, the outsider. 

The advantage is that you learn to make home wherever you lay your head. You learn to adapt. Become flexible. Never establish roots. So when life throws you a curve ball or a high pitch, you can duck more easily. The stimuli motivates you. The different people, different customs, sub-cultures, dialects, terrain, landscape, towns, states amaze you. After a while you begin to seek a change. Sedentary life bores you. You feel stagnant, trapped. You need that stimuli. 

And then when you become an adult, you have a tendency to make professional decisions that involve change, moving, growing intellectually and professionally. 

My university mentor said that I had always suffered from “wanderlust.” I have lived and worked in over 45 different countries throughout my adult life. And although I am definitely slowing down, and I don’t like to travel like I did 20 years ago, there are still a few places I want to see. They are already on my bucket list: Visit the last three states that I haven’t seen: Vermont, Washington State, and Alaska. Travel to South America. Go bikepacking in Vietnam. See the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Ride the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Moscow to China. 

So on this morning, the 24th and last day of my journey from Bloomington, Indiana to Florida, when I reached Ebro, still Washington County, I saw black clouds. It occurred to me that I was too early to miss the predicted 8 am and 9 am showers. I pulled into a gas station, but didn’t go inside the store. I put the plastic tarp over my backpack and inserted my phone in the plastic sheath, and returned to the road. I knew I would get wet, but these rains were supposed to be very light. And not last more than an hour or so. 

Before I crossed into Bay County, I was one wet, but happy, peddler. 

Through much of this trip, I was struck by the memory of my grama, who taught me the meaning of “peddle.” One summer when I was about 10 years old, we ended up with some additional tomatoes from the field. So, we put them in the back of the pickup and drove to Freetown from Hobson Hill. As I recall, Grama was driving the stick-shift. She could drive about anything. Well before I was born, she and grampa had secured a contract hauling coal. She told me that she drove a dump truck full of coal from somewhere around Scottsburg to elsewhere in Southern Indiana.

On this morning in Freetown, right before the railroad tracks, she parked outside of a mobile home. 

“You are going to peddle,” she told me. 

I didn’t see a bike, so I had no idea what she meant.

“You are going to go get those people to buy some tomatoes,” she explained. 

For an introvert, to make blind porch-to-porch calls, was frightening. It is one thing to approach customers strolling past the tailgate of your pickup at the City Market in Indianapolis, where they are actively searching for produce. But it is quite another to go knocking on doors of people who don’t know you and have no idea what you are up to. 

Fortunately, Grama was an extrovert and knew just about everyone in Pershing Township. I don’t really recall how much we sold, but I know we sold some. She accompanied me and facilitated the process. I suspect she wanted me to learn something new that would carry me further in this life. And I suppose this lesson was not entirely lost on me. 

Many years later, I would go on to sell cars for five years: Toyotas, Hondas, and BMWs. And I was quite successful. Over time, I learned to communicate with lawyers, construction workers, doctors, judges, policemen, farmers, just about anyone who drives a car. Which is just about everyone in Southern Florida. 

By the time that I reached West Bay Bridge just SW of the airport, it had stopped raining. And my motivation climbed. I was closer than ever. 

But I got caught at the stoplight and had to stop at the bottom of the bridge and reapply sunscreen. I have to put it on every two hours. I pushed Lucy up the bridge when it turned green. I took some photos. I love this bridge. It welcomes me each time I arrive from the airport and bids me farewell when I depart.

Just on the other side of the bridge was the Welcome to Panama City Beach sign. Yes, I had to stop there and keep myself to the edge of the shoulder.  

Back on Lucy’s back, I peddled away. Traffic was heavy. Fewer and fewer people graced me with any distance between me and their lane. More and more frequently, careless drivers didn’t budge even when there was a vacant lane to their left. 

I thought about the woman’s warning about Back Beach Road. Yes, I had ridden on it many times. I was familiar with the dangers of the road. But it was not really worse than many other places I have travelled in the past 24 days. 

When I got to the first stoplight, I hung a left and rode Lucy down Bay Parkway. The clouds moved away and the sun came out. This road barren of trees on either side most of the way. The headwind hit me and slowed me down. The temperature climbed from 82 to 84 degrees. Still I peddled on with spirits lifted. I was close. Very close.

At the stoplight Back Beach Road, which is US 98, I got behind a car and peddled hard when I crossed. I wasn’t on this road for more than a couple miles when I took the first chance to turn down Clara Avenue and then turned left onto Hutchinson Boulevard. This road was just as busy and had less room for cyclists. In fact, there is no shoulder at all. You have to share with motorist. And some didn’t want to give me any space. But they do drive slower, and I feel it is a little bit safer and closer.

When I finally passed the post office, fire station, and Walmart, I was happier than I have been in weeks. I saw Wonder Works upside down building and Ripley’s Believe It or Not ship on the left and crossed over onto Thomas Drive. Within a few minutes, I was pulling onto the condo grounds, both exhausted and energized. 

I led Lucy to the elevator and up to the condo and parked her. 

I had a lot of thinking to do. I needed to process these 804 miles that I had covered in 22 riding days, at 36.5 miles per day and averaging about 8 mph. All in all, not bad for an old man with cancer, coming through some of the hardest hills and mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, with broken ribs, and amid a July heat wave. Almost every day, there was a heat advisory. I experienced several days in the low 90s, suffered one flat tire, had to visit two bike repair shops, braved busy highways with reckless drivers, navigated windy rural roads, one dog attack, pushed Lucy up countless hills and mountains, peddled through five hours of thunderstorms in one day, started off out of shape and overweight, and completed the trip in better shape and 12 pounds lighter.

Not once had I thought about giving up, but there was at least one day when I thought I might pass out of heat exhaustion. 

This was by far my most challenging trip and my best performance. In past years, I averaged about 8 mph in much less challenging conditions. I did the same this year. In the past, I had covered about 40 miles per day compared to 36.5 miles through the unforgiving slopes and inclines on this trip.

But I made it.

Twenty-Three

July 27, 2022: Bonifay, Florida (42 miles)

I always hate the expression “Win the Hearts and Minds.” It suggests the good intentions of why we help a country that we have invaded, like Iraq or Afghanistan, but it rings of ulterior motives. We should not be building the school, providing security, promoting democratic reform, or establishing a hospital for Iraqis or Afghans because we want to earn their trust. We should do it because it is the right thing to do. 

Today’s ride was fun! Not only because I am approaching the end, but because of the beauty of the leg. The sense of accomplishment.

Naturally, this leg would not have been adequate without the 30 big hills and dozen or so small ones. But I considered blessed in many ways. No accidents, no rain, no flat tires or break downs, no temperatures over 85. Traffic was relatively light. Cloud cover kept direct sun rays from punishing me. I had plenty of water. I left early. And I only took one break. As a result, I covered the 42 miles in about 4 hours and 50 minutes. A little over 8 mph. 

After my two cups of motel room coffee, I loaded Lucy up, and coaxed her gently down a flight of stairs. It is never fun, but going down in 72 degree weather is much better than going up at 88. I rolled out onto Alabama State Road 167. 

It was humid. Very, very humid. 

My legs are always sore. Getting up, sitting down, bending them, extending them out straight, getting into the shower, walking to the store. And of course peddling. But on this morning, I had just a little extra energy. 

Indeed there were some flat spots on this leg. More flat road in the first hour than I saw all day yesterday. And some of the hills were smaller. But some of the hills were very large. 

After about an hour, I stopped for coffee and three bottles of water. I drank coffee and ate a bacon and egg sandwich, and a cookie at a picnic table at the gas station. It was too much. When I got back on Lucy, I automatically felt sick to my stomach. 

I plowed on. Stopping when I saw something worth photographing. The camera on the phone fogged up. I couldn’t keep it dry. Part of the reason was that the lens cloth in the side mesh pocket of my backpack was damp too. 

I stopped to get a photo of the sunrise, which was beautiful, but the fog on the lens made a good shot impossible. After a while, I came to the Choctawhatchee River.

On another occasion, a turtle about the size of football was leisurely working his way across the road. I had seen so many smashed turtles during this 750-mile journey that I didn’t want to take a chance with this guy, or gal. I am not good with identifying the sex of turtles. 

So, I stopped, parked Lucy up against a sign, and walked out and picked up the reptile and carried it over to the tall grass. I had done my good deed of the day. 

When I stopped to take a photo of single white calf, she stopped grazing and walked up to the fence. She was hoping I would walk over to her, I think. I suspect she loved her owner, who probably hand fed her at times. Either that, or she was just curious about this 62-year-old, gray-haired man peddling a two-wheeled contraption. 

I began to see more bogs and wetlands. I like them. They are pretty and colorful. 

At the Florida state line, Alabama SR 167 converts to Florida SR 79 and continues on to Panama City Beach. When I crossed over into Florida, I felt good. The accomplishment, yes. But also, I was home. I love Florida. It is my favorite state. 

About 11 miles north of Bonifay, Florida, I stopped and sat on some blacktop in the shade. I didn’t take off my backpack or helmet, and I didn’t put on my prescription glasses. But I did take a four or five minute break. 

I listened to Trevor Davis and Lost Keys’ Thousand Years and Walkin’ by Yourself. Music motivates me. And this helped to give me a little energy. 

Bonifay is a quaint little town. I had ridden through here in October or November of 2020 on a short four-day trip from Panama City to Geneva, Alabama and back. 

I was enjoying myself. Having fun. I really wasn’t sure that I could make this trip. That I could complete it. But I was doing it. After today, just one 53-mile leg left. 

When I pulled into the motel, I had covered 751 miles from the start on July 5th. The Gujerati couple who ran the motel were very nice. The husband exceptionally hospitable. When my room key wouldn’t work, he let me in my room, and he went back to make a new one, and his wife returned it. 

One more day. 

Twenty-Two

July 26, 2022: Enterprise, Alabama (36 miles)

Riding today was hard but enjoyable. The 36 miles of road was a roller coaster of 30 big hills. Each sapping my energy and draining my strength all the while the increasing heat from the sun roasted my face, arms, back, and legs. It was almost a losing battle with hydration, the sweat pouring out of me as quickly as I could swallow another 16 ounces. 

But like yesterday, I decided I was going to enjoy the trip. And I did. 

I listened to Mellencamp, The Guess Who, and Dido. Every time I listen to Here with Me, I am drawn back to Iraq. To a period at Saddam’s palace in the Green Zone, where I was surrounded by hundreds of US soldiers and Coalition Provisional Authority civilians from two dozen countries, working day and night to try to train and find jobs for demobilized Iraq soldiers and youth, at odds with arrogant Americans and corrupt Iraqs, and suffering from the plague of loneliness. I would listened to the song over and over and dream of the day that I would be reunited with my wife. Not for a week’s leave, but permanently. The separation was as hard on her as it was me. 

As I sweated uncontrollably in the 88 degree heat today, I thought back to the baking Iraqi sun and temperatures of 110 or higher. To find a tiny corner of privacy at the palace, I would sit outside in the shade of the palace walls, and broil in heat just to be able to talk to my wife for a few minutes. I wanted to be home. And I wanted to be here to try to bring some peace and stability to the Iraqi people. They didn’t deserve what was happening to them. The destruction, car bombings, kidnappings, assassinations, brutality, suffering. 

And I won’t go, I won’t sleep, and I can’t breathe

Until you’re resting here with me

I just wanted to go home and be with her. But I needed to be here. I needed to try to bring some relief to Iraqis’ suffering. I spoke Arabic. I understood the culture, the history, the people. I was making a difference. Or so I thought at the time.

On the first ten-month trip to Baghdad, I was placed in an impossible situation. Most civilians at CPA were political employees, who knew very little about Iraq or the Middle East. Most had little or no international experience. A handful of dedicated military and civilians carried out their duties with the best interests of the Iraqis at heart. To this day I am close friends with a few of these selfless professionals. But the vast majority was cut from a cloth of arrogance and ineptitude who’d come to Iraq to pad their resumes or make a quick buck. 

As an advisor for the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MOLSA), I once sat in a budget meeting at the Ministry of Finance. The Iraqi finance official scrutinized and criticized every budget line MOLSA had requested for its beneficiaries: Orphans, military widows, the disabled, and unemployed Iraqis. Discussions and arguments ensued between the Finance officials and advisors, on the one hand, and MOLSA officials and advisors, on the other. Finally the Finance Senior Advisor, and American, interrupted so that he could launch a 20-minute lecture on the skills of ministry budget design. 

He paced the floor in front of both teams, bowing his head as if in deep philosophical thought, and delivered a performance fit for Broadway. 

“What is your plan to make money?” he asked the MOLSA team. “I don’t see anything in your budget to generated revenue… See the Ministry of Oil delivered their budget with a plan to generate revenue… The Ministry of Electricity” also had a plan to make money.

“So what is your plan?” he asked all of us. 

Yes, I thought, We should ask the orphans and widows and disabled to cough up some dough for their services.

But I bit my tongue and didn’t say anything. I was already in enough trouble with both CPA officials and my supervisors back in Washington, DC for challenging fools like this when they spouted ignorance or wielded their authority just to prove their own worth. These episodes of lunacy occurred on an hourly basis at CPA. 

Although this type of nonsense drove me crazy while I was there, and for a couple years after I returned to the US, nowadays, I try not to think about it.

When I dropped off the room key this morning, Regina, the front desk manager, asked me how far I was riding. 

When I told her, she said. “I gotta have a picture with you.” Her smile lit up her entire face. Joy and happiness are contagious. And Regina emitted joy and happiness. She came out from behind the desk with her phone.

“I meet such interesting people in this job,” she said. She snapped a photo, and then I snapped one with my phone. 

I suspect after she got a whiff of me, she was pretty anxious to get back on the other side of that desk. 

“Do you get many bike riders in here?” I asked.

“No, you are the first,” she said.

That is not the response I got throughout the Gulf Coast the last two years. I wonder if all these monster hills has anything to do with the paucity of cyclists.

“Do you mind me asking how old you are?” Regina asked.

“I’m 62,” I said. 

“Wow. There are people in their 20s that are not in as good a shape as you are,” she said.

Regina made my day. Not because of the last comment or any comment, but because of her smile and enthusiasm for life. Her wanting to get a photo with me. In the three years that I have been riding, covering nearly 2500 miles, Regina was the first who asked to take a photo with me.

I counted 17 hills in the first 18 miles. I did find about a one mile stretch of flat road, but that was it for the entire trip. 

There were some beautiful hay fields, pastures, horses, cattle, ponds and streams. 

Several drivers today were careless. A half dozen rode unnecessarily to close to me. And a semi-truck and a pick up both hugged the white line no more than a foot or 18 inches from my left should, only to cross over onto the should not more than 150 feet past me. If they had swerved like that a few seconds earlier, they would have taken me out. 

Like always, I took lots of breathers and lots of shade breaks. But I used the last of my water just as I hit Enterprise. I am going to have to be more careful tomorrow. I cannot afford to run out of water. It is careless. I just kept thinking, There has to be a gas station on my side of the road soon. But it never happened. 

I made it to the motel at 11:30 am, exactly five hours and 15 minutes after I departed the last hotel. For 36 miles, that’s just under 7 mph. I can live with that. But tomorrow, I am going to have to leave at least 30 minutes earlier. The distance is 41 miles to Bonifay, Florida and there are some big hills, but it appears to be less than half what it was today. Plus, I should start declining tomorrow. 

Lucy, the front desk manager, gave me a room without resistance. I told her that I named my bike Lucy. She smiled but didn’t comment. She was young and friendly. Professional. 

I noticed there were about two dozen CCTV cameras behind her. And taking into account the last Executive Inn and Suites that I stayed at in Talladega, where I chair-locked my door, I asked her, “Is it safe here?”

“Oh, sure,” she said, convincingly.

Day Twenty-One

July 25: Monday: Troy, Alabama (61 miles)

Instead of bellyaching and dreading the leg, I decided to enjoy it, have fun. When my alarm sounded at 4 am, I walked and got some lukewarm coffee from the lobby. It was horrible. 

I relaxed and watched the news and reserved my last two motels. As I typically do it a couple days in advance. 

In the dark, moving was smooth and cool. Karen tried to take me through some back streets, but I cut through a parking lot to get on US 231. Even at this hour, it was busy. 

Lucy purred through the commercial area of town until I reached the outskirts, where we were confronted by a huge hill. We just pushed up it and rolled on. 

I coached myself all morning: pace yourself! Don’t stop any more than necessary when it is cool, and stop more than necessary when it gets hot! And hydrate. 

I was surprised to see some flat land. God did bless this great state with some flat areas. I had fun. I stopped and took photos of the sunrise, horses, pretty fences, early 20th century cabins. 

At Montgomery, US 231 takes a sharp left turn. I almost missed it because I had some speed built up and had to slam on Lucy’s brakes. It must have been amusing because when I spun the bike around to get in position at the intersection, I noticed a young Mexican man in the passenger seat of a sedan. He was pointing me out to the driver, an older Mexican man, as if to say, “Hey, this country has old fools too.”

I waved and pulled up beside them. In Spanish, they told me they were from Mexico. That was about all of the conversation because I was winded and then the light turned green. 

But I didn’t take my first break until I had covered 23 miles. Don’t think I had ever done that before. I sat on the walkway with my back against the store wall and drank my coffee and ate a small package of tiny powdered sugar donuts. 

I chatted with a friend before getting back on Lucy and heading south. I was making great time. But by 10 am, it was already 86 degrees. And I had a lot of road to cover. 

The traffic was heavy. Several semis and cars refused to get over today. More than once, I could have reached out and touched a semi with my left hand. At least a dozen oversized loads—mobile homes—passed me going 70 mph, but they always gave me space. These vehicles scared me the most. 

I had to stop several times to take a breather. Once I crossed to the shady side of the highway and sat on a piece of cardboard. It was so hot that I kept riding on that side in the relative shade for a while. But the headwind going so slow that I had to go back to the hot side. 

Although I cannot explain it, on the hot side I had a tailwind for much of the morning. Sometimes a cross wind. But on this side there was no reprieve from the sun. Shade was hard to come by. When I was too exhausted to continue, I stopped for a minute or two in any tiny scrap of shade I could find. Once I stopped at some abandoned gas station converted into a bait shop that also had gone out of business. But the smell of rotting fish overcame my own retched odor, and the respite from the searing 90 degree sun couldn’t trump the stench of decaying fish. 

On another occasion, when the head was nearly unbearable, rain clouds appeared overhead and sprinkled a few drops on me lowering the temperature several degrees for ten or fifteen minutes. 

Fortunately, I had only counted seven big hills in the first 55 miles or so. And I saw more flat space today than on any of the three legs combined. But right when I got inside the Troy city limits, I was welcomed by the biggest hill of all. 

There was absolutely nothing I could do to avoid it. So, I pushed Lucy through the baking sun. I even tried to enjoy this part of the leg, but it was not easy. 

When I got to the top of it, I saw another one. It didn’t seem like Troy was going to offer me any release from the sun. I started down the hill peddling hard trying to get momentum for the next hill. When I got to the bottom, I saw my motel on the right. My brakes screeched in resistance, but I stopped in time. 

Mitzi was about my age. She checked me in with a smile, and I was in my room quickly. I sat on a vinyl chair to rest inside the room so that I wouldn’t infect the bed or chair with my sweat and stench. I calculated my time. I had made it in just over seven hours and 20 minutes, or slightly over 8 mph. According to my calculations, I have averaged just under 8 mph for the whole trip. The last two years, I averaged about 8 mph, but never faced the hills, mountains, and heat that I have this time.

I experienced two acts of kindness this afternoon. First, I walked six blocks to a CVS and bought some supplies. The two small bottles of milk I bought had expired. So I got a half gallon. It was actually the same price at the two bottles, but I hated carrying the extra weight. 

“The milk doesn’t expire until tomorrow,” I told her.

“Oh, that’s not good,” she said. 

“It’s okay because I won’t drink it all anyway.” I hate wasting food, but my options are limited when I ride my bike. I can’t just hop in a car and drive five or six miles to a supermarket and get exactly what I want.

“Well, I’ll see if I can’t get you something off,” the lady said. She took a dollar off the price. Very kind.

From there I went to KFC. Inside, an African-American woman told me, “You need to go through the drive through. Dine in is closed.”

Indeed, I was the only one there except for a Door Dash lady picking up something. 

“Okay, but I don’t have a car. Can I walk through?”

“Yes,” she said. 

When I turned around, I realized a downpour had just started outside. 

“Sir, sir,” the woman said. “We’ll take your order in here. It’s raining outside.”

After I received the meal, I waited for 30 minutes till the rain died down. Then I walked back to the hotel. 

I decided that my biking vest stank too bad to wear a third day in a row. So I tossed it in the sink with running hot water. There was no stopper, so there was no way to let it soak. I tossed in a Tide pod and sloshed the vest around a dozen times in all different directions, squeezing and pressing to make sure that detergent had seeped into every thread. Then I rinsed it. Put it on a hanger over the tub and took a whiff. 

It still stank. However, not as bad as it had before. I guess Jannette would not be particularly pleased with my washing job.

Day Twenty

July 24: Sunday: Wetumpka, Alabama (50 miles)

This was as hard as any day on this trip. And I fear tomorrow will be harder. 

The alarm woke me at 4 am. There was no coffeemaker in the room, so I had some milk and Nutter Butters, my favorite energy bar. I packed everything and pushed Lucy out into the last darkness of the morning. 

I only saw two vehicles traveling for the first half an hour. The town was quiet on this Sunday morning. Just outside of town, I met the first hill. 

On the Google Maps hill-o-meter (my term, not theirs), I had counted eight spiky points, which in theory should translate into eight hills. I had hoped that the hills would remain between 10 and 15, and not stretch out to 25 over the 50 miles, which is one big hill for every two miles. The last two difficult days, I had suffered an average of one big hill every two miles. 

The hills did not let up the whole day. Every time I got to the top of one, either another one awaited me, or I could see it a mile ahead. There was virtually no long flat stretches on this entire leg. 

When I had covered nine miles, I stopped and got coffee and a bacon sandwich at a gas station. I sat outside at a table and devoured the sandwich. It was delicious. I took my time with the coffee. I was enjoying myself: The traffic was light, the countryside beautiful, sky overcast, and temperature in the 70s. 

I had already crossed 11 hills. I hoped that the worst was behind me. 

A man about my age stopped at the door of the store and said, “How are you going today?”

I told him.

“I’d be afraid to ride out there on the road with all these idiots,” he said.

“Yes, you are right. But 98 percent of the drivers are respectful. They give me plenty of space. I only run across about two idiots a day.”

“Just remember,” he said, “it only takes one idiot.”

I thanked him and he went on his way. 

That was my cue for Lucy and I to depart. 

When we had covered about 19 miles, we came upon the two-mile hill. It was still cool, so I just put my head down and pushed on. I did feel like I was doing a little better than I did a couple days earlier when I went to Guntersville and I got sick with heat exhaustion. 

I had slightly more energy. I had left 45 minutes earlier (4:45 am) so I covered a lot of miles in the cool of the morning, giving me a slight advantage. Also it was overcast, which protected me from the direct sun.

When I arrived at Rockford, which was about halfway, I stopped and got two bottles of water. There was no place to sit in the shade, so I finished most of one bottle and put the other into one of my two water bottles. Got back on Lucy, and we plowed on.

It was getting hotter, and traffic was getting busier, and the hills just would not let up. Although I was even better hydrated than before and had a little more energy, the hills were wearing me down. I stopped and sat on some big stones at someone’s house. The owner had an American flag on his fence and two flags on his flagpole: Alabama and Confederate.

By the time the temperature rose to 86, I had covered 37 miles. I knew I would make it, but I was not doing very well. Fortunately, I came across a gas station. Inside, I smelled chicken. I bought a breast and two bottles of water. 

That is where I met Vipul, a very friendly Gujerati man in his 20s with a contagious smile. He started to put the chicken in a bag when I told him that I was going to sit outside and eat it. 

There was no table, but I had seen some milk crates outside and had planned on pulling a few into the shade. 

“You can eat right here,” Vipul said, pointing to the three or four fast food restaurant tables. 

“Do you think my bike will be okay?”

He looked at it through the window. “Yes, I will watch it.”

As I sat and ate perhaps the best chicken breast I have ever had, we talked. Vipul was born in the State of Gujerat but lived most of his life in the city of Mumbai. Two years ago, he came to the US and now works for his uncle who owns the store.

He was curious about me, my trip, my motivation to ride 800 miles. I explained that this was my third year. I try to visit different towns and states and people.

“A nomad?” he asked with a smile. 

“For three weeks out of a year, yeah,” I said.

I could have stayed longer and enjoyed the AC and the conversation, and perhaps even another piece of chicken, but it was heating up. Lucy and I needed to make haste.

Or as much haste as a 62-year-old man can make on bike with 35 pounds of gear on the Alabama hills in the 86 degree heat.

Those last 13 miles were brutal. The cloud cover dissipated. The sun began pelting me. The hills continued incessantly. I stopped to sit under the shade of a tree belonging to a Jehovah’s Witness church. The grass felt cool. I removed my helmet and backpack. I didn’t stay long, but that little reprieve helped get me a few miles to the next break in the shade of a canopy of an abandoned gas station. I was there about a minute. 

Then I plugged away. When I reached the last mile, I was totally exhausted again. I had to stop and stand under a shade tree for one minute. Then about two blocks ahead, I had to stop and rest again under a tiny tree. When I got to downtown Wetumpka, I got off and sat down on a bench in the shade for a minute. 

Then I rolled up to the bridge over the Coosa River. This concrete structure was so unique and so beautiful, I had to stop and take some photos. While I was doing that, I noticed the unique rock formations in the Coosa River. So I had to take some more photos. 

Somehow this lifted my spirits. It made the last four blocks or so easier, although my legs were wilting. 

As soon as I rolled Lucy into the lobby, Lilly, the desk clerk, told me, “We won’t have anything until 3 pm.” It was 12:15 pm. 

“I just rode 50 miles,” I told her. 

She checked the computer. “We were full last night so we don’t have anything available yet.”

“I’ll take anything,” I told her. I was even willing to take a smoking room. Anything. 

As I had done several times on this trip, I gave her $10 and went and sat down in the lobby. Perhaps my stench so close to the desk would motivate her to find something sooner.

Finally, at 2:25 pm, I got into my room. It was only 35 minutes early, but I genuinely think she didn’t have anything to give me. Many other guests came in and tried to check in, and she told them to return at 3 pm. And she double checked with me three times. 

Tomorrow is 62 miles. Twelve miles longer than today. If Google Maps’ hill-o-meter is any indication, it is a gradual incline all day, for a total of 850 feet incline across the 62 miles. Today was nearly 1400 across 50 miles. We’ll see.

Day Nineteen

July 23: Saturday: Sylacauga, Alabama (26 miles)

Today was short in distance, but the hills just kept coming and coming. All together I have travelled 562 miles. I calculate that I have about 240 to go in five days. That’s nearly 50 per day. Pretty daunting, but I don’t have a lot of options.

Knowing that I didn’t want to arrive in Sylacuaga, Alabama before 11 am, I slept in till 6 am. This was the first day that I can recall that the alarm woke me up. I made motel room coffee in the coffee maker. There were no coffee cups and no coffee, but I had carried a couple extra coffee packets from other hotels just for this eventuality. I put three plastic motel drinking cups inside one another and drank coffee that way. 

At 7:50 am, I returned my key and remote control to Margaret who was already on duty. And I strolled down the hill and turned right toward Alabama SR 21 and hung a left. At this hour, there was not much traffic. 

Immediately I saw a big hill. I knew that I was going to have to work hard for this 26 miles. I had counted eight big hills for this leg on Google Maps. 

So I put my head down and pushed. It was cool but humid. I began sweating immediately. 

The first time I took a rest break was halfway at a gas station. I tied Lucy up at two large poles holding up a huge sign showing gas prices. Inside I went to the coffee machine. A tall black man in his 40s was putting cream and sugar in his coffee. 

“You getting some exercise today?” he asked. 

“Yes.” Then I went on to tell him about my trip.

“Wow. I have ridden 25 or 30 miles, but nothing like that.”

“Well, if you have ridden 25 or 30, that’s really good,” I said. Particularly in these hills. 

Not surprisingly, I purchased a Hostess cinnamon coffee cake. I walked around the entire building but could not find a place to sit. There wasn’t even a sidewalk curb to sit down on like I had in other places. So, I walked over to Lucy, took off my backpack and helmet, and sat on the grass in the sliver of shade the two poles made.  

A motorcycle rider came in and parked his bike in the sun. Then he went inside and got a juice. He moved the bike into a parking spot in the shade and sat on the bike. Not bad! Then he took out his phone and called someone.

A white man about my age driving a pickup pulled up to me and asked, “You got plenty of water?” 

“Yes, thank you. I do.”

I had already tackled five big hills, but I knew that I would have to take on more. So, I got back on Lucy and took off. Sometimes, we had to walk them, and a couple times I managed to ride them. But none of them were easy. 

I ended up counting ten hills before I arrived at the hotel. I was drenched in sweat. 

Sylvia was very friendly. She put me in the room immediately and offered to make coffee for me if I wanted. After a quick shower, I stuffed my dirty laundry in a washer and walked to Walmart for supplies. I stopped at Popeyes and bought chicken and went back to the room. 

I am not looking forward to the next two days. The first one is 50 miles and the next is 61 miles. If these legs contain the types of back-to-back unrelenting hills that I have seen the last few days, it is going to take every ounce of energy that I can muster. 

I have only had two 50 miles legs to date: Corydon, IN and Elizabethtown, KY. I supposed if I made those, I can make this one tomorrow. 

Day Eighteen

July 22: Friday: Talladega, Alabama (42 miles)

Every time I hand wash clothes in the motel sink, I think about my sister-in-law: Jannette. When I met my wife in El Salvador in 1984, there was a civil war going on. We married in Mexico City and moved back to San Vicente, El Salvador. We rented a one-room mud hut on the other side of a valley from my in-laws’ house. We laid a tile floor and coated the inside and outside of the walls with concrete, and started our family.

We didn’t have electricity or water, but we were happy. 

Combined in our hut and the house across the valley where my wife grew up, there were about 13-14 people. A couple times a week, Jannette carried the family’s clothes in a plastic tub on her head down to the creek and washed everyone’s clothes. Looking back, I did not thank her enough.

Nowadays, when Jannette comes to visit us, I try to spoil her. Prepare or buy new dishes or snacks for her to try, make her popcorn while we are watching movies, make coffee for her in the mornings. It is fun to have her around. To reminisce about the old days. 

And although we have a cleaning lady who comes to wash our clothes in the washing machine, I still catch Jannette at the large outdoor concrete sink washing her own clothes by hand. 

I was awake at 4:15 am again. And started my day. I had a long ride and I wanted to avoid the heat. The TV meteorologist said that we may see some scattered showers, so I was hoping to avoid them. 

I checked Google Maps route elevation indicator and realized that I had a lot of hills to tackle. The elevation indicator reads a lot like an EKG with lots of spikes on a line between two points. I counted nine big hills. Unfortunately, the biggest was just as I entered Talladega. 

I dropped my key off at the desk and stepped outside. I went to put my prescription glasses away and insert my sunglasses in the strap of my backpack when I realized that I didn’t have my backpack. 

Rookie mistake! In fact, I had not made that mistake since I left the first hotel room in January 2020. Stupid. Fortunately, this was a hotel. Usually,  in motels, I leave my key in the room. At this hour, it would mean waiting several hours for the manager to wake up before I could get back in the room. I needed to be more careful.

“You know what?” I told the desk attendant. “I forgot my backpack.” He handed me my key and within a couple minutes, I had rejoined Lucy.

We rode out onto Alabama State Road 77 and turned left. Almost immediately I met the Coosa River at dawn. It was beautiful.

And that is how we started our 42 miles of back-to-back, unrelenting hills. These hills battered and beat me all morning. 

Although none were as huge as I had faced the previous two days, they were about as bad as I had seen in Tennessee. I couldn’t believe that I was still fighting hills. 

And what did this mean for Sunday’s 50 mile leg?

As I pushed Lucy up one hill, the driver of a gray truck sitting perpendicular to me honked his horn. He had dark tinted windows, which is the custom here in Alabama, so I couldn’t see his face. I could only see his hand out the window giving me the thumbs up sign, which was his left thumb erect. I heard him yelling something but couldn’t make it out.

I knew though, that he was asking if I was okay. And I gave him the thumbs up sign with my very same left thumb. And I yelled thanks.

I stopped at one gas station for coffee, and that is where I met 53-year-old Michelle and her 56-year-old husband. They were sitting outside at a concrete table, smoking. Michelle worked there. Her husband’s left arm was in a sling. 

“What happened?” I asked him.

“Repaired the rotator cuff,” he said. “Going to do the other one in a few months. And replace my right hip…” 

Inside, she made me a fresh pot of coffee, and told me that she had been married for 39 years. She had married her husband when she was 14 and he was 17. 

I told her that those were the exact ages of my grandparents when they got married. 

“They told me that 14 was too young to marry and that you can’t even know what love is,” she said. “But I did. I knew. I fell in love with him and am still with him.”

I am a good listener. I have to give myself credit for that.

“I once lived in Champaign,” she told me. “I wasn’t no army brat, but my parents moved us around a lot… You know my favorite place of all to live? Washington State. It was so beautiful… We have two famous people who live right down here on the river: Reba McEntire and…” I forget who she said the second person was.

I took my cup of coffee outside and sat on a concrete platform of some type. 

A man with a long gray beard got out of a pickup truck and emptied water out of a cooler. We greeted each other before he stopped to talk to Michelle’s husband, who was telling him that he had both knees replaced. 

On the mans truck, he was playing some type of Christian talk radio. The man said that Russia and all of the Muslim states were going to join together and attack Israel. It was Armageddon that was upon us. Somalia and Libya and all those Muslim states were going to join Russia…

“There ain’t nothin’ good on the radio,” Michelle’s husband said. “I don’t even listen to it anymore.”

Michelle came outside and started telling me about some other cyclists a few years ago who were riding up a mountain not far from here when all of a sudden some car who was passing them decided not to give them any space. He clipped one of the riders and then just kept going.

“Some of these drivers are crazy. I see it because I work here,” she said. 

As I headed off, she reminded me, “You be careful now.”

At another point, I stopped to catch my breath and noticed a couple big trucks behind me with flashers. They were moving very slowly, coming up the hill I had just pushed Lucy up. I thought they were hauling some oversized double wide or something. So, I cut my breather short, mounted Lucy, and rode away, hoping I could keep ahead of them for a while. 

About two miles later, they were catching up. And I was winded. So I rolled Lucy down a little grassy knoll and decided to let them by. 

But when they passed, I realized that they were not carrying an oversized load. They were spraying herbicide several feet into the grass. Immediately, I was overcome by a wicked smell and began to cough.

With the broken ribs, coughing and sneezing are the enemies.

I could not ride in the wake of those vehicles. I was sure that Lucy’s tires would throw that toxin up into my face and onto my clothes. 

Instead, I rode into the other lane and rode along the opposite shoulder into traffic. I could still smell the sweet, putrid odor of the herbicide. I was hoping to pass the two trucks and get back in front of them, but the hills and my weak legs wouldn’t allow me. A line of semis, dump trucks, utility trucks, SUVs, and even a few sedans trailed behind the truck. 

Finally, when we got to Talladega County, the two trucks turned off to circle back and destroy the other side of the road. I flopped back onto the shoulder of the correct lane and kept riding. 

But the hills didn’t diminish. If anything, they grew more intense. 

On another occasion when I was pushing Lucy up SR 77 when it became four lanes again, a man in a gray pickup honked his horn and rolled down his window.

“You doing okay?” he asked me.

“Yes, I am doing fine.”

“Well, I asked myself, ‘He is pushing his bike up a hill, so I had better make sure he is doing okay.” 

“Thanks for asking,” I said. 

The last two miles were the hardest. Just as GPS had indicated, it was a huge incline going into Talladega. Two miles of an incline, in fact. Not as steep as the mountains, but at the end of 42 miles, it was brutal. 

With a mile to go, I had to stop at the driveway of a church and sit on the curb. It was only about 81 degrees and had been overcast all day. If it had been ten degrees hotter, like I had experienced two days ago, I am sure I would have been in much worse shape. 

Google Maps had shown nine big hills on this leg. I counted 15. 

Again, I wondered how I was going to do with tomorrow’s 50-mile leg. It might very well be as bad as today. 

Margaret was a very nice black lady who served as the day manager. I spoke to her through the night window, when I arrived at 11:30 am. I had averaged about 7.5 mph. 

A sign on the window said, No refunds. Not a good sign. 

A squat black man began pushing a huge black lady in a wheelchair on the sidewalk in front of the rooms from the far end of the hotel toward the office while Margaret was having me fill out a registration card and processing me into the system.

The woman was so large that I immediately thought that the reason she was in the wheelchair was because of her weight, not some other disability. Both legs were extended out in front of her.  

A tall white man in his fifties and a short round black woman maybe a decade younger got out of an old SUV and went over to the woman in the wheelchair and her colleague. 

“She wants to go to the bank,” the black man said.

The white man had difficulty speaking. He was loud enough, but he could only speak in bursts of syllables. And his peculiar rhythm made his speech almost unintelligible. 

Although he spoke several sentences, all I could understand was, “We can… take her… to the bank.” Meanwhile the black man returned down the sidewalk to a hotel room and back in our direction, carrying a large plastic garbage bag with what looked like clothes. 

“Sign here and initial here,” Margaret told me.  

She handed me the remote control and told me I had to return it and the key, when I left in the morning. 

Here is a hint for you. Any time that management gives you the remote for the TV in a motel through the night window in the middle of the day, you can pretty much predict that this motel is a little dodgy. If lots of guests run off with the remote, the clientele may be a little sketchy?

From the outside, it was easy to see that the motel was rundown. The paint on the wood around the doors was chipped and the wood was splintered or rotting. The windows were cheap single pane structures that reminded me of mobile home windows from the 1970s. 

When I got to the room, I slid the key card in the slot and pushed down on the lever. The entire door handle housing mechanism shifted half an inch one way and then another. I tried a few times, but the key wouldn’t let me in. 

I went back to Margaret and told her that I couldn’t get in.

“What color was the light?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I am color blind.” 

She opened her mouth as if to say something but then changed her mind. I don’t think she wanted to leave the safety of her locked office behind the night window. 

“I’ll give you the room right here by me,” she said. “Sometimes you have to work the door handles a little.” 

When I entered the new room, I considered looking on my phone for another accommodation. I recall that there was only one or two other motels with available rooms. And they were not close to here. And as I recall, significantly more expensive.

I have slept in some really sketchy places over the years. When I first met my wife in El Salvador, I was staying in one of the only two hotels. The walls were thin plywood. The bed was little more than a cot. I shared a bathroom and shower with everyone on that floor. At night the activity of my neighbors was so loud that I had to put my Walkman earphones on to go to sleep. Usually Billy Squire. 

A day or two after I met my wife, she told me that I had to move out of that hotel. When I asked why, she explained it was a brothel. 

So, I don’t get nervous easily. 

I decided to stay. I propped up a chair against the door as is my habit when I am in shady places. I have done it twice already on this trip. But I have never stayed in a motel in the three years that I have been traveling as sketchy as this one. Everything except the flat screen was 40 years out of date: The bedspread, sofa, drawers. The bathroom floor had smudges of dirt and grime on it. 

Oh well, I am here. No refunds. I would just have to tough it out. 

The internet seemed to be working well. The fridge works. 

I read some of the reviews. Most of the complaints were with cleanliness. Water not working well. Cockroaches. Housekeeping stealing from them. No complaints about drugs or prostitution or armed robbery. Provided there are no break ins or bedbugs, I supposed I can survive. 

In all fairness, I did not see a cockroach the whole time I was there. However, I did find one cockroach at the much, much nicer hotel I was staying at in Gadsden. And it cost double what I was paying here. 

Day Seventeen

July 21: Thursday: Gadsden, Alabama (30 miles)

This was a good day! A very hard 30 miles, but good. 

Before my alarm went off at 4:30 am, I was awake. I looked at my phone: 4:20 am. I needed to beat the rain. I knew the monster hill lay ahead of me. A mountain, the local people call them. Google Maps displays today’s 30 miles as an almost 90 degree slope of nearly 900 feet, at the top of which is a plateau that gradually inclines most of the way, and finally a steep decline and then relatively flat, with an abundance of hills the last eight miles. 

Oh goody!

It was daylight when I left the room at about 5:50 am. But I had replenished my energy with the night’s sleep. I had about two hours before the rain would fall and if I was lucky, I might be able to even dodge that. 

When I reached the hill, I began pushing up into traffic. There was a barrier wall between the two lanes and to get to my side, I would have to go back down the hill a quarter of a mile and then come back up. I had a lot of energy, but not that much.

I began pushing Lucy with her lights flashing. Even at this hour the traffic was relatively busy. The travelers did not like it much that I was intruding in their lane. For the next 26 miles or so, the shoulder was about 2 foot wide, with half of that right up to rumble strips. So when I pushed Lucy, I often had to walk in the grass. 

I was thinking about the young man at the motel, who didn’t think this hill was very big. He had never had to push a bicycle up it, I suspect.

At the top, I crossed over to the right side and rode for a short while until I came to the next hill. And the next. It was also close to two miles before I had reached the crest.

The mountains of Alabama that I had encountered yesterday and today were bigger and harder than anything I had experienced in Kentucky or Tennessee. 

Indeed the next twenty miles or so was a gradual incline, but comprised of hill after hill. Sometimes, if I got enough speed going down one hill, I could make it up to the top of the next hill in a very low gear. On other occasions, I couldn’t. I just had to push. 

I wanted to make it as far as I could before the rain started around 8 am. But by 7:30 am, I was drenched in sweat and exhausted. I pulled into a gas station, got coffee and my coffee cakes, and sat on the sidewalk. 

I enjoyed it.

Something unusual happened here. Seven vehicles pulled up to the gas pumps, and six of the drivers went in and bought something and came back out and left without buying gas. The were plenty of spots to park, but they all chose the gas pumps. 

The one of many who did get gas, asked me how far I had come today. 

I told him. Then I explained about the trip from Indiana to Florida. He couldn’t believe it.

“Are you sticking around here?”

“No,” I told him. 

“I was going to invite you to lunch. You wouldn’t have to worry about lunch,” he said. 

If he took one step closer to me and took a whiff, I suspect that he might have rescinded his offer.

In any case, I thanked him. Alabama had a lot of friendly people. At the sight of an old man on a bike who is riding a long distance, I guess, the best of them emerges. 

For this shy old man, I hope the best of me has come out, as well. 

Soon, I came across wet roads. The rumple strips were filled with water. Somehow I had dodged the rain. When I pushed Lucy, I tried to navigate between the wet grass and the rumble strip puddles with my feet and the white line, where Lucy’s tires ran. 

Going up hills didn’t get any easier. But since it was about 82 degrees, I managed. 

At the end of 22 miles of hills and more hills, I finally saw a welcome sign. Trucks were to descend in low gear. Since a kid riding with my uncle Ralph through the Smokey Mountains to Georgia, I knew what that meant. 

We were getting ready to go down the mountain.

Suddenly, three goats came out of a yard and into the road just 20 yards or so from this busy highway. Somehow they had gotten loose. I hoped their owner realized that they were out before they wandered into some harm. 

At the top of the hill, I got on Lucy and rode down the mountain braking to keep my speed around 30 mph. After two miles, I was quite pleased to reach the bottom, and I coasted into a gas station. 

I bought a soft drink and sat on the bench and ate one of my granola bars. Several men and one young woman entered the gas station and greeted me. Everyone was nice.

With only 6.5 miles to go, I wanted to beat the rain. But hills awaited me. 

Although I took breathers three or four times, I didn’t take any more breaks. I had to push Lucy up a few hills, but I pulled into the motel at about 10 am. I had made 30 miles in a little over four hours. About 7 mph. Not bad for all I had to go through. It was 85 degrees and I had avoided the rain.

Lynette greeted me at the desk. She was an accountant from Southern California, but got tired of it. After her parents passed away, she moved to Alabama to be near her brother. She brought her 18-year dog with her there, but the dog passed away. 

“I have never known anyone who had a dog that lived 18 years,” I told her. 

“I took good care of her,” Lynette said.

“Of course.”

She gave me a room without a hassle. And because the guest washer was on the fritz, she said the hotel would wash my dirty clothes. 

After a shower, I brought the clothes to her. And I gave her a $10 tip. She was surprised. 

Back upstairs, I took a half hour nap. When I awoke, I walked across the highway to Walmart to buy some supplies. I bought lunch meat, cheese, croissants, and spicy brown mustard, and thought of my two youngest daughters: Tellie and Cassie. Through all of the cancer tests in January, February, and March of this year, we ate a lot of these sandwiches. 

It was 90 degrees by now, and at the intersection between Walmart and the hotel, I heard someone yell something. I turned around and saw a black man who was about 50 years old in a Bronco. 

“Where are you going?” he asked with a friendly smile. In this heat, he was going to offer me a ride. The second act of kindness that I had experienced today. Third, if you count Lynette. 

I thanked him and said that I was just going across the street. 

Some time later that evening, I was sitting up in bed when I had the sudden, uncontrollable urge to sneeze. When I did, my right ribs exploded in pain as if an IED (improvised explosive device) had just detonated in my chest.

Day Sixteen

July 20: Wednesday: Guntersville, Alabama (42 miles)

This day almost did me in!

I awoke at 3:55 am. I decided to have some hotel room coffee and get an early start. I was out of the hotel and on the road by 5:20 am. It was very humid and nearly 80 degrees already. Swarms of bugs splattered across my chest and legs.

I had rested for a day and a half. Felt my energy level was up since I have been eating healthier foods and lost some weight. Also, since my legs were stronger I was hopeful to be in better shape. Plus Lucy’s two new tires meant smoother running. She was purring like a cheetah. 

About four miles into the route, I came upon a mountain. It is always better to take on a big hill early in the day, but this two-mile climb beat me down. By far, this was the biggest hill that I had ever seen. Just when I thought that I had reached the summit, I would see another hill. My head was dipping at stops. I would stand by the bike with my arms resting on Lucy’s seat. I suspect it took me the better part of an hour to reach the top.

Coming down was naturally easier, but the steepness of the slope gave me pause. I could have easily gotten up to 60 mph, but I applied both brakes the whole way down, probably never passing 30. 

At the bottom, I crossed over to US 431 and headed south. The energy was all gone from my legs, from my lungs. Although the next 10 miles or so was some of the flattest I had seen, and I kept Lucy in the top gears, my legs felt like those of a new born giraffe: wobbly and weak. 

When I stopped at a busy intersection to cross over to a gas station, my left leg got a cramp. I moved to the right, peddled a little further, and tried the left leg again. Cramp. So, I started ignoring the left leg and focused on my right. Inside the gas station I bought coffee and cinnamon coffee cakes. There was not a picnic table so I walked around back into the shade and set two milk box cartons on top of each other and sat down. I turned over a third, which made a table for my coffee. 

Easily, I could have taken a nap. My energy was depleted. But I had 26 miles to go and it was already getting hot. When the coffee was gone, Lucy and I headed south. 

The heat began to become a factor and drain what energy remained. Although I had packed 48 ounces of water, that was not going to be enough. I stopped several times to catch my breath. A couple of times, I got off and a spot to sit. 

Sometimes, I would start peddling after a rest and my legs stung so bad, I would have to stop and get off and push the bike or rest for a minute. That had never really happened before. I could normally push through the pain and get enough momentum to get my breath back. 

In a race against the heat, both rest breaks of ten to fifteen minutes were both my salvation and my enemy. With every break, the temperature climbed to beat down on me mercilessly. I thought back to when I was a teenager, and heat didn’t seem to bother me the same. But without the rest breaks, I could not continue. 

After about four hours, the GoPro went dead. It will only function for about five or six hours if I only use the photo feature. If I record video, the battery will last even less. 

It was about 82 degrees around 9:30 am. I had been riding for four hours. Slowly gradual inclines began to appear. Then slightly bigger ones. I had to stop for something cold. I bought a soft drink and rested in the shade, sitting on the sidewalk. I was really done. My mind was telling me I could make it, but my body was doubting me. Google Maps indicated that I had about 19 miles to go. 

A white man with no front teeth asked me how I was doing. He was part of the landscaping crew who was cutting the grass. 

“How are you going?” he asked. 

I told him about the trip. He went inside, but the door hadn’t even shut when he stepped back out. 

“I am getting a ten speed,” he said. “I am going to ride up to Tennessee?”

“Tennessee?” I asked. I am amazed at my conversational skills.

He confirmed that indeed the destination was Tennessee.

“That will be fun,” I managed to say. I was tired.

I climbed back on Lucy but we didn’t go far before we needed another rest. And then another. And another. The entire morning went that way. 

About 10:30 am, I stopped for a mango Propel. The cashier was a middle age woman, who told me to stay safe. 

Again, the only place to sit was the sidewalk, so I did. The temperature was about 84 and climbing. The mango drink tasted like peach, which was fine by me. I ate an energy bar. I think both seemed to give me some energy. Must have, or else I wouldn’t have been able to go on.

When I threw away my bottle and the energy bar wrapper, a white man getting gas in his can asked about my trip. 

I told him. 

“Have you ever been to Guntersville before?” he asked. 

“No.”

He gave me directions without being prompted and told me some local things to see. 

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that if I ever reached the motel, I would most likely taking a nap and resting in the AC the rest of the day. 

When I came to a body of water below the Guntersville Dam off the Tennessee River, I stopped for some photos. Whenever I could find shade near the water, I stopped. In fact, even if there was not water, I would stop in the shade. 

At the bottom of a hill, I found some shade but no place to sit. I leaned against a guard rail and tried to get comfortable, but there was no way. Crossed my legs, no. Put one leg on my knee, no. I started to feel a little sick. Not really sick to my stomach, just feeling bad. I needed to lay down. 

Never did I consider giving up. But I did fear that if I were not extremely carefully, I might collapse from heat exhaustion. I was drinking, sweating, and hydrated. There was no confusion. Just exhaustion. But I knew I was on the brink of something really bad. 

But the heat was rising. It was 86 degrees. 

A little further along, I stopped to sit in the shade. I removed my backpack and started to ease myself down onto a rock with my right. Because the left ribs are broken, I try to avoid using the left hand for getting up and down. Otherwise, I scream in pain. 

The rock tipped as I put my weight on it, and it smashed my little finger between another rock. 

A curse came out of my mouth. 

The drivers of a Dodge Ram 4×4 pickup were couple in their 50s. They slowed and stopped about 20 yards beyond me. Then they backed up and rolled their window down. 

“You doing alright?” the man asked. 

“I am doing okay,” I lied and gave him the thumbs up. 

After they left, I rested for a few minutes, and then got going again. 

I stopped at a circular gravel drive next to the lake. I supposed people came here to look at the river. I sat on the gravel. I didn’t feel good, but I had emptied most of my bottles and my camel pack. Plus the Propel. I should be okay, I thought.

When I got to Guntersville, I took a beautiful walking and biking path that curbed around the river. The GPS said the distance was the same. This was a mistake. 

Karen Jacobsen, the voice of Google Maps (and Siri), said, “You have reached your destination.” 

I was at the Guntersville Senior Center. A cruel joke. I wondered if some of my family had colluded with Karen on this one. 

I was utterly exhausted. I did not want to peddle one more foot. Unfortunately, putting in the address again, I realized I was three miles away. 

Somehow, I got back on Lucy. I could tell she was whipped too. After a mile, and two or three more stops, I came to a hill. 

What fun!

It was 90 degrees. I pushed Lucy up the hill. Stood in the shade when I could find it. And emptied the last of my water. 

Down the hill, I came back to US 431. I went south, but right before the causeway that leads to the final mile of the journey and my motel, I stopped for water. 

I went in and got a large Propel and sat on a block outside in the shade. The last mile was across the Paul Stockton Causeway.

Finally, I mustered the energy to get back on Lucy, and peddled across the causeway. I could see my motel from the other side. It was up another hill. 

I pushed Lucy up that last hill, realizing that the motel sat at the bottom of an even larger hill that I would have to tackle tomorrow morning as soon as the rain that the weather app was calling for stopped. Maybe around 8 am. 

The young Gujerati man was very friendly. He gave me my key with no complaints about the bike in the lobby and no additional charge for an early check in. It was about 12:20 pm and the temperature was 91. 

“How big is that hill right here?” I asked, pointing to US 431 South. 

“Ah, not that big. I mean it has some ups and downs, but it’s not really that big,” he said.

In the room, I stripped out of my sweat-saturated biking clothes. I removed a hanky from one pouches in the back of my riding vest. I wrung out a time stream of sweat. I do not believe I have ever sweated more for seven hours straight in my life. 

It had taken me seven hours to cross 42 miles, or 6 mph. This is the slowest that I have ever gone. But speed was not a priority. My health was. And completing the leg was. 

I showered and then napped for about an hour.

Day Fifteen

July 19: Tuesday: South Huntsville, Alabama (Rain Day)

I woke up to the rain pounding on the hotel room windows. The cable was out. 

I spent the day washing clothes, riding to the supermarket in the small window of dry weather, and reviewing a work plan for work. I also snuck in a nap and some video streaming. 

I enjoy rain days as well.

Day Fourteen

July 18: Monday: South Huntsville, Alabama (18 miles)

A great day!

I has been stressing over the bike shop, weather, early check-in, and report that I needed to review. I had 14 miles to ride. I wanted to arrive before the rain started, which was supposed to be 8 am. The bike shop did not open until 10 am. Could they work me in? The hotel check-in time was not until afternoon. Would they let me get in early? I couldn’t leave all my gear at the bike shop. So either I would have to take an Uber two miles to the hotel or arrive there early. 

When I left the hotel in Chase, the sky was beautiful. I made good time. I backtracked a few miles, returning the way I had come yesterday. I passed the train museum, and about seven or eight minutes later, I came upon Alabama A&M University. It was a nice, semi-rural campus. 

Karen, the GPS lady, took me through downtown Huntsville. It was beautiful. No traffic. Quiet. Then I followed the route through the back streets of quiet, residential neighborhoods. 

My mood was good when I arrived at the hotel at 7:30 am. That is where I met “J,” the black desk clerk in her late 20s. In fact, all of the staff there were black, with the exception of one Hispanic lady in housekeeping. J very politely and professionally told me that they had no available rooms, but she would try to get me in as soon as possible.

I parked my bike in a very nice lobby and took off my helmet and backpack. I bought a coffee and got some change, walked back over to the reception desk, and gave J $10. 

“Please find me a room as soon as possible,” I told her.

She broke out into a big smile. “Yes, of course.”

Back at my table, I pulled out my iPad, drank my coffee, and worked on the report. At 9:30 am, I left my saddlebags with J and rode down to Sunset Bicycles. I waited 10 minutes for them to open.

Brandon met me at the doors as he was unlocking them. The store was huge. About six or seven people worked there. Although there were cartons of warm breakfast there, he didn’t eat. He immediately went to work on my bike. He was very friendly and very professional.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. I told him I was.

“Do you want a breakfast burrito?” he asked.

“No thanks. I will go next door and have a coffee if they are open.”

Rooster’s Crow Coffee Roastery was definitely open. I wanted a muffin, but stuck with the coffee. It was not very good, but I sat and worked on the report. 

When I got back to Sunset, Lucy was leaning up against the counter with two new tires. Brandon told me that these would not likely puncture as easily. I paid and went back to the hotel.

J informed me that they were working on a room. Wouldn’t be too much longer.

“How many people do you have come in here with a bike?” I asked.

“None,” she laughed. “You are the first.” 

She asked how far I was going, and I told her.

“You are a real bike rider,” she said. 

“Not really,” I replied. “Just each year, I ride.”

“For me, you are a real rider,” she said. She seemed genuine.

I worked on the report until the room was ready about 11:30 am. J didn’t apply any early check-in fee. 

As I started to the elevator, the cleaning man told me, “This area is wet.”

“Okay,” I said. “I will be careful.” And I started rolling Lucy on.

“You are still going to go that way?” he asked. He didn’t want me to mess up his floor.

“I need to go to the elevator.”

“There is another one over there.” He pointed to the other side of the hotel. 

I took it to the third floor, but when I arrived, I learned that there was no direct connection between this side of the hotel and the other. So, I had to walk down three different hallways, navigating several housekeeping carts to get to my room.  

As soon as I got in the room, I could see the rain pounding on the window. 

Day Thirteen 

July 17: Sunday: Chase, Alabama (29 miles)

Midway point! 

I was awake at 4 am. I could have a couple of hotel room coffees before I left. I triple checked the temperature, weather, and route. It was going to be 88 degrees by 10 am. I needed to get a move on. I watched a little news, but my anxiety was pushing me to pack up and leave. 

Last night my wife recommended I go to a bike shop and get Lucy checked out. She was right. So, I found one south of Huntsville. I booked a room for Monday, just 14 miles south of Chase, Alabama, hoping they could adjust Lucy’s gears and replace the back tire, if they had one in stock. The shop was already closed and wouldn’t reopen until Monday morning. It was supposed to rain, so I could afford a “rain day,” which typically meant that I would stay in the motel room for an additional day and rest. And I still had that report to review and comment on. But on this occasion, because I had squeezed in the bike repair shop visit 14 miles further on my route, I wouldn’t be staying in the same hotel. On Monday, I would spend this “rain day,” riding in the rain for two hours for 14 miles to arrive at 10 am when they open, during the busiest hours of the beginning of the work week for thousands of commuters on busy Huntsville roads. So, rain day would take on a double meaning. 

This also meant that I only had one more available rain day. I had factored in four. The first one I took in Nashville, Indiana, while the first bike shop was repairing Lucy. The second was in Corydon, Indiana, after the treacherous six-hour journey, mostly in the rain. I needed to rest and dry out, and it was genuinely raining that Saturday. And Monday would be the third. With about 9-10 days to do, I had to be very cautious with my rain days. Both Tuesday and Thursday, the meteorologists were calling for rain. I couldn’t afford to take both. I would prefer to get my ride in before it rained on both days. But…

The packing went well, and I was getting ready to leave the hotel room a little before 6 am. It was 79 degrees out. I decided to check my tires. One good habit was checking your tires to ensure they were inflated at 60 PSI each morning. Fully inflated tires require less effort to ride. And with the heat and the hills, I needed every advantage I could get.

Unfortunately, I had not checked them since leaving Bloomington. When I reached for Lucy’s front tire, it was flat. Completely flat. I spun the tire around and found a hair thin wire poking out of the tread. Since I bought the bike in 2019, I have had six flat tires. Five on the back tire, and this was the first on the front. Hair thin wires had caused all six punctures. Not glass, not nails, not chunks of sharp, scrap metal. Wires. These are the result of road debris, particularly the from braided wire cables in truck tires littering the shoulders. For this reason, I try, to the extent possible, to ride in the road or as near to the road as possible. The more I ride on the far right of wide shoulders, scattered with tiny bits of road debris, the more likely I am to get a flat tire. 

Taking off the front tire is much easier than the back, because you don’t have to empty the saddlebags, turn the bike upside down, or battle with the chain and sprocket. I quickly removed the wire, removed and replaced Lucy’s front tire, and pumped it up to about 35 PSI. 

At the desk, I checked out and changed two dollars for quarters. About a quarter mile away, I entered a gas station and pumped the front tire to 60 PSI and then went to the back. It was only at 45. So, I had been hindering myself for hundreds of miles because I was too lazy to check Lucy’s tires each morning. I knew better. But my anxiety gets the best of me, and I take shortcuts. 

After pumping them up, I got on US 431 south. It was 6:38 am. Immediately outside Fayetteville was the biggest hill I had encountered to this day. I rode as far as I could, and then got off an pushed Lucy the rest of the way. I had to stop four times to catch my breath. I was saturated in sweat by the time I got to the top. I had only gone about two or three miles. It was already 80 degrees. 

Traffic started off relatively light for a Sunday morning, but by 8 am, the road was buzzing with traffic. Where was everyone going? Well, cafes, for one. Every tiny cafe and restaurant was packed with Sunday morning breakfast patrons. Many trucks were pulling boats. Most of the church parking lots were empty. I don’t know.

I passed several gas stations on the left wanting my first real stop to be the Alabama state line. The terrain was mainly gradual uphill, but I could do it moving relatively quickly. But it was getting hot. The sun was already beating down. Finally I arrived at the state line, dismounted Lucy, and snapped a photo. Then, I got back on and peddled on. 

Much of the way, there was no shoulder, so I had to ride on the right side of the right lane, hugging the white line. Most of the time, cars gave me a wide berth. But occasionally, they wouldn’t scoot over much. Just a couple feet, still remaining in the lane with me. And at least two dozen times, as soon as a truck would get past me, it would floor the accelerator, revving the engine, and speeding up, just to demonstrate that the drivers were annoyed at me. I had no business on the road when the drivers have so much more important destinations they needed to reach. And they needed to arrive quickly, at that. 

When I came down a four-lane hill, a black man on a bike without a helmet was riding the wrong way on a bicycle. You often see short distance riders, peddling without a helmet into traffic, but the odd thing was this man was in the fast lane, going the wrong way. I waved at him, and he yelled back something about his having “the right of way” and all those idiot drivers buzzing past him in the opposite direction were clueless. 

I stopped at a gas station on the right. I was tuckered out, drenched with sweat. I tied Lucy to a picnic table in the sun. There was really nowhere else. Inside, I bought a coffee and my favorite breakfast mini cinnamon cakes. 

I sat inside at a table in the AC, where I could watch Lucy. I hardly ever take my eyes off her. I truly enjoyed my rest, my coffee, and my cinnamon cakes. But I needed to press on. It was getting hot.

Outside the heat and the hills would not let up. The temperature climbed to 82, then 84, and then I turned left on Meridian Street North, hoping it was the end of the hills or that the sun would find a cloud to hide behind for the last eight miles or so. No such luck. 

When I turned left on Winchester, I saw a huge hill, and realized I needed yet another break. When I got to a shady area, I found two picnic tables. Under one of them, a number of empty soft drink, water, and energy drink bottles were scattered. That is the one I sat at. 

After ten minutes, I saw no rescue in sight. Siri told me that it was 86 degrees. I decided to plow ahead. I pushed Lucy up the hill, turned right on Higdon Road, and rolled down a big hills through a residential area. I came to Chase Road NE, and crossed the RR tracks. This was a rural area. And for the next ten minutes, I didn’t see another car. I stopped at the North Alabama Railroad Museum, whose shady trees offered much welcome refuge. I got off Lucy and took a few photos of old trains from a distance. 

After a few more twists and turns, and one more shade stop, I came to my hotel. It was about 10:20 am and already 88 degrees.

I met a woman outside in her late 40s. She went from her car to the entrance, picked up her wallet outside, and then went back toward the car. 

When I greeted her, she said something about the heat. When I asked her how she was doing, she mumbled something about my not wanting to know. She may not have mumbled. My hearing is going, and I don’t use my hearing aids while riding. 

She went on about “Usually, I am… but today… I work here. And we can’t find help. No one wants to work.”

We spoke for another minute or so, and she walked off toward the edge of the building and then came back to asked, “You gonna stay here?”

I told her I was. 

“Well be careful. This door,” she said pointing toward the north end of the building “was propped open and a snake got inside.”

Inside, I met Theresa. She is in her thirties and was cleaning the breakfast area when I got there. 

“Sorry, but we were full last night and no one has checked out.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I will wait over here.” I set up my iPad at one of the four breakfast tables and went and got a cup of coffee. I was happy to be out of the sun and done riding for the day. 

Last month, a work colleague and friend from DC came to Honduras. I told him I was thinking about the trip from Indiana to Florida of 800 miles, and one from  Panama City Beach to St. Augustine and back of 750 miles.

He said, “Don’t do the one from Indiana to Florida in July. It is too hot.” Of course, he was right. But I took some other factors into account in my decision to do the Indiana to Florida trip. I wanted to see my family—my dad, my cousin, my aunt, my brother, Anna and her daughter, and some friends. 

Now, arriving at Chase, Alabama, I was exactly 400 miles into the journey: Midway. The heat almost the entire route had reached the 90s everywhere I visited. These states were suffering a heatwave. The Nashville meteorologist has said that today was the 15th or 16th day of consecutive day of temperatures in the 90s. Ironically, almost every day on this route, Panama City Beach, Florida—my destination—was cooler that my stops for the night. 

So I was content that I had made it halfway. Broken ribs, bruises, scraped knee and elbow, flat tire, slipped gear cable, five hour ride in the rain, incessant monster hills, and punishing heat. I had made it halfway. Now, only halfway to go. 

I guess you can say, I am a trip-half-completed sort of guy. 

Day Twelve

July 16: Saturday: Fayetteville, Tennessee (32 miles)

What a difficult 32 miles!

The internet in the Microhotel didn’t work. Or like many of these places, it worked, stopped, disconnected, reconnected, and so on in endless succession. 

So, yesterday afternoon, I asked the desk worker about it, a big white woman with dark hair in her late 20s or early 30s, and she said, “I would have to call the internet company, and I doubt they would make it out today.”

This response sounded rehearsed. I suspect she was not being honest with me. 

“Has anyone else complained?”

“No,” she said. 

I had reason to doubt her. She was the one who insisted that I pay the $20 early check-in fee, and when I asked if the hotel had a guest laundry (said so in the ad), she said, Yes.

The young Indian woman working with her, looked at her in surprise. 

“We do?”

They spoke for a moment. I didn’t hear what they said. 

Then the larger woman said, “The washing machine may be out of order.”

“The washer doesn’t work, but the dryer works. There is a laundromat right next door,” the Indian woman said. I liked her instantly. She didn’t like misleading the customers. 

I went out and bought an ace bandage, came home and wrapped my ribs. But when I went to sit down, a pain shot through my chest, causing me to scream. I have been screaming a lot the past week, but this was the loudest, and this was the most intense pain I had experienced since the spill in Corydon. I removed the bandage and decided to live with the popping and brief, but frequent, bolts of pain in my ribs. 

Later in the evening, I saw that eight or nine other guests were using their using their hotspots. 

At 4:30 am, I was wide awake. I flipped the TV to the local stations, hoping to catch the news and weather. Instead, I was greeted by infomercials and a home makeover program. I made a cup of hotel room coffee and checked my email. On Fridays, I get updates from work. I checked those. Also, as scheduled, the quarterly report draft was sitting in my inbox. I need to review and comment on it by Tuesday by Close of Business (COB). The meteorologists are predicting rain Monday and Tuesday, so hopefully I will take a genuine rain day somewhere in Alabama and review the report. 

Initially, I had hoped to leave about 7 am, but when the 5 am weather man came on, he said it was going to reach 88 degrees by 11 am. 

I needed to get going. I put on my hand washed clothes, which smelled considerably less offensive, and packed my gear. I was on the street about 6 am and pleased to find very few travelers on this Saturday morning.

Last night I had mapped out back roads to reach Fayetteville because Maps and Google Maps indicated huge inclines. Maps offered three options, the least of which was a 1900 foot incline or 35 miles or so. So, I plotted a route through Flat Creek, taking at least a half a dozen back roads. 

Some tough little hills met me while I was still in the city limits of Shelbyville. I was a little winded by the time I reached Duck River. But I stopped to take a photo. Soon I veered off SR 130 onto Sulfur Springs Road and then SR 82.

It was actually very calming and beautiful for the first four miles. Suddenly, as I was trying to switch from the bottom seven gears to the top seven, the shifter snapped. 

I cursed. 

The shoulder was tiny and sunny. So, I rolled Lucy up a side road to the shade. I have replaced inner tubes many times, but I haven’t fixed or even adjusted gears or brakes or chains on this bike. (As a kid, I placed a master link on a bicycle once.) 

Many things were going through my mind at the same time. First, a few relevant curse words. Then, it was only about 6:20 am so no bicycle repair shop would be open for a few more hours. I was quite a distance from town. Who knew if they would make field calls. Could I fix it myself? Maybe I should call Emily in Nashville, Indiana in an hour or so, and ask her to help me fix it remotely, like the cable people do sometimes, or the computer whiz, who walks me through certain challenges from time to time. All that damn vibration yesterday on the grooved pavement have shaken something loose, or broken it entirely. No matter how long the delay—five minutes or four hours—the heat was going to increase until it was unbearable. If I had to spend the night somewhere, I preferred to spend it in Fayetteville, which was still 28 miles away. 

More select curse words were buzzing through my brain.

When I got in the grass, I parked Lucy, switched to my progressive glasses so I could see what I was doing, and bent down to examine the problem. Immediately I saw a cable dangling free. That didn’t seem right. I tried to see where it went. I saw a nut and bolt that was loose on a tiny arm that was connected to the front derailleur. It has bends in it, but I could not see exactly how to put it back. And it was so tiny that I couldn’t see if an eyelet had sheared off or not. I had received word that my new prescription glasses were ready in Panama City Beach, but that wouldn’t help me here.

Sweat dripped into my glasses, and I had to take them off, wipe them, and then start again. I found an instructional video on YouTube that showed how to install a new cable, but not exactly how to reconnect a cable to that little arm. If, in fact, an eyelet had not snapped off. Finally, I decided to try to reconnect it the way I thought made most sense. I did, and it worked. 

After 25 minutes of repair work, I was back on the road. The rolling hills continues. Some of the hills were pretty steep and then the road just flattened out. Rolled into Flat Creek about 7:30 am, having only covered about nine miles, or 6 mph. The entire trip I had been averaging about 8 mph, and yesterday about 10 mph. So, 6 was pretty pathetic. 

To be honest, despite the setback, the area was beautiful. I had seen goats, cattle, horses, and a donkey. There were practically no cars on the road. It wasn’t too hot yet. When I pulled into the tiny gas station, I was enjoying myself. Inside were a couple of tables snuggly secured into small wing of the store, that at one time had probably been a gas station of some type. Three men and a woman sat there eating breakfast. I could smell bacon cooking. I came close to ordering a bacon and egg sandwich, but I stank already and didn’t want to spend any more time with other people than I had to. So I bought a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bread and sat outside on the picnic table. I really enjoyed these ten minutes. Relaxing. Peaceful. 

The occasional truck would drive by, usually pulling a trailer of some type. 

As soon as I had rested, I steered Lucy to New Herman Road. I enjoyed about eight miles of some of the flattest road I have seen on this entire trip. I stopped and took a photo of some cows cooling themselves in pond, while three horses grazed nearby. When the cows saw me, they splashed their way to the bank, but the horses ignored me.

I started noticing names in large letter, the size of RR Crossing, written on the rural roads. At first, I thought they were names of the residents. George Reagor, Morris Hollow, Ward Hollow. But at Mt. Herman, it finally dawned on me that they were county road signs because on this road, all of the traditional posts and metal signs were absent. 

Then, out of nowhere, appeared the hills. Rolling hills. Big hills. Hills on top of big hills. It was a draining seven or eight miles. I stopped several times to catch my breath. I had to push Lucy up several hills. 

As I pushed Lucy up one hill, a woman in her 50s driving a maroon SUV pulled up and rolled down window. 

“You doing okay?” she asked.

“I’m doing okay” was all I could get out. I was huffing and puffing.

“Okay, you be safe now,” she said and drove off.

By 9 am, it was 84 degrees. Once I sat on the grass at the edge of a farm in the shade and drank warm water out of my camel pack. 

On another occasion, I stopped in the shade of a big tree. A bull was inside a flimsy fence directly across from me. Unlike the cows earlier, when he saw me, he moved three steps in my direction and studied me. I snapped a couple of photos, caught my breath, and peddled on. 

My ribs were popping as much as they did the previous couple days, but I just ignored it. There was nothing I could do.

When I reached highway 50, I turned right, and headed west toward Fayetteville. There were more hills. My energy was depleted. At 10 am, the temperature had climbed to 90. Fortunately, the road had turned flat again. 

When I reached US 231 again, I pulled into a gas station and sat on the bench outside. I wanted to go in for a cold drink, but I was just to tired.

As I sat there and sipped warm water, an Indian man in his 50s parked his car at a pump and removed a red plastic gas can from the back of his SUV. Then he started walking directly toward me on his way to the store. He was overweight and his legs were thin. He sort of waddled. 

“You are in good shape,” he said with a smile. 

If only you knew, I thought. But I said, “Right now, I am pretty tired.”

He went inside, and I hauled myself to my feet. I pushed Lucy up a tiny hill out of the parking lot and onto SR 50. Then into the busy intersection behind a truck that was waiting at a traffic light ready to turn left. A loud tractor-trailer came up behind me. I was in the mix. I felt small and vulnerable as I always do in these situations. In the midst of busy traffic going in all directions. A circus clown on a tricycle in the middle of a demolition derby. 

The sun was baking me. I had applied sunscreen three times, but I felt I was sweating it off as quickly as I could put it on. 

The light turned green and somehow I managed to stand up on the peddles and speed up as the tractor-trail roared behind me. A row of cars were also turning left in the lane beside me. I didn’t look back or around; I just focused on making the turn. I got around the turn and onto the shoulder. The semi passed me and went on his merry way. 

I just peddled and peddled for another mile or two. Then US 231 turned left again. I let all the traffic pass and then I signaled that I was turning left and got into the left turn lane. Repeat.

The saving grace was that the road was relatively flat. Despite the 90 degree temperature, my first 90 degree day ever, I think; I made it. 

I pulled into the hotel which was a little expensive for my budget. But nothing else was available nearby. I had decided a couple days ago that I would splurge just this one night to keep myself on schedule.  

Madeleine was adding the coffee cups at the coffee counter when I entered the lobby. She was 22 years old. Because I was wearing a mask, she donned a mask. She looked me me up and down, as I pushed my bike inside. Like most people, she didn’t know what to make of me. She dutifully started behind the counter.

I told her I had a reservation. 

“I am sorry,” she said. “But check-in isn’t until 3 pm, and it is not even 11 am.” It was in fact about 10:42 am. “The soonest I can check you in is 2 pm.”

“I just rode 32 miles. Is there anyway you can check me in early?”

“Oh, I see,” she said, not making an effort to accommodate me. “Do you want some water?”

“Maybe later.”

After checking her screen, she said, “We don’t have any rooms available yet. But if you want, I can call my manager and see what we can do.”

“Tell him I am willing to pay an early check-in fee,” I told her. 

After Madeleine spoke to her boss, she hung up the phone and said, “I am sorry. But there is nothing we can do. There are no rooms available.”

We spoke for a couple more minutes, and then she said, “I can call housekeeping and ask them to clean your room first, but it still won’t be ready until about 1 pm.”

“That’s fine,” I said, noticing the curved scar on her right arm in the shape of a dog’s bite. “What happened to your arm?” 

“A dog bite. Lincoln County has a big dog problem,” she said. “It happened when I was nine, so 13 years ago.”

I thanked her and parked my bike in the lobby near a table and opened my iPad. I got some coffee and pulled two oatmeal stacks out of my biking vest and ate them.

Around 11:15 am, Madeleine came to my table and said, “I wanted to give you an update. We have upgraded your room and they are cleaning it now. Should be ready shortly.”

I love it when professionals provide unsolicited updates. It is a key to customer service and professional courtesy. I try to get my staff to do this, and I try to do it myself. 

A man in his late 50s, wearing shorts, a cap, and a t-shirt, entered the lobby with a McDonald’s bag. 

“What are you doing here?” asked a female staff member. 

“I was out golfing and came in here to eat and get cool,” he said. It appears that he was one of the managers, who came in while off duty. The woman from the kitchen, who had also been nice, brought out her lunch, and began eating with him. He was apparently playing in a tournament and was currently five strokes over par. 

“Where did you ride from?” he asked me. 

I told him.

“Did you come over the mountain?” he asked. He was referring to US 231, which I had avoided.

“No,” I responded and explained the circuitous route.

“You could have come straight down 231, but it is-“ and he raised his and up and down, making a motion about how hilly it is.

Madeline said, “Your room is ready.” 

It was 11:45 am. She had worked to get me into the room 1 hour and 15 minutes earlier than promised. 

When I got to the room, I realized it was a suite. Really two rooms merged into a suite: A kitchenette area (no stove) in the entrance way, a sofa and chair in the lounge area, and a king size bed and large shower in the bathroom area.

After I showered, I put my clothes and shoes to wash in the customer laundry room two floors down and went out for supplies. When I returned, I put the clothes and shoes in the dryer, and walked to get lunch. 

When I got back, I have Madeleine a $10 tip. She seemed very appreciative, but she had done me a big favor.

When I got to the room and started eating and streaming a video. It was about 3 pm. I went down to check on the clothes, and one of the staff had opened the dryer when they heard my shoes banging around in it. The time had run out, and my clothes were still wet. I took the shoes back to the room, got some more quarters, and went back down to the laundry room. 

I still need to look the bike over tonight as make sure everything is okay. I need to look up how to adjust the gears. They are not shifting smoothly. Lucy’s back tire is beginning to go bald. And I am not halfway home. Tomorrow, I should reach halfway. 

Although I was not terribly sleepy at 8 pm, I decided I needed to sleep. The local meteorologists were predicting 90 degrees by 11 am, so I had to get an early start.

Day Eleven

July 15: Shelbyville, Tennessee (23 miles)

This morning, I woke up a little after 5 am. I triple checked my route. There were three options. One way or another, I had a 900 foot incline to climb.. This was my greatest incline to tackle in one day. But the incline in feet itself matters much less than the slope. For instance, a gradual 900-foot incline over 23 miles is much easier than, say, a 500-foot incline of short, but steep, rolling hills over three miles. My most difficult days had only 300-foot inclines overall, but involved 1100 or 1200 feet in total rising and falling across 35 or 40 miles. 

In any case, I was not sure what to expect, but when the local TV meteorologist said, “We’ll see temperatures rise into the mid-80s by 10 am,” I decided not to chance it. Almost every day so far, I have arrived to my destination by 11 am, just as the temperature reached 84 degrees. An hour or so later temperatures usually reach the high 80s or low 90s (by the time I walk to the stores or restaurants). I could handle 15 minutes walking in 90 degree weather. I had yet to attempt riding in 90 degree heat and high humidity.

Something else the meteorologist said bothered me. “We should expect rain in the morning on Sunday and Monday.”

Yesterday, the rain was not expected until Monday. I have already booked a room for Sunday, so I need to ride or cancel the room. But I will leave that decision until Saturday. 

I had two room coffees, but skipped complimentary breakfast (or coffee) in an effort to reach Shelbyville by 10 am or so. I dropped off my key at the desk to some gentleman in his 50s who was talking on the phone and rolled out onto US 231 south. It was only 6:50 am, but the highway was buzzing with traffic going both ways. 

My GoPro was not working right. Sometimes it freezes up, and I have to stop and sort it out manually. 

As I began climbing the overpass of Interstate 24, I noticed a bike rider a few blocks ahead of me. I stopped to take some photos of I-24, as I typically do. The overpass was vibrating with the heavy traffic. This vibration is normal, but it is unsettling. I never get used to it. I think about those rare cases when an overpass collapses. I particularly remember the Florida International University pedestrian bridge that collapsed in 2018 and killed six people and crushed eight vehicles. 

I peddled on. Today, I had plenty of energy. I credit the slightly better diet and the leg of the journey, but who knows. Maybe the wind was to my back. 

Just outside of Murfreesboro, the smooth blacktop gave way to grooved pavement. As a driver of a car, we all hate those rough, scraped blacktop surfaces under construction that make our tires roar in agony. As a bicycle rider, it is even more torturous. Not only does your bottom feel every groove and bump, the constant vibration is bad for the bike and the friction damages your tires. Emily, the bike technician in Nashville, Indiana, told me that my back tire was not in great shape, but that she didn’t have a replacement. She hoped it would make it to Florida, but she couldn’t guarantee it. 

After about four or five miles of this battering, the road deteriorated into concrete gravel. I know it was hard on Lucy but she was hanging in there. I slowed and took my time, but there was nothing I could do about the condition of the road. I just had to hope that it would end soon. 

Maybe after seven or eight miles of this, the construction ended, and smooth asphalt resumed. 

Despite the challenging surface, I made the first 12 miles, mostly uphill, in about an hour. These days are rare. So you have to enjoy them. 

I knew that arriving too early would likely mean an early check-in fee, but when things are going your way, you want to take advantage of them. 

I stopped a few additional times to take photos. I passed some early gas stations when I wasn’t tired, but didn’t see any later on for a while. About halfway, I saw a Shell station on the left, but I decided to hold off for one on my side. 

As expected, a few miles further, I came upon a Marathon station. I wanted a break. I rode past a lady who was checking her oil in an old, beat up, Chevy Blazer or Ford Bronco. She was wearing a baseball cap turned around backwards like a catcher. The bill of the cap displayed a Confederate flag insignia. 

I thought about asking her why she wore it and what it meant to her. But she looked like she was not having a good day. Her mother was in the front seat of the vehicle with the window up. In this 82 degree heat, I suspect the window wouldn’t roll down. At least one child sat in the back. The only window down was the driver’s. The grill was missing from the SUV and a white cross was painted on the hood. 

Inside I got a cup of coffee and a small package of powdered sugar donuts (I know, I know), and took them to the counter. The driver of the old vehicle was crouched down in another aisle comparing motor oils. She was in her late 30s I suspect, and had dirty blond hair. She walked to the checkout counter and asked the woman—who was probably in her 60s—about the prices on the oil.

“They are all the same,” the older woman told her.

The driver of the vehicle walked past me and grabbed her stomach as if in pain. I wondered if she was pregnant. 

At the checkout counter, the older woman told me, “Do you want to replace these (donuts) with a freshly baked peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie? The price is about the same.”

“OK, I’ll take the cookie,” I said. 

“You can ask her. She had one,” the cashier said motioning toward the driver with the Confederate flag cap. 

“Yeah, I get one all the time. They are good,” she said from the back of the store.

I paid and took the coffee and warm cookie (which was about the size of a hamburger bun) outside. There was absolutely nowhere to sit in the shade, except for the canopy, which was where the woman’s old vehicle sat. 

Initially, I stood in the sun and drank my coffee until all the cookie was gone. It was great. They were not really chocolate chips, they were chocolate chunks. 

The woman added two quarts of oil and walked around to the back of the vehicle and and began rummaging through a stack of loose clothes and random items piled almost to the ceiling. She kept talking to her mother. 

I vacillated back in forth between asking her if she needed help and asking her about the Confederate flag. Or alternatively keeping my mouth shut, minding my own business, and peddling on. 

Instead, I moved over into the comfort of the shade and turned my back to the vehicle as she searched for something. 

“Here it is,” she told her mom. 

For the next three or four minutes, I drank my coffee. I was only ten miles from my destination. I knew I should be going. 

Finally, I turned around just as the woman was closing the tail gate. 

“Are you OK?” I asked her. 

I expected her to say something like, My mom, children, and I are trying to get to Alabama, and this stupid car is broken down. At which point, I thought I would offer to help out and give her $50 or something.

Instead, she said, “What do you mean?”

She grabbed a huge hybrid Confederate flag and began covering the back window which was broken out.

“I mean is everything okay?” I said while motioning to the hood that was still open and another quart of oil sitting on the engine. 

“Oh that,” she said with a big smile. “I work on my own car.” She started attaching the flag to cover the missing back window.

“Ok,” I said. I turned my back to her and kept drinking my coffee. I didn’t want her to think I was meddling. Then I thought, Maybe she wonders what I am doing standing her so close to her car. Was I a pervert? A thief preparing to rob her?

So I said, “I am just drinking my coffee in the shade.”

This tickled her. She bent over and laughed in a very shy way. 

“Do you really like to ride?” she asked.

“Yes, I try to take one big trip a year. This year I am riding from Indiana to Florida.”

She stopped and looked at me with a big smile. “Are you kidding me?”

“No,” I said. “I am about halfway.”

“That is a long way,” she said.

We spoke a little longer, and then my coffee was gone. I didn’t want to embarrass or offend her by offering her money. Maybe I should have. Sometimes, I know exactly what to do and to say, and sometimes I am clueless. 

I wished her a safe trip, and then got on my bike and headed south. I expected her to pass me, but she never did. Her car was head south at the gas pump, but maybe she was going the opposite direction. 

The rest of the trip went smoothly. I arrived at the hotel at about 9:15 am, having covered 23 miles in less than 2.5 hours. Most of it was uphill. It was about 84 degrees. 

Naturally, the manager, who was not Indian, charged me $20 for early check-in. I didn’t complain because I was nearly six hours early. Guests were still having breakfast. 

I had hoped to wash some clothes. My biking clothes stunk. But the washing machine was out of order. So when I got to my room, the first thing I did was wash my riding clothes in the bathroom sink by hand. Not the cleanest they will ever be, but hopefully they won’t offend people when I go into a convenience store tomorrow. 

Day Ten

July 14: Thursday: Murfreesboro, Tennessee (27 miles)

My ribs are definitely broken. They now pop every few seconds, every time I move in a certain direction, or push the bike, or pack or lift certain things. Getting in and out of bed or moving in bed is the worst. Provided I don’t puncture a lung or have a problem breathing, I can withstand the pain. It is not constant, but it is a little unnerving to feel the almost constant pop of bone rubbing against bone. 

Since my trip was only 27 miles today, I decided to take it easy. I slept in till 5 am, drank two cups of motel room coffee, packed up, made reservations for the following day, and went to the breakfast area when it opened at 6:30 am. I am trying to eat more fruit, yogurt, granola, and reduce my carbs, particularly my bad habit of eating ice cream and other sweets. The breakfast area offered the normal array of carbs—waffles, donuts, muffins, and sugar cereals, but little else. I grabbed a coffee and went back to the room. I finished donning my gear and departed a little after 7 am. It was already getting hot. 

Google Maps reports that 27-mile journey was “mostly flat” but the first 17 miles or so were very hilly. I peddled and peddled, and my ribs went “pop, pop, pop” several times a minute. I was forced to push Lucy up several hills—pop, pop, pop—and when Lucy got tired, I found some shade and let her rest. 

Once I crossed the highway to the other side, where there was shade and some limestone or shale to sit on. I let Lucy rest there for five minutes while I checked my phone and snapped some photos.

Lucy and I never stop for long, so once she was rested up, we crossed back to the southbound lane and continued on. At one point, I stopped and snapped some photos of goats. My family loves goats. 

Many years ago when the kids were young, we lived on six acres in Owen County, Indiana. We wanted to clear 2-3 acres of wooded areas and plant grass. So we bought a young goat that we named Megan. We tied a 25-foot chain to her dog collar and connected it to an 18 inch corkscrew dog stake into the ground. We bought a big fiberglass dog house and let her graze. Each week, she would clear a 50 foot diameter space, and we would go in, cut the fallen branches and trees, cut the small saplings, rake it all up, and plant grass seed. And we would move Megan to the next spot. 

What was surprising is what a great pet she was. She loved the kids. When she would hear the bus a few houses away, returning the kids at the end of the school day, she would start bleating. As soon as the kids got home, they would go out and play with her. When she was not eating, she would stand on top of the dog house to get a better view. As she grew, she became stronger and could pull the corkscrew stake out of the ground any time she wanted. And when she did, instead of running away, she would come to the front porch and bleat, trying to get the kids to come out an play with her. We all fell in love with her.

One day, my son told me, “There is a wolf outside.” 

I looked and indeed it was some huge dog or wolf. I tried to scare it away, but it was not easily intimidated. I took my son’s BB gun and shot at it, but missed. Soon, it got bored and left. When I went to the back of the house, we found Megan dead. This dog had killed it.

My son and I dug a hole and buried her. All of us were devastated.

A neighbor lady who we had never met came later that day and apologized. Her dog was some type of Alaskan Malamute hybrid and killing animals was stamped into his DNA, she said. She was sincerely sad and offered to buy us another goat, but we were leaving in a few months to Pakistan for a year, and decided not to replace her. 

Along US 231, also called Old Murfreesboro Road, stopped and photographed a field of Angus in front of a farmer’s house. It was beautiful. 

Before long, I came across Dead Land, a haunted forest. It was unclear if it is still in operation or not. 

The last ten miles or so were relatively flat. It was 82 degrees, and I was making good time, and ahead of schedule. So I stopped at a CITGO and bought a chicken thigh and a soft drink and went outside. There were two picnic tables in the sun, so I pulled one of them into the shade, partially blocking the air pump. As I was about to sit down, a truck pulled up and stopped about 20 feet away. I motioned to the air pump to see if he needed to get access, and he waved me off.

So I sat down, ate my chicken thigh and rested. It was an enjoyable day. After about 15 minutes, I cleaned myself up, wiped my sunglasses, and got back on the road. 

I made really good time to Murfreesboro, but then I got turned around. See, US 231 does not go straight. To follow it, you must follow some sort of awkward route with lots of turns and highway exits. Google Maps tried to spare me the confusion by taking me along some short cuts. Traffic was horrible at this hour—about 10:30 am—so I stopped several times to check the GPS. Finally, I eased out into traffic and gave a left hand signal and merged into the left lane, but at the last second I got mixed up. The GPS lady was telling me to take some street, but I couldn’t hear well because of all the traffic whisking by. The street didn’t look right. It didn’t seem to make sense. I was trying to navigate in the middle yellow turn lane on the five-lane US 231 highway, on a busy Thursday morning while listening to the GPS lady and trying look at the GPS screen on my phone attached to the handlebars. So at the last second, I decided to abandon the shortcut and go back to the far right lane. The hotel was on 231, so I couldn’t go wrong just following the highway, right? 

I swerved a little into the right lane, but when I looked back, cars were coming. 

Sorry guys, I thought.

So I stopped and stayed in the middle yellow lane as dozens of cars, trucks, and semis zoomed passed me in both directions. I forced myself to be patient because anxiety and impatience would not help me. 

After two or three minutes, I finally found enough distance before the next car to allow me to get back in the far right lane. 

I peddled patiently—pop, pop, pop—and took an exit ramp to follow US 231. However, the GPS lady was talking about Highway 99 in my EarPods but there was no sign to match. At the stoplight, I waited with all the other cars. Then we turned left, but I kept having the same problem with inconsistency of the GPS lady and the phone screen and the names of the streets. Several times, I had to double back, stop and check my phone. I was not in a very good neighborhood, and vehicles of all sizes were whooshing by me. 

Finally, I took a right and took some back streets. I saw a big Murfreesboro water tank. I arrived at a train track just as the train was passing. Two men had exited their cars and were filming the passing train with their phones. 

The temperature had reached 84 degrees, so I parked Lucy in the shade of an abandoned building and drank the rest of my soft drink. I tossed it toward a trash can and missed. So I had to pick it up and put it in. When the train passed, the two men started talking to each other. But Lucy and I didn’t stick around. It was getting hot, and I needed a shower. 

A few minutes later we came to the hotel. With no place to park Lucy outside, and since all rooms were accessed through the lobby, I eased Lucy through the doors. 

“You can’t bring that bike in here,” the Gujerati man said.

“Don’t I have to get to my room this way? Or is there way to get there from outside?” I asked. 

“What is your room number?” he asked.

“I am just checking in,” I told him and kept pushing Lucy toward the counter.

“Don’t you leave it outside?” he asked. 

“Never,” I told him. Lucy and I always share a room. 

“Check in is not till 3pm,” he said. It was 11:05.  “It will be $20 for early check-in.”

“How about $10?” I asked. 

“No. It was $40,” he said, looking back at the clock. “But now that it’s 11, it’s only $20.”

“How about $15?” I asked.

“Ok,” he said. He was really a nice man. 

The internet was great. Perhaps the best I have had so far. 

Day Nine

July 13: Wednesday: Lebanon, Tennessee (42 miles)

This is the leg of the journey that I have been concerned about since I charted my route. The hills are supposed to be significantly larger during the first half of the trip than yesterday’s leg. It is also seven miles longer. I tried to find a motel or AirBnb part of the way, but I failed to find anything adequate. There were a couple options, but no groceries stores, convenience stores, or restaurants nearby. 

So I decided to just bear down and do it. I consoled myself with the idea that the last ten miles or so was supposed to be relatively flat. I would tackle the big hills while I still had some energy and enjoy the smooth sailing of the last ten miles. I figured I would leave half hour early and arrive half hour later than usual (11:30 am). I could do it before it got very hot.

My alarm is set everyday for 4 am. I figured I could be out the door by 4:30 am. Right?

When the alarm went off, I got up, but I had not packed the night before. The hotel room didn’t have a coffee maker, which meant that I wouldn’t spend any time in the room watching the news and drinking coffee. I would find coffee along the road somewhere.

But I didn’t leave the room until 4:55 am. I turned on to US 231 South, picking up where I left off yesterday and braced myself for the biggest hills to date. Already semis were zooming past me at this hour.

Google Maps took me on a detour through the countryside on Old Highway 31-E. So I welcomed the detour in hopes of a quieter, although hillier, path. After a few hills, I found myself going downhill more often than I expected. It was too foggy to wear sunglasses, but the insects were out in large numbers. 

Before I knew it, I crossed over into Tennessee. This served as an important milestone for me, given that I had doubted my ability the entire route, particularly after the spill on Friday.

When I stopped to snap a photo of the Welcome to Tennessee sign, I noticed that my vest was splattered with bugs like a car windshield. Fortunately, none had hit my eyes. I cleaned off the sunglasses and wore them anyway, doing the best I could.

Finally, I came to Westmoreland, where I found a gas station. I tied up Lucy and went in and grabbed a cup of coffee. In fact, the last one in the pump thermos.

The woman working behind the counter was near 50. She was working two checkout lines at the same time. While one customer was paying for his items on the right, she switched over to the next checkout line and took my items. As I was paying by credit card, she switched back to the other checkout line and scanned in another man’s snacks. She was amazing. I told her about my cup being the last, and she thanked me. 

Back outside, there was nowhere to sit. I finally led Lucy around to the air pump, brushed off a few inches of the concrete platform, and sat down on the edge. The coffee was good. 

I thought this morning had not been that bad so far. I kept waiting for the big hills that Google Maps had displayed. I just knew the big hills were coming, and wanted to get it over with. 

Finally, I got back on Lucy and pressed on. I went up and down some rolling hills, and then suddenly I was speeding down a long gradual hill into a wooded valley. When I reached the bottom, the road dropped again, and I kept speeding. As much as I enjoyed making good time with little effort, I wondered if another set of hills even larger awaited me. 

Instead it flattened out, a few rolling hills, and then we merged into US 231 again. 

Ironically, whereas the last ten miles or so were supposed to be relatively flat, they were large rolling hills. The monster hills never surfaced—certainly nothing like the 1 mile hill I had encountered the day before—but the last ten miles were the hardest. 

As I came over a hill, a pickup truck sat in a gravel driveway by the mail box at the road. The driver’s door was wide open, and man was leaning over the side of the truck bed trying to repair something in his hands. A cigarette was dangling between his lips.

“Good morning,” I shouted. 

He looked up ever so briefly, then looked back at the gadget in his hand. He mumbled something but was not impressed by me. 

At one intersection, a semi-truck driver flashed me a healthy smile and waved a thumb and forefinger at me. I have no idea what it meant, but he was friendly. 

Soon I came to the Cumberland River. I took some photos and hurried on.

When I got to Lebanon, two white policemen with short-cropped hair had a black man pulled over. The policemen looked like they had just mustered out of the military. Thin, muscular, heavily armed. All three men were in their 30s. The black man was pleading his case with one cop while the other cop was walking back from his car, speaking on a mobile phone. 

As traffic became more congested, one white man about my age with cigarette dangling from his lips recklessly turned in front of me. I slowed and missed him by quite a bit, but this type of negligence is rare. I would say, 98 times out of a 100, drivers are very courteous. 

By the time I got to the hotel, it was 84 degrees. Almost the same time every day I usually arrive at 11am. I was exhausted. I tied Lucy up around a flag pole and went inside. I was greeted by a very nice Gujerati lady. 

“I am not sure your room is ready,” she said. “Let me see what I can find.” 

While she was looking, she said, “Where are you riding?”

“From Indiana to Florida.”

She looked up from the computer screen and smiled. “In how many days?”

“Twenty-one,” I told her. “Including four rain days.”

“Wow, that is fast.”

It wasn’t really fast, but she was impressed. I left it at that. 

After showering, I walked a few blocks to Walmart to buy some fruit, water, and supplies. A white man in his late 40s was wearing a cap with the Confederate flag. I came very close to approaching him and asking him why he enjoyed wearing the cap. 

I really wanted to know. Not to challenge him, but I was curious. 

For a long time, I thought confederate monuments, if preserved for historical purposes, were fine. I considered them an historical artifact. Little different from walking the museum at Gettysburg. 

When I was in Iraq working in Saddam’s palace, two large busts of him sat on corners of presidential palace. Sometime in early 2004, I think, the US military took them down with cranes and placed them in a huge warehouse. I was opposed to their removing the Saddam busts because I felt it was just part of history. Not much different than the carvings of ancient kings in Iran or temples to Greek gods or other tourist attractions. 

But over the years, I have come to modify my position. Perhaps those who brazenly wave a Confederate flag at their home or draped across the back of their pickup or wear it on their cap had some innocuous historical or sociological meaning to the bearer. But the fact is that the Confederate flag is bound up with notions of white slave owners who held black people against their against their will for generations. And it offends many people, particularly the descendants of slaves. To have a flag in a museum is one thing, but to flaunt in your yard or vehicle or on your body in 2022 seems wildly inappropriate. This is a topic worth investigating. 

While I was in Walmart, I couldn’t help but notice a young mother in her late 20s who was carrying a baby in her arms, had one toddler in the front of the shopping cart amid a heap of groceries and an older toddler sitting in the seat of the cart. She was pulling the cart, strategically moving up and down aisles and adding items. All three kids were quiet as well.  

When I came across her the second time, I said, “Excuse me. But you are Super Mom.” 

That tickled her. “Thank you,” she said before plodding on.

After dropping off my groceries back at the room, I walked down to KFC. Since I am eating meat in 2022, I have been eating there more and more. In fact, at every fast food restaurant between Indiana and Tennessee that I have visited, I have recognized one peculiar fact: The staff pay much more attention to the drive through clientele than the dine-in customers. 

You really have to hand it to those who manage the drive through so deftly. When I drive through, I am amazed at how workers wear earphones and can take one order, make change for another, and hand a customer his/her purchase, while taking the next order and talking to their coworkers. They are really professionals and don’t get the credit they deserve. 

There was an Indian couple in their 70s ahead of me. After checking their receipt, the man said, “We didn’t order soda pop. We will drink water. We don’t drink soda pop.” The boy at the register had to go get his supervisor, and she made the correction in the cash register and gave the man back his refund. 

The room was nice and clean and big. But the internet sucked. To be honest, this year the internet has been much better in most places than last year. I have noticed a lot of signs at motels informing potential customers that the management is new, or the accommodations have been remodeled. I suspect complaints about internet have been a factor, since most everyone streams movies nowadays. 

After trying and failing for an hour or so to keep the internet functioning, I noticed a lot of hotspots were available, meaning that many customers had given up on the internet and were using their own hotspot. I did the same.

My deputy called me from Honduras. It was good to hear from him. We spoke for half an hour or so. But what surprised me is how little I have thought about work since I arrived in the US. I have become better over the years of shutting down the business side of my brain on the weekends or on leave. I am so focused on planning the trip day by day, and then making it happen, peddling to reach my destination, I don’t have time for work. Which is exactly what should happen on a vacation, right?

All in all, a pretty good day.

Day Eight

July 12: Tuesday: Scottsville, Kentucky (35 miles)

This country is in turmoil. Not just political turmoil, constitutional turmoil, an attempted coup, a division between Americans greater than I have ever witnessed in my life time, but we are facing high crime rates like we have never seen before, high undocumented migration, high inflation, killing of unarmed men and women, mass shootings in elementary schools, significant bigotry and racism, a war in Ukraine that threatens to destabilize Europe, a potential global recession, among many other challenges. 

Yet, I believe that there is a lot of good in people. That the divisions between the left and the right are not as strong as the values that connect us. I don’t have an answer to how to bring us together, but I do know that we must find common ground. It is there. 

I woke up with sore ribs but no blood on the sheets. I’ll take the win. 

I knew this would be the first huge challenge of large Kentucky foothills. My route runs roughly parallel with Interstate 65. The closer to Tennessee I get, the larger the hills. Today’s trip to Scottsville, Kentucky would only be 35 miles long, but it would involve rolling hills rising to a total of 1000 feet and declining 900 feet. While Scottsville rests at an elevation of 820 feet, not much higher than Bloomington, Indiana at 771 feet, the ups and downs to get there are more challenging than anything I have seen to date. In fact, Google Maps labels most of the legs that I have covered so far as being “mostly flat.” 

I left the room at about 5:15 am, and the sun was already pushing the darkness away. I crossed US 31-W and rode down SR 90 to SR 685 south. This was my most fun day yet. 

The rolling hills and farmland were gorgeous. The livestock was impressive. For the first time, I saw a few young tobacco fields. I stopped to take several photos.

The GoPro is great to capture the road, narrowly focusing on the path ahead. But it doesn’t capture barns, fields, cattle, billboards, churches, horses, or anything else off the path very well. Even when you turn your head toward a field, it doesn’t capture it well. 

So I constantly am weighing whether a hillside or field of corn or attractive barn or forty head of Holstein cattle sticking their head through hay feeders at the same time are worth stopping and snapping a photo. Today, I got some good ones.

Somewhere this morning I lost the rubber mouthpiece to my camel pack. I still try to use it, but if I am not careful, it leaks, siphoning all of the water out after I suck on it for a drink. Also one of the snaps for backpack broke. I jerry-rigged it to work, but it is not the same. 

While I was pushing the bike up a hill, one man nearing his 70s stopped his pickup beside me on the road and rolled down his window. “You doing okay?” he asked with a friendly smile. 

I said I was. 

“You got plenty of water?” He was looking at my two bottles in their holders on Lucy’s frame. 

“Yes, thank you.”

“I saw your light real good from way back there,” he said, indicating that the security measure was working. 

I again thanked him. 

“Okay, then. You have a safe ride.”

People like this, regardless of their political views, renew my faith in Americans. Most of us, when faced with doing the right thing to help someone or not, will do the right thing. And the right thing is not about voting. 

A few miles later, I was so exhausted that I just stopped along a fence, parked my bike, took off my backpack, and sat in the grass. I was enjoying the shade and the rest when suddenly a horse and buggy came up the hill and passed me. There is a large Mennonite community in Scottsville, so I didn’t know if the man was Amish or Mennonite. 

After several more hills, I came upon Barren River Lake and dam. I rode up to a covered picnic area and snapped some photos. I seriously thought about laying on a picnic table and taking a nap, but I was riding against the heat. It was supposed to get into the 90s, so I needed to keep riding. 

At one point, I stopped at a church, removed my backpack and glasses, and sat on the steps in the shade. It felt good to rest.

When I got back onto US 231, I noticed many Dollar General semi-trucks. I also noticed many Dollar Generals in relatively remote areas. Later, I learned that Scottsville is the home the Dollar General nationwide chain. JL Turner and Cal Turner opened their first store in 1945. Today there are 15,000 stores. 

The first 25 miles were very pleasant. The next ten were brutal. The wind was facing me and the hills were larger and larger. One of them must have been a mile long. Unfortunately, the GoPro cannot capture depth, nor does the iPhone do a good job with depth. So, the photos never do the hills justice.

I stopped many times and sat on rocks or grass. 

Finally, I made it, feeling I had really accomplished something. 

The Gujerati manager spoke Hindi. He was very friendly. His young child was crying in the background, so he had to leave me once while registering me. “Your check-in time is 2pm. It is only 11am. You have to pay $10 if you want early check-in,” he said.

“Okay,” I said sweating in the sun and depleted after the hardest 35 miles I had ever ridden. 

“Do you have a guest laundry?” I asked.

“Yes. I can give you quarters now if you want to use it.” 

We take so much for granted. Like clean clothes. I wanted nothing more than to peel out of these stinky clothes, add them with the bundle of stench in my saddlebag, and wash them. I had nothing clean left. In fact, I was wearing the riding shorts and shirt for the second time, and vest for a third time. 

He changed four dollars for 16 quarters. After showering and buying some water and supplies, I ordered pizza and wings. Then I washed and dried clothes. 

I considered spending another night here. I felt like I deserved a rest. And the trip to Lebanon, Tennessee was concerning. The trip was supposed to have larger hills and be seven miles longer. 

But six days of rain was forecast beginning Sunday, so I figured I had better press onward. Plus, Scottsville was a small town, and there were not many options for food. 

Day Seven

July 11: Monday: Cave City, Kentucky (48 miles)

I awoke around 4am. There was blood on the sheets again. I hope that the management doesn’t try to charge me for this. I packed and left the room about 5 am EST, a good 90 minutes before sunrise. One challenge is with the pending time change as I cross into the Central Time Zone, I have to leave extremely early to beat the heat, but will arrive at Cave City an hour earlier, which means it may be too early to check in. If hotels have vacant rooms from the previous night, they typically allow you to check in early. If not, you have to wait until your room is cleaned. In all three years of riding and staying in motels, I only remember one case where I had to wait. At a Red Roof Inn, and the manager ended up getting the room ready an hour early. He even helped me carry my bike up to the second floor. 

On this cool morning, I peddled onto Kentucky State Highway 1136 toward Glendale through the darkness both enjoying the roads nearly to myself, but also concerned about perils hidden in the shadows: Deer carcasses, pot holes, tree branches, loose graves, whatever. During the day time, I have to pay close attention to them so that they I can avoid them in time. I see pieces of bumpers, chunks of concrete, large pot holes, strips of retreaded tires, entire deer and dog carcasses, you name it. This early, hitting one small obstacle could end my trip with tragedy. 

Another risk is a flat tire or broken chain. The past two years, I have had a couple flat tires each trip. This normally is a difficult procedure to remove all the items from my saddle bags, pull out my tires and tools, turning the bike upside down, remove the tire from the gear changing mechanism, removing the inner tube, inserting the new one, ensuring there is a seal, pumping the tire back up, reinstalling the tire, and repacking everything. This 45-minute ordeal can only be done in daylight. 

So I am constantly weighing the risk of leaving too early while it is cool, versus leaving too late and fighting the heat. Most of these rides have been about six hours. That is really too much for me. I prefer half that so that I can enjoy the towns a little. Read more. Walk around and talk to people. But this 800-mile trip was very last minute. And it is constricted by a flight I have to catch at the end of the month. So, I ride six hours a day, and by the time I buy my water, food and supplies for the next day, rest, write a little, communicate with family, I am too tired to do much else. I stream TV and fall asleep. 

But one of my goals for this trip was to try to reduce the burn out, and I have thought about work very little this whole trip.

The sun is pleasant each morning until around 10 am, at which time the temperature hits 82-84 degrees and starts to zap what little energy I have. I sweat more, pant more, and have to take more breathers and rest breaks. 

On this dark morning a few cars and trucks (mostly pickups and SUVs) race to Elizabethtown in the opposite direction. They are all on their way to work, not returning from work. Almost no one comes up behind me. Within ten minutes, I am breathing heavily and sweating. I am enjoying the fresh air. It is foggy, and my sunglasses keep fogging up, so I remove them and take a chance for an insect to smack me in the eyeball. 

I make as good a time as I dare. I know of the perils, so I try to ride in the road, which is typically clear of those hazards. I also don’t go terribly fast. It is just too dangerous. 

At Glendale, I hoped to find a gas station to buy coffee, but there was nothing. 

I crossed back through Sonora on 84 about the time that the sun came up and turned back south on US 31-W. Still no gas stations, but I plugged onward. US 31-W is the same road I was on yesterday, and I could have stayed on it, and the hills would have been more gradual. But the trade off is the traffic. The shoulders are often narrow and traffic, particularly big semis, can be daunting. 

Rural Kentucky is such beautiful state. Not surprisingly, the similarities to southern Indiana are striking. Rolling hills and fields and ponds. Farmland, stock, barns, silos, and old farmhouses. Healthy corn, soybean, and hay fields. 

In fact, I had forgotten the term Kentuckiana until I was listening to the news this morning.  

I stopped and took a photo of a donkey and some sheep. Some photos of the fog over the farmland.

Before long, I passed a sign that said I had travelled into the Central Time Zone. 

There were precious few gas stations or convenience stores. Finally at Bonnieville, I found a Marathon station. I bought coffee and looked around for a place to sit: A bench, picnic table, concrete block, anything. Often stores will have picnic tables for staff, where they can take breaks, eat lunch, and smoke. But I found nothing out of the sun, so I sat down on the sidewalk of the store just barely in the shade of the gas pump canopy. 

A tall man in his 40s with a huge belly walked out of the convenience store and looked at me. “You be safe,” he said with a smile.

I thanked him. 

“That looks like good exercise.” He grabbed his stomach. “That’s what I need to be doing to lose this big belly.” He laughed.

“Well, I’m doing it,” I said, but then realized that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. He was already in his truck by then.

I was calculating my route, timing, the weather, when another man in his 60s emerged from the store. “You be careful out there,” he said.

I thanked him. 

I suspect I looked a little haggard and feeble. An overweight, gray-bearded man, hunched over his phone, desperately trying to avoid the sun, and sipping coffee. 

As I got up and started my pre-departure ritual—put the phone back in the holder, put my reading glasses back in the case, don my sun glasses, make sure the saddlebag zippers are all shut and the flashing lights are on, and my money and credit card holder is put away—a bearded man in his 50s rolled down his window. 

“Where are you headed?”

“Florida,” I told him.

“I used to live there… Tampa Bay area.”

I rode on up and down endless rolling hills, each larger than the last. If I were fortunate, I could build up enough speed going down to get to the top of the next one in granny gear. On the larger ones, I could only make it up about a quarter of the way. I call these “push hills” because I have to push the bike up them. Sometimes, I have to stop to catch my breath two or three times on a hill. 

As I was climbing on hill very slowly approaching the top, I noticed an old house surrounded by broken down cars. I sort of a junk yard, I suppose. An old DeLorean was among them. 

I yelled, “Go Pro, take photo!”

Immediately, a huge pit bull emerged. He started barking as the raced out from behind the cars headed directly at me. 

“Max! Max, stop!” his owner shouted. 

And the race was won. The dog raced at me. The owner raced toward Max. And I was so tired, I couldn’t peddle any faster. He was going to reach me.

He was closing. 20 feet. 10 feet. 

Traffic kept buzzing around me. Somehow I managed not to swerve into traffic in an attempt to avoid him.

“Max, stop!” the owner kept repeating. But Max didn’t stop.

He lunged at my right leg, and I lifted it at the last second. Max hit the bike with his paws and I think his teeth, but he missed my leg. 

Max kept barking, but he had made his point.

The owner looked at me, not really apologetically, but more as if he were irritated at the situation I had caused. Maybe I read him wrong. But his expression struck me as odd. 

The last ten miles, the wind was against me. Really the first time the whole trip that the wind was a factor. I was exhausted with the hills, and the wind pushing against me made it even harder. I took plenty of breaks. 

When I finally made it to Cave City, my energy was entirely depleted. It is hard to compare this level of exhaustion to the trips in 2020 and 2021. Many of those days, I remember being exhausted. So I am not sure if these legs have been harder or not. If I am in worse shape or not. 

I know that the ribs are hurting a lot when I sit down on the bed or get up. When I lie down, move around, or try to sleep. The left knee has been hurting more than normal. Both the knee and the ribs are injured from the spill on Friday. 

Today, I felt a rib pop for the first time. I think there are a few broken. 

When I reached Cave City, I came up behind Historic Wigwam Village, where tourists can spend the night. Cave City is a tourist city. Visitors have an array of caverns, caves, lakes, parks, and other sites to visit.

At the hotel, I looked around to find a place to lock my bike. There were none, so I proceeded to push the bike into the lobby, but I was intercepted by the Gujerati manager. A young man in his late 20s. 

“Would you be so kind as to leave your bike outside?” he asked. 

“Is there somewhere I can lock it?”

“No.” Then he asked, “Are you checking in?”

“Yes. Can I just leave it here?” I asked referring to the vestibule where they stored all the tourist site pamphlets. 

“No,” he said. “It will take you ten minutes to check in. Or you can go to another motel where they allow you to bring the bike into the office.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. Or to tell him that this was a lobby, not an office. Their office is elsewhere. I was tired and wanted a room, a shower, and something to eat. 

“I have a reservation here.”

“That I can help you with,” he said nonchalantly. 

So, I moved the bike to a spot between a trash can and the vestibule, where I could see it from the lobby, and went inside. 

“Smoking or non-smoking,” he asked. 

“Non-smoking.”

“You reserved a room for smoking.”

I had done this before by mistake. 

“Non-smoking please.”

After registering me and handing me my key, he told me, “I put $50 on your card for incidentals.”

“Incidentals. Do you have a restaurant?”

“No, but there are restaurants…” he explained to me where the restaurants were nearby.

“Incidentals is usually for room service or meals at the hotel restaurants or things like that.”

“Well, you can call it a deposit on the room in case you smoke in it or damage it… Just like a restaurant, we won’t charge you unless you damage the room or smoke in it.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but again I was fatigued. I took my key and went to the room.

Surprisingly, the room was very nice. It was clean, didn’t smell of smoke, and the Wi-Fi worked relatively well. 

After I showered, I asked one of the men cleaning to rooms if they had a guest laundry, and he said, “No. But there is a laundromat a mile down the road.”

I went out twice. Rested. And fell asleep at about 8 pm despite the pain in my ribs. 

Day Six

July 10: Sunday: Elizabethtown, Kentucky (51 miles)

Wounds licked, I woke up slightly before the alarm. I drank some motel room coffee. Packed up my gear, and eased Lucy down a flight of stairs. Admittedly, it was easier to get her down while all loaded up than to get her up. 

I dropped off the key at Mr. All-Meals-Have-to-be-Eaten-in-the-Dining-Area, and rode out into the street. The sun was not quite up yet. My ribs still hurt, but once I got on the bike, I hardly noticed them. 

I headed south on SR 135 and made really good time. There was no traffic this early on Sunday morning. At one point, a fox ran across the road. 

At the Ohio River Bridge, I stopped and snapped some photos. The bridge had two lanes and an 18 inch shoulder. There was not enough room to pass if two cars were on the bridge. So, I proceeded cautiously when no cars were coming in my lane. I was glad that it was Sunday morning and no traffic.

When I got to Brandenburg, just about three miles over the bridge, I stopped at a convenience store. An older man was sweeping the area around the gas pumps. We greeted each other. I tried to find somewhere to lock the bike, but couldn’t find one. So I finally settled on a sign quite a distance from the store. I bought a soft drink to give me energy and sat on a short wall of an abandoned fast food restaurant that adjoined the convenience store. 

After about a ten minute break, I headed south. SR 135 changed to Kentucky SR 313 and the hills started. These are long gradual hills that wear on you, but not as bad as the rolling hills of Monroe, Brown, and Jackson Counties. My knee started hurting about halfway through the trip. It is my bad knee—the one that had two surgeries in high school—but the pain is from the accident on Friday. 

I then turned onto US Route 31-W. Almost immediately, in the distance, I saw a truck parked on my side of the road and two people milling about. Instinctively, I thought they might try to rob me, particularly when I noticed one of them was sitting on the tailgate of the pickup and the other was standing and moving tight up against the guard rail. I could not imagine what they were doing. 

When I got closer, I noticed both were women and wore yellow shirts. The one along the guard rail was crab-walking, as if trying to measure the length of the guardrail by taking strides sideways. But both greeted me and waved.

A little further along, I came across a woman runner. And then another woman runner. And more trucks and cars parked in various spots along my side of the road. Eventually I saw a few men.

Several people yelled to me, “You’re looking good.” I heard the same thing from a runner the other day. I guess that is what you say to someone who is working out along the road. So, I started using it. 

One man stopped running and began walking. I stopped and asked him, “Hi, is this a marathon?”

“Yes, 31 miles from E-town to Brandenburg,” he said.

“Looking good,” I said and peddled on. 

Then every time I saw a runner, I yelled, ”Looking good” or ”Hang in there!” if I had the breath to spare. Often, I didn’t.

Over the next 90 minutes, I probably passed 60 people. One was almost as old a me. A few were in their 40s but most were in their 20s and 30s.  I later learned that this was the Hardin-Meade Endurance Run (31 miler) from Elizabethtown in Hardin County to Braedenburg in Meade County.

Those runners inspired me. 

At one point, I heard the racing of two engines from well behind me, picking up speed. Two Camaros or Corvettes passed me probably going 100 mph or more. I could not believe those idiots. The car nearest me was not more than four feet from me. I couldn’t have reached out and touched the car, but he was very close. Further up the road, I saw him swerve a little to the white line on the shoulder. What worried me the most, after they had passed, is what would have happened if he had lost control? He could have obliterated me. Just out being idiots on Sunday.

But then I remembered some of the bonehead things I had done at 18 years old, and found a little leniency. 

A red one-engine plane swooped down in a field over my right. Then it shot upward, veered off to the west away from me, and disappeared. It looked like he or she was having fun.

When I finally got to the motel, I realized this was not a nice area of town. Since there was no place to lock the bike outside, I took my the bike inside. The young Gujarati desk attendant said, “You cannot bring that bike in here.” 

“Is there some place I can lock it outside?” I asked. 

He looked around and then said, “No. But you have to take it out.”

This was a little petty. I have taken my bike into really nice hotels and up elevators. I don’t recall anyone ever refusing to let me bring my bike inside the lobby. 

So, I stood it outside and kept close eye on it while he checked me in. At least he didn’t charge me for early check-in. 

Day Five: July 9: Saturday: Corydon, Indiana (Rain Day)

Sleeping had been hard. My ribs hurt from the accident. Every time, I turned over or got in or out of bed, I groaned in pain. In the morning, when I got up, I saw a little blood on the sheets from the scrapes on my knee and elbow.

When Indiana became a state in 1816, Corydon became the capital. In 1825, state officials moved the government to Indianapolis. This is particularly significant to me because in July 1971, officials organized a reenactment of the relocation that involved a caravan of wagons, horses, and mules from Corydon to Indianapolis. My grandparents loaded me in the wagon with them, and we started an adventure of a lifetime from Corydon. But when we got to Vallonia, my mom made me get out, and my cousin Kevin rode the rest of the way. My mom said that I needed to run my paper route, and she was right. I didn’t want to admit it, and to be quite honest, it wasn’t until this July, some 51 years later, that it finally clicked in my brain that she was right. 

Sometimes, we intellectually understand something, but at an emotional level, we refuse to accept the truth. This was the case with my mom’s decision to make me return to my duties. 

At the hotel in Corydon this Saturday morning, I awoke early to remain in the habit so I could get my future rides completed before the temperature got too unbearable. 

After two cups of room coffee, I went down to the dining area. There was coffee, pastries, cereal (but no bowls), a waffle iron and batter. I would have preferred fruit, but since there wasn’t any, I removed two packaged pastries from the pastry drawers, grabbed my two coffees, and proceeded to return to my room.

Before I could reach the lobby, the Gujerati manager said, “Meals must be eaten in the dining area.” He pointed to a sign behind me.

I looked at the sign and back at the two packaged pastries and tried to determine if they qualified as a meal. It was not worth the argument. So, I put them back in the pastries drawer. 

Two years ago, a Gujerati manager of a convenience store told me that almost all the Indians who ran convenience stores and motels in the US were from Gujerati. He gave me a reason why, but I don’t recall right now. He was a very nice man who spoke to me for about 15 minutes while I drank coffee in his store. 

I have had mixed experiences with these managers. At times, they try to take advantage of the customer, like one in Florida who charged me $15 for an early check-in two years ago. Sometimes, they are not professional. They can be petty. One man in Florida told me that I couldn’t keep my bicycle in the room because once a customer had ridden his bike on the walls. But sometimes, they are very friendly. Like the young lady at the convenience store in Salem, Indiana, or a young man in Florida who was working in his uncle’s convenience store who talked with me for about 20 minutes, asking about my bike ride. 

I suppose they feel that if they don’t set strict boundaries, customers will try to take advantage of them. If they can make an extra $15 on an early check-in, then why not. 

I also know that this manager in Corydon was Gujerati because I tried to speak to his wife yesterday in Hindi, but she didn’t understand. I asked her if she spoke Gujerati, and she said, Yes. She and her daughter were friendly enough. A little boy of about 10 sat on a chair behind the counter playing a video game when I checked in. 

The father probably had some bad experiences with people who took lots of food with them to their vehicles as they left or took excessive amounts to their rooms. So, I suppose I shouldn’t have been upset. 

But I was a little miffed. 

Later, I put my wet clothes in the dryer, including my tennis shoes that had been sitting in front of the AC all night. But my shoes made a loud clanging noise in the dyer. I figured that the manager wouldn’t like that.  

And sure enough, when I came down to get my clothes out of the dryer, the dryer door was open, and some of the clothes still wet. I suspect he opened the door to stop the banging, fearing it would damage his dryer.

But he was professional every other time I saw him. He asked me if I needed towels or anything else.  

When I was about 10 years old, my grandparents began taking me to the Indianapolis City Market with them. We would pick tomatoes out of the field, package them into small baskets, spit shine those on top—putting water on them would make them split my grandfather said—and load them into the back of the pickup truck stacked on board secured to the stock racks. We’d put straw in the bed and pack it with watermelons or cantelopes. 

Sometimes, we would take different produce, but I always loved the trips to the market. The market was made up of several, long covered concrete platforms. Farmers from all over the state would bring their homegrown produce to the market, back up to the platforms, drop their tailgates, and city folk would come and buy fresh fruit and vegetables. My grandfather taught me how to price and sell produce, and make change. Sometimes, I would take a couple tomatoes and wander down the platform and exchange them for apples or peaches. 

We normally had to spend the night, which I loved. There is something special about a flurry of activity going on at all hours of the night. I would fall asleep in the cab of the pickup or in the bed of straw to the sound of voices of buyers and sellers. Of farmers chatting and telling stories while drinking coffee.

The trips to the market also involved a walk to White Castle in the evening. My grandmother would take me across a couple busy downtown streets and into White Castle. The energy produced by the strange little restaurant smelling of beef and onions was exciting. Behind the glass, you could see the cooks grill the hamburgers in grease and diced onions, apply pickles and cheese, and deftly insert them into tiny boxes with expert speed of an assembly line. They slapped the boxes together in pairs and placed them in sacks by the hundreds to feed the hordes of hungry customers. At any hour, this White Castle always seemed packed with customers. 

We would walk back to the market, and sit on the tailgate and eat the White Castle’s. In fact, I cannot think of another time that my grandfather bought me a meal at a restaurant. I am sure he did; I just don’t remember it. He did not like to spend money on food when Grama was perfectly capable of cooking something at home and sending it with us.

To this day, I love White Castles. The taste is naturally a part of it, but the nostalgia is undeniable as well.

Around noon, I walked across the SR 135 to White Castle and bought a sack to take back to the room. I thought about my grandparents and the city market.

Day Four

July 8: Friday: Corydon, Indiana (54 miles)

I have come to a hard conclusion: I am not as young as I used to be. This was not the hardest day I have ever experienced riding my bike, but it close. Damn close. 

Before going to bed, I declared to my Uncle Bob that I had ridden in the rain last year for one hour, and it was miserable. I WOULD NOT RIDE IN THE RAIN AGAIN.

Boy was I ever wrong.

This morning, I woke up at 4am, an hour before the alarm. This was to be a rain day, because when I went to bed (8pm), the weather was calling for rain all morning and well into the afternoon. I knew there were some big hills, so I cancelled my Friday reservation in Corydon, and made it for Saturday. 

It was a great opportunity for me to catch up on my blog. I planned to visit some friends on this rain day. I was relaxing and enjoying my morning. I could hear footsteps upstairs. But I wanted to finish my post, so I drank coffee and wrote until about 7am, when my uncle Bob yelled downstairs that he was leaving. When I got upstairs, he and Regina said that they expected me to be well on my way because the weather forecast had changed. Now it was predicting no rain until 1pm, even at Corydon. 

Shit!

I hugged Bob as he headed out for golf. I scrambled to find a room in Salem but the two motels and the B&B were all booked. Regina even called one to see if there was a cancellation. There were none.

Waiting another day didn’t make sense because Saturday had the same forecast. I needed to make it 50 miles to Corydon. So, I made another reservation for today (Friday). 

So as I chided myself for not checking the weather at 4 am, packed, hugged my aunt, and peddled out at about 7:45 am. 

I knew I couldn’t get to Corydon before the rain started at 1 pm, but I might make it by 2 pm. Maybe the rain would hold off another hours.

I didn’t have time to take Claritin, and as I peddled up the hill at on US 50, I realized I had more energy. This hill didn’t seem as daunting as it was when I was a kid riding my bike and delivering paper. I remembered the day that my dog was run over by a car right at the top of the hill. I was on the south side of 50 getting ready to cross. Snoopy had wandered off into the center of the road when a semi-trailer traveling east blew his horn to scare the dog off the road and onto safety. But the horn only forced him to look up and take a few steps backward into the path of an oncoming vehicle. Squarely between the tires, the bottoms of the vehicle hit him and rolled him two or three times and then was gone. The driver didn’t even stop.

Terrified, I ran out into the highway, picked him up, and carried him to the grassy ditch. He was in such pain that he bit me. I know I was crying. I was maybe 12 or 13 years old. 

Snoopy recovered after a few weeks. We couldn’t afford to take him to a vet. He just healed on his own and lived for several more years.

The sky was gray and cloudy as I turned south on SR 135 and peddled down the hill. I thought about stopping and seeing a friend, but I was already 2.5 hours late, and I didn’t know exactly where my friend lived on SR 135, and I was in a race to beat the thunderstorms that were coming at 1pm. 

I actually made good progress for the first hour. I made the big hill at Washington County. I blamed the Claritin for the lack of energy the day before. 

I had to stop a few times on the hill, but I didn’t have to push the bike. Thunder threatened off to the west, but that couldn’t take the form of rain, right? It wasn’t supposed to rain until 1 pm.

At the top of the hill, I felt my first drop. I put the mobile phone in a plastic cover and donned my poncho. Then a downpour assaulted me as I peddled toward Salem. Within minutes, I was soaked from my shoes to my pants, to my shirt. There was not a dry spot on my body. 

After a while the rain slowed to a drizzle. Then it picked back up. At times it pelted me, stinging my face. I had to cover my face with my hand and look through the slits in the helmet to see. 

Hard rain while biking is problematic for many reasons. It is dangerous. The wrong spot or puddle can cause an accident. Your visibility is impaired. Drivers’ visibility is impaired. Despite having “water proof” saddle bags, they become saturated with water. And the clothes and other items inside the bags become saturated, meaning additional weight. The water causes friction that slows your progress. Every rotation of the peddle requires additional energy. Going down a hill on a dry road, you can get your speed up to make the next hill, but on a wet road with the rain pelting me, I slowed down to avoid an accident. This slower speed meant that I would often have to stop part way up the next hill, sometimes three or four times, exerting much more energy by peddling or walking up the next hill. At rest stops, I don’t sit when it is raining. Without the five or ten minutes of completely relaxing my legs, they never become re-energized. There is no second wind. 

Around 9:45 am, I think, I arrived at Salem. I pulled into a gas station/convenience store, but the structure was odd. First there was no place to lock up my bike near the building. So, I had to wrap my chain around a column at the pump, which management and drivers generally don’t like. In addition, the canopy didn’t reach to the store. And there was no reasonable overhang off the store. So, the only place to stay dry was at the pump.

Inside, I bought a package of Nutter Butters and a soft drink. 

The Indian clerk was in her early 30s. She asked why I was riding in the rain. 

“I have to get to Corydon.”

“Why?” she asked in a tone that suggested she was questioning my sanity. 

“On my way to Florida.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Be careful.”

I stepped outside and couldn’t find a place to sit down or to stand out of the rain except at a pump. So, I stood beside Lucy and ate a few cookies and drank part of the soft drink. A driver—a man about my age—pulled up to a pump across from me, but apparently something didn’t satisfy him. He drove around and pulled up to pump behind me. He started pumping his gas and speaking to his wife through the open window. When he looked at me, I said, “How’re you doing?”

He didn’t respond or even acknowledge my existence. Maybe he didn’t like that I was standing at the pump beside my bike blocking paying gas customers. Or perhaps he was arguing with his wife and was in a bad mood. Or maybe he hated the fact that I was standing there eating a Nutter Butter and not offering him any. 

I stuffed the three remaining cookies into my saddle bag and peddled around the courthouse. I remembered Denny’s mother brought me to a clothing store on the square before my sophomore year to buy school clothes. She bought her children clothes and was kind enough to bring me along. My mom or grandma had given me money, so I remember buying one pair of cheap jeans that I ended up hating. Certainly wasn’t her fault. 

South of Salem, I hit SR 135 South, but the rain didn’t let up. Neither did the hills. There were more hills on this side of Salem than on the north side. Several times, I stopped to rest and just pushed the bike. It seemed quicker to walk it than ride in granny gear.

The hills were not the sort of brutal back-to-back rolling hills I had encountered in Monroe and Brown Counties, but they drained my energy in this weather. And the thunder boasted her power and authority. And the storm kept punishing me. There was absolutely nothing I could do but keep on peddling.

I stopped about an hour south of Salem under some trees for a rest. I finished the three peanut butter cookies and ignored the soggy edges. I finished my soft drink. Suddenly a huge branch fell on the other side of the tree. Had it been on my side, both the bike and I would have been injured. Another peril of riding in a thunderstorm. 

Aside from Salem, SR 135 does not offer gas stations or convenient stores. No respite from the thunder, lightening, and pounding rain. 

At 12:30 pm, I reached Palmyra. I stopped at a gas station, and locked my bike around a column at the convenient store. I needed to rest my legs. I was dripping wet and embarrassed to go inside, but I did. I wanted to buy chicken or something at the deli, but there were four people waiting in line. So, I wandered around wondering what I could buy to serve as a little meal and landed on a soft drink. 

A nice man a little older than me was sitting at one of the three tables eating chicken.

“Where are you coming from and where are you going?” he asked.

I told him.

“Well be careful. Corydon is only 15 miles away… It is pretty flat between here and there,” he said.

I rested for about ten minutes. Maybe 15. My legs wobbled like pudding. But I somehow found the energy to get back on the bike and head south. 

Indeed, the road was relatively flat. There were a few hills but not many. No matter how many times I stopped for a breather (one minute or less) or a rest (3-5 minutes), I could not get that second wind. The additional weight from the rain and all the other obstacles had taken their toll. 

Then the traffic picked up. Sometimes, I just got off the road to let the stream of rushing Friday afternoon vehicles, including semi-trucks full of wet chickens in crates going to meat packing plants, pass me. The smell of the wet chickens reminded me of one day as a teenager that I worked for Rose Acres or someone pulling live chickens out of crates and carrying them to  the truck for transportation. It was a nasty job. It was hot. But not the worst job I ever had. I’ve had my share of shitty jobs.

About one mile from the hotel, the sun came out. The rain was done. After punishing me for five hours, the rain clouds had parted. But the punishment was not over.

Despite the riding conditions, I comforted myself all day in the fact that I had not experienced a flat tire or broken chain or an accident.

As I came to a RR crossing, I could see that it crossed the road at a 45 degree angle. There were narrow, black rubber pads on either side of the two rails. When I get tired, I make mistakes. So I remind myself to go slow and be deliberate. Don’t take any chances. Don’t get lazy and swerve into traffic to avoid a puddle or bump. Don’t merge into a lane without triple checking that nothing is coming.

At the RR crossing, I slowed to about 5 mph. I crossed the first rail with no problem, but when I got to the second, Lucy’s front tire slid out from under me on the rubber pad. I knew I was falling but couldn’t do anything to prevent it. 

A semi-truck was right behind me, and he passed and stopped. I sat up and waved him on. The trail of cars behind him slowed to see if I was injured. My phone had slipped out of the holder and onto the pavement but seemed undamaged. I helped Lucy up, fixed the holder, and reinserted the phone. 

A deputy sheriff stopped and rolled down his window. 

“Are you OK?” he asked. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” He smiled and moved on with his afternoon.

I stood there and examined the scrapes on my elbow and palm. My knee hurt but it was covered by my knee brace so I didn’t check the damage. I rested and got my head together. 

I was so fortunate that I had slowed to 5 mph. At times, I am going 15 mph or so. At a much higher speed, I would have broken bones. My trip would have been over before I left Indiana. 

A 62-year-old man with prostate cancer has no business riding across the country. Especially, in thunderstorms. Whose idea was this?

In the back of my mind, I heard my cousin, my dad, my brother, and many others who told me I had no business riding a bike cross county. It was too dangerous. Were they right? Am I too old? Is it too dangerous?

But when you get thrown from a bike, you have to get right back on, before you have too much time to think about it. Lucy was more scared of me than I was of her. 

A few minutes later, I gingerly turned into Super 8 Motel at Corydon. It was 2 pm. I had made the 54 miles in a little over six hours. Given the circumstances, that was acceptable. Anytime I can average 8 mph on a hilly route, I have done very well. 

The Indian patrons of the motel were friendly enough, but they informed me that the elevator was out, so I would have to take the bike up the stairs to the second floor. That was fine. Not particularly easy but manageable. 

Inside the room, I removed every single article from all the saddle bags. Everything was soaked. My partial roll of toilet paper probably weight two pounds. There was only one hanger in the room, and I was too tired to ask for another. I wanted to take the clothes to the dryer, but was too tired. After showering, I tried to blow dry my clean underwear and shorts, but the blow dryer stopped after 30 seconds, and I couldn’t get it going again. 

I walked to Walmart next door in clean, but wet, clothes. My knee was sore causing me to limp. And my ribs were aching. I bought chicken from the deli, which was horrible. I don’t complain much about food, but some of it was so tough that I had to spit it out. 

On the bright side, they had Diet Big Red, so I enjoyed myself. 

It wasn’t until, I laid down that I realized how sore my ribs were. I have suffered broken ribs before, so I know there weren’t broken. But they were bruised. I took a nap and woke up about an hour later and booked a room for my next two destinations. Saturday is supposed to be rainy, and I need to rest and lick my wounds. And my clothes are still wet. I watched TV. I was too tired to do much more.

Today was not fun! But having arrived in one piece is a major accomplishment for me.

Day Three

July 7: Thursday: Brownstown, Indiana (36 miles)

Southern Indiana is beautiful. 

I took a Claritin because I had been coughing and sneezing while riding. Having not spent time in Indiana much during the summer for the past 20 years, I had not suffered allergies much or at all. But the pollen and mowed grass seemed to reactivate my resistance mechanisms these past few days.

After dropping off the key at the vacant desk, Lucy and I headed off. It was pitch black on SR 46 at 5:15 am. No street lights. My front light is not powerful enough to see much. It is more a safety device to alert oncoming motorists that I am there, I think, during the day and night. 

So I plugged along slowly. Careful to try to run over anything out of the ordinary on the shoulder. A branch, dead animal, big pothole, or anything out of the ordinary could send me flying to end over end onto the dark hard pavement or into a ditch. 

The motorbike accident in Thailand came to mind. Many years ago, I was coming down a hill and rounding a turn quickly hoping to have the momentum to get up the next hill when the bike scooted off the pavement and sent me and the bike end over end. From an initial speed of about 35 mph when I left the blacktop, the momentum drove my shoulder into the ground breaking nine bones and puncturing a lung. I was lucky. I wasn’t wearing a helmet and my shoulder took the impact, not my head. Otherwise, I would not be writing this today. 

As I pedaled in the dark along SR 46, I expected my legs to be refreshed after the day’s rest, but they weren’t. They were tired and sluggish. The occasional vehicle passed Lucy and me, always courteous to give us wide berth. 

When I reached SR 135, I was confronted with a Road Closed sign. This was a concern, as I remembered a similar problem in Pensacola last year, when I had to take a 40 mile detour that turned out to be the hardest trip of my life. On that day in Florida, a construction worker refused to let me cross a bridge that had been damaged by Hurricane Sally a few months earlier. 

But on this dark morning in Brown County, I turned south deciding to risk it, hoping I could make it one way or another. 

I knew SR 135 through most of the Jackson County route, at least from Freetown all the way to Salem in Washington County. My grandparents’ farm rested right on 135 (or “one hundred and thirty-five,” as my grampa would say). But I was not very familiar with the Brown County leg. Yet I made my way in the dark best I could. A few cars passed me going the opposite direction, their drivers likely on their merry way to work. 

The air was cool. I kept my glasses and mask on to keep the insects out of my eyes and mouth. I stopped frequently to catch my breath. These “catch-my-breathe” stops are usually a minute or less as opposed to a rest stop that can be 3-5 minutes. Today, I just didn’t have much energy. I tried to stop under the occasional pole light, but I was also cautious not to stay more than a minute. I didn’t want a trigger happy resident to mistake me for a burglar and shoot me with his AR-15, or even his shotgun for that matter. In this day and age, one never knows. 

By daylight, I could begin to see the beauty of southern Indiana. Smell the country side. Cattle manure. Cut grass. 

At Stonehead, I turned left onto Belleville Pike and peddled over Pike’s Peak, and kept going. This route was the most direct and avoided the zigzagging through Story, which I remember from 40 years ago when I rode my motorcycle along SR 135. It was windy and pretty, but today I was going to the quickest route. 

The road continued to be hilly, but with all of Lucy’s gears functioning, I could speed up going down hills, and mostly get over the next hill in granny gear. I was doing pretty well now. So well, in fact, that when my phone lost signal and the GPS went on the fritz, I passed my turn off and journeyed one mile too far before realizing my mistake. I doubled back and took S. Hamilton Creek Road, which was hilly but doable. 

At the bottom of one hill, a tree branch was down across the road. It looked newly fallen, and sort of reminding me the road blocks that criminals use in the movies to rob travelers. But I didn’t see any criminals, and I didn’t think this was the reason the road was closed. I navigated my bike around it and pressed on.

The hills still forced me to stop plenty for a one-minute breather every now and then. I pushed Lucy up many hills, but I was advancing. By the time that I reached the gravel road, I was exhausted. I don’t like to ride gravel roads for the obvious reasons: When cars pass you, they kick up a cloud of dust. The gravel can be slippery, so I have to slow down and be more careful, and riding on a gravel road produces more friction naturally slow. And dogs. Gravel roads tend to have more dogs. In fact, I came across on huge dog who approached me cautiously. I could not move very fast, so I worried about an attack, but in the end, she only wanted to follow me for a jaunt (as my Grama used to say) before losing interest. She never even barked. (The dog, not my grama.)

At one point, the a stream had washed across the gravel road and left six or so inches of water. On a bike, one has to take extreme caution. I stopped and studied it before plowing on through it. The gravel road ended at the top of a hill where SR 135 resumed. And old, abandoned gas station/country store probably dating back to the 50s or 60s sat among an army of encroaching weeds on the right. I pulled in there, dismounted Lucy, and sat on a bench where the pumps likely used to sit. A real estate sign advertised the property’s status: For Sale. As is my ritual for longer rest breaks—5 minutes or so—I removed my sunglasses and put on the reading ones. I texted Nadine, a high school friend who is married to another high school friend, whom I had not seen in years. They had invited me for breakfast. 

I told her that I was running a little behind. I was tired, but felt motivated. I was now in Jackson County. I had about ten miles to go to reach their house south of Freetown. 

As I pressed on, I once again ignored the Road Closed sign. I was moving at a pretty good pace when I finally came to the construction site. Indeed the road was out. A backhoe was beeping away as it labored to install a new bridge. Men were milling about. I pushed my bike around a truck and onto a gravel makeshift path around the six-foot deep gap where a bridge should be. A very nice bearded worker waved me on. “Go ahead,” he said when I got closer. “Any way you can find to go.”

He even helped me lift the bike over some wooden pallets. I thanked him a few times, and then I was on my way. Southern Indiana people can be very friendly.

I remember several years ago when I was in grad school at IU and living in Owen County, a black friend of mine came to the house. He told me that he was late because had gotten lost in the countryside and backed into a ditch or onto a huge rock. I forget which. Several neighbors came out of their houses and lifted his vehicle back onto the road.

He said, ”Nobody had ever tell me that rural Hoosiers are not friendly.”

I cruised past Freetown and on south. I often dream about this little village. I don’t know why. I didn’t spend a lot of time here growing up. My father lived in Spraytown as a kid, and went to high school there, where he played basketball. But that is not really part of the dreams. 

Once at the Fourth of July celebration when I was in high school, I was working for a friend of the family who ran a corndog wagon. This friend was quite a character, and tended to take a nip or two early in the day and not stop until he passed out in the evening. In fact, moving the corndog wagon from 3D in Seymour to Freetown for this celebration, he stopped at every little bar or restaurant that served beer. We finally got the wagon set up for business and went home. But that first night,, it was vandalized. So my boss decided that we would catch the thieves by sending me through the dark abandoned streets and alleys to snoop around about midnight. My boss dropped me off a few blocks away, and I started through the streets until I came to the corndog wagon. Suddenly, a man came out of the shadows pointing a handgun at me.

”What are you doing here?”

I explained that I worked there and my boss sent me to snoop around, hoping we could catch the vandals red-handed. He wasn’t convinced at first but then after talking, I realized that his daughter was in my class at school. He lowered the gun and told me that it was very reckless to do what I was doing, that I could have gotten myself shot. He wasn’t a cop, but supposed had a permit to carry a gun, and maybe he was some town official.

On this July morning, however, at Braden Bridge, I hung a left and pushed the bike up the hill and shortly I arrived at Nadine and Denny’s house.

Denny and his family had taken me in one semester during my sophomore year. I loved him and his family, like my own. He treated me like a brother. 

He and Nadine were married after high school and started their family. Everyone loved going to their home. They were fun, hospitable, and caring.

As I sat on their porch and caught up with them, several things went through my mind. I remembered our teenage years, but I also heard the cadence and peace in Denny’s voice, forty-five years of life experience since graduation. He and his wife had raised their family, who all lived nearby. And they basked in the glory of grand-parenting. 

We agreed that we were given a second chance to do right with our grandkids in ways we had failed with our children. 

He asked me if I planned to return to Jackson County after retirement. I told him, “No. I hate the winters.” And the falls. 

In high school, I couldn’t wait to get out of Jackson County. I had big plans—none of which really worked out. But I had wanted to see the world, which I did manage, one way or another.  Seems like I always did things that hard way. Having a houseful kids before finishing college. I paid for several of my overseas trips on my own before learning that with the right education and right job, companies would pay for the travel. In fact, that was how I could really make a difference in the world: Through legitimate international development channels.

Ironically, nowadays most of my research is based on Jackson County. I love studying the history of Kurtz from the 1880s to 1920 or so. I love going through the archives in the basement of the court house. Scouring graveyards. Visiting Jackson County historians. Looking at photos and old newspapers.

As I sat there listening to my high school friends, a realization swept over me. These two were the epitome of everything good that Jackson County had to offer: Honesty, diligence, work ethic, responsibility, humility, hospitality. They were just two examples of the integrity and stoicism that represented the fabric of our county. Without intending to, Denny represented his own family and experiences, but also I saw his father in him. One of the three best men I ever knew. Denny represented all the good Jackson County men I known growing up, and those who have evolved in my absence. He was the best of farmers, master carpenters, husbands, fathers, grandfathers, neighbors, and friends that Jackson County had to offer. Like generations before her, Nadine represented everything good about the Jackson County daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, cook, farmer, worker, friend and neighbor. I had known local women like her all my life. Those I admired and loved. 

As we ate the breakfast that Nadine made—eggs, toast, bacon, and coffee (actually Denny made that)—I was humbled. And touched. 

But I still had eight or nine miles to go, and there was a promise of rain. I got back on the bike and rode toward Ewing. I stopped at the White River bridge and thought about the old covered bridge. I thought about the drunken brawl of September 1890. Three Tennessee natives—Wilburn Fields, James Drinnen, and George Matlock—came from Kurtz to Ewing one morning and got drunk in one of the town’s two saloons. On the return home, George Matlock was so drunk that they put him in the wagon and Fields rode Matlock’s horse. At the covered bridge, an argument erupted. But it wasn’t until they got back to Owen Township that the fight broke out. Matlock cornered Drinnen against a fence By this time, three or four other witnesses had assembled. Drinnen and Fields proceeded to beat Matlock. They claimed that Matlock pulled a knife on them—Drinnen’s knife—but the witnesses stated that Matlock did not have a knife, and the judge sided with the defendant.

It was quick, mostly flat or downhill. From Ewing to Brownstown, I had to push one hill. I rolled into my Aunt Regina’s about 11 am or so. I was whipped. These first two riding days were very hard, and I knew that they were the easiest on the trip. 

Day Two: 

July 6: Wednesday: Nashville, Indiana (Bike Repair day-1 mile)

My alarm woke me at 5 am. I could have slept more, but I know tomorrow I have wake up at 4 am, pack, drink coffee, and leave no later than 5am to beat the heat. I made and drank the one available cup of coffee in the room. Then I ventured out to the Seasons Lodge lobby. I remembered seeing a nice coffee machine. You cannot walk directly to the lobby from my room on the second floor. You have to walk down the stairs to the first floor, cross through a hall, squeeze past a ping-pong table, and then climb a spiral staircase to the lobby. I made two cups of dark roast (or maybe just strong) coffee. The friendly clerk told me next time to bring my small pot from room coffee maker and fill it up. Armed with two styrofoam cups, I journeyed back down the spiral staircase, past the ping-pong table, and up the stairs to my room.  

By 9 am today, it was 84 degrees. That is really too hot to be riding. 

I mainly rested, watched something on Netflix about spoiled young people in a type of boot camp, and napped. I was really tired. And it was a good thing that I stayed an extra day to rest. 

Something seemed off. On every bike trip, in every hotel room, Lucy was always present, leaning up against the wall. Like a horse, she doesn’t like to lay down. It was lonely in the room without her. 

Around 2:30 pm, Emily at Brown County Bikes called me. The bike was ready. It was 86 degrees, so I donned my helmet and walked a mile to the shop. 

Emily was great. She has been repairing bikes for about a decade. She studied bicycle repair in Portland, Oregon many years ago before ending up in Nashville. Last night, she picked up the derailleur for me in Indy on her way to an Indiana Fever game. Who does that? She had groomed Lucy well: Replaced gear cables and front brake pads, changed the derailleur, put on a new chain, and installed the smart phone holder, among other things.

I rode Lucy the one mile back to the hotel, but had to push her up the hill. I led her through the doors and up the stairs and into the room. I placed her up against the wall, installed her saddle bags, and filled them. In the morning, it wouldn’t take long to get myself and Lucy ready. 

Day One: 

July 5: Tuesday: Nashville, Indiana (30 miles)

I woke up around 4 am, an hour before the alarm sounded. After looking at the weather, I decided to get an early start. Rain was scheduled for 9 am and 10 am. The temperature was going to climb to 97, so I needed to leave as early as possible.

I drank coffee, and packed all my gear, connected it to Lucy, and rolled her outside the garage. Naturally, it was still dark. The air was clear, fresh, healthy. I plugged in my ear pods, donned my gloves, and set the route on the GPS. 

Kevin had asked me to wake him up before I left, but I wanted him to sleep. It was 5:30 am, an hour earlier than I had planned on leaving. But right before I climbed on, Kevin came outside. I hugged him and thanked him for everything he had done, and I started my way. 

Riding through Elletsville, I saw that the temperature was 75 degrees.

Riding though Bloomington was fine. I did as well with the additional weight, maybe 20 additional pounds with the saddle bags.  The shifting problem continued to slow me down. The crankset—front three sprockets—was not working because the derailleur (the mechanism that moves the chain up and down the three sprockets) was broken. So the lower gears did not work at all. And shifting from second and third sprockets was hit or miss. To complicate matters, when shifting to the higher gears, the chain usually skipped over to the sprocket to plastic protector, meaning I would have to stop and manually move it.

Somewhere I saw that the temperature had climbed to 79 degrees.

I turned left at IU Health Bloomington Hospital off SR 46 and curved around to Indiana State Road 45. That’s when the rolling hills started. Without the full use of my 21 gears, I had to stop a lot to catch my breath.

By New Unionville, almost exactly halfway, I was beat. I stopped at a gas station/grocery store and bought a coffee and some unhealthy donut sticks and at them dispassionately.

 

The rest gave me energy to get to Unionville without too much difficulty. But the rest of the way, was painful. I cursed myself for my eating habits the past six months. “Peddle harder, tubby… eat an apple once in a while.”

I am ten pounds over my traditional riding weight, which was ten pounds over a healthy weight. 

With about ten miles to go, I turned onto Owl Creek Road. These backroads are typically the worst. The hills are steeper with little warning, and there was almost no flat spot on the entire leg. I stopped once at a cemetery and sat on the grass. 

Hobbled, Lucy had done the best that she could. But I just couldn’t get up some of those hills without the lower seven gears. Many times I was forced to stop on the hill, catch my breath for a minute or so, and then keep going. Finally, I came to a hill so high, I had to get off the bike and push it for the first time. I had hoped I would have to do that until southern Kentucky. And certainly not on day one. But I had little choice. I made two or three standing stops in the shade of healthy trees to catch my breath. 

I suspect the temperature was approaching 86. That is really too hot. Really 85 is the very maximum that I want to ride at. Beyond that is just brutal. 

Many cars and pickups passed me. Once while walking in the shade of a tree, a woman rolled her car window down and said, “Glad you had a light.” The flashing red light on the back is the Lucy’s greatest safety feature.

In 2020, I rode the relatively flat roads of Florida. There were some relatively big hills as I got inland, but they weren’t steep. So, I made almost all of them by riding in lower gears. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, when I get to Indiana, it is going to be another story entirely. I remembered Jackson County hills, like Crane Hill, and knew those are pushing hills. At least for me. 

In 2021, I got into some larger hills in Mississippi and Alabama. Again, those lower gears got me through. I rarely had to push the bike. But my brain was warning me, “These are nothing compared to the rolling hills of southern Indiana.” Not to mention the foothills of Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern Alabama. 

So, I suppose it was a reality check for me today. The hills spanked my butt. When I finally got to Nashville and rolled into Brown County Bikes, where I had an appointment for Lucy’s grooming, I was glad that I didn’t have to ride another mile. After a long rest, I could have done another 5-10 miles, but I didn’t want to. 

It had taken me 4 hours and 15 minutes to cover 30 miles of rolling Monroe and Brown County hills.

I removed three saddle bags and left Lucy in the capable hands of the owners, two friendly and experience women. I bought some new wraparound glasses, tossed the old ones in the garbage, and walked one mile with maybe 30-35 pounds in the three saddle bags and my backpack. When I reached The Seasons Lodge around 10:45 am, the desk clerk found an available room and put me in it. No fridge and no microwave, but I didn’t care. I only wanted a shower and a bed.

I showered and napped. 

Two of my daughters, Anna and Helen, and two of their children, and my brother, Darren, had pizza and chatted. 

Darren told us about a bike rider he almost hit a few nights earlier. We agreed that the flashing light on the back are the best protection. I called the bike shop from the restaurant, but there was some confusion. The bike wasn’t ready. In fact, they hadn’t started. Although I had made an appointment, and explained on the phone from Florida last week, that I was leaving the next day, the memo had not reached the owners. 

Darren took me over to the shop, and I spoke to Danielle and she was trying to call in a technician to look at the bike. 

I chided myself for not explaining that I needed the bike by closing so I could leave by 5 am. While many people turn their frustration into anger directed outwardly, I internalize. Look at my contribution to errors. What could I have done better? How could I have communicated or explained better? 

Darren dropped me off at the hotel and went back to work. Anna, Helen, and I chatted for a while, and then they left. After a couple more exchanges with bike shop owners, I decided to spend another night here. I arranged that with the hotel, and the very kind clerk explained that I could remain one more night only. After that, they are fully booked with a Rainbow Girls convention. 

As hospitable as these hoteliers are, the room does not have a microwave or mini-fridge. When I asked about it, they told me only deluxe rooms have them. The budget $99/night rooms don’t. I stayed in about 30 motel or hotel rooms in the past two years on these cross-country bike-packing trips, and rarely did I find a room that didn’t have both a microwave and fridge. When traveling on a bike, those two features are nearly critical. Although I highly recommend the hotel, I probably wouldn’t stay here again for lack of those necessities. 

By 5pm, I was asleep. I woke up at 10:30 pm but fell asleep again after half an hour. 

Pre-Trip

July 4: Monday: Bloomington Indiana (33 miles)

I had coffee with Kevin. It was his birthday. I added some water to camel-pack and left the house a little earlier. Around 8 or 8:30 am. It was 79 degrees in Elletsville. I stopped at Kevin’s apartment in town and got my clothes from the dryer that Sara had been kind enough to wash and dry. I added the clothes to my camel-pack, so I was testing out just a little extra weight.

I did a little better on this day. I didn’t stop quite as much. But it was cooler. I got to Dad’s apartment and had a bowl of cereal. Then I rode to his house, which they are cleaning for the next owner. I wiped down some cabinets for him, and carried a few boxes.

While wiping my sunglasses, the lenses came out. I put the lenses back in, but I realized these were shot. I needed to buy new ones.

Lucy was more hobbled than before. Sometimes she refused to shift. I left my father’s house a little after noon. The temperature was climbing. 

I rode with a little more stamina. Made it a little further on the way back to dismount Lucy and rest in the shade of an overpass. I had drunk about 80 ounces of water in just a few hours.

When I returned to Kevin’s, I showered and we began playing Euchre. I almost only play when I come to Indiana. Beyond Ohio, the game is not well know in other states. My grandmother taught me to play when I was very young. She also taught me to cheat, which I never do, but it was fun to learn from her.

After two games, I had to take a nap. I was eating everything in sight. And I was not sleeping my 7.5 hours that my body needs. Since I had left Honduras just 9 days ago, I was sleeping about 5-6 hours. 

When I got up, Helen was there. Then Kevin’s son and his family came over. We played UNO, ate pizza and wings. Sang happy birthday to Kevin over a single candle on a cup cake. I love Kevin’s family. Wish I could spend more time with them.

I have always been close to Kevin, his sisters, his parents. I spend much of my childhood with them. His father taught me a lot. He was the one who encouraged me to go back to college the first time. Both his parents have passed. But I still dream about them.

About dark, everyone left except four of us. We played Euchre again. Then, I went to my room and packed all my gear into two big saddlebags. Maybe ten pounds in each. 

Tomorrow is the big day. 

Pre-Trip

July 3: Sunday: Bloomington, Indiana (33 miles)

Reviving Lucy: 

On Monday, I arrived at Panama City Beach, Florida. Visited with two of my daughters, Tellie and Helen, and Helen’s two boys. I ran countless errands, paid bills, visited doctors, bought trip necessities, and watched Stranger Things with the boys through Friday Night. Saturday we left about 5:15 am toward Bloomington, Indiana and arrived at Kevin’s house outside of Ellettsville, Indiana some 14 hours later.

Sunday morning, I was climbed onto the back of Lucy, my bike, after an 18 month hiatus. On Thursday, I pulled the poor abandoned creature who was huddling in a corner of my barn hidden beneath a sheet of dark plastic. Her tires were flat. Lucy was covered in a thick crust of dirt and dust. I could tell she felt I had forgotten her. When we got back to the condo, my grandson helped me ease her out of the van and escort her gently to the elevator and into the unit. We settled her over near the wall in the dining area where she could acclimate to the new environment of light and people.

On Friday morning, I began cleaning her wheels and frame and seat and handlebars. I wiped her cables, removed the saddlebags one by one, and washed them inside and out. Then, I inflated her tires a little to allow her to feel whole again. 

Saturday morning, I was awake at a little past 3pm. I packed the bags into Helen’s car and carefully secured Lucy to the bike rack. My daughter, her two boys, and I drove back to Bloomington in a little over 14 hours. The boys were really, really good. Fun. Funny. At my cousin’s house, I dismounted Lucy and parked her inside Kevin’s garage.

Finally, Sunday morning, I had coffee with my cousin. I called Cassie, my youngest daughter, to wish her a happy birthday. But she didn’t pick up, so I texted her my wishes, and donned my biking clothes for the first time in a year and a half and went to the garage. Like a loyal horse, Lucy stood stoically awaiting me. I pumped up her tires to about 40 pounds, well below the 60 pounds that she needs. But those last 20 pounds require a lot of effort with my little hand pump. Kevin told me about a Marathon station that had free air in Elletsville. I connected two of Lucy’s bags and headed out through the Monroe County countryside. It is beautiful in July. 

At Indiana State Road 46 in Ellettsville, I peddled in the direction of the mall. Lucy needs a spa day before we head south. Her gears aren’t shifting well. Her brakes are worn. Probably needs new tires. I have a tuneup planned for her in Nashville, IN on Tuesday. 

It is hard to believe that in today’s day and age of structured charges for every little service—luggage fees on airlines, $1.29 for a bottle of drinking water, for instance—that a gas station would still provide free air. But Kevin was right, the Marathon station had free air. Sort of made my morning.

At the bridge over Interstate 69, I stopped and snapped a photo. It felt good to be back in the game. I could tell Lucy liked it too, but she was hobbled. A roaring sound forced me to stop just west of Indiana University. I gear mechanism called a derailleur was rubbing her back tire which was wearing her rubber down at a fast pace. I tried to move it with my fingers but it cut my index finger. I had forgotten my biking gloves.

I removed a multi-purpose pliers tool from by backpack and moved the mechanism off the tire. 

At Best Buy, I bought a screen protector for the new phone. At the mall, I bought a case and a few more last minute items. I rode to my father’s house, which he is selling. I then rode over to his new apartment, and I set up their computer and printer on the internet. It was about 2pm by now and about 84 degrees. I had a blister on my right finger.

I rode back toward Kevin’s but I had to stop and sit in the shade once. I realized that these hills are minor. Nothing compared to what I will meet in a couple of days. I also didn’t have my backpack or saddle bags. I knew it was only going to get harder. But I would get in better shape. And once Lucy’s gears were repaired, we would do better. 

I stopped a few more times to stand in the shade and catch my breath before I got to Kevin’s. It was about 87 degrees. 

I had been a little concerned about riding with all the heat, hills, extra weight, and having not ridden in 18 months. But it was just like riding a bike.

July 27, 2022 (Houston, Texas)

I arrived from Comayagua, Honduras yesterday afternoon travelling light: Only a carry-on bag and a small backpack that I will use on the bike. This is the first time that I have travelled internationally with no checked baggage. But since I will be bike-packing three of the five weeks, I don’t need much.

Excited is not the right word to describe how I feel: Happy, relaxed, and relieved seem more appropriate.

The old airport in Tegucigalpa sat in a bowl with a short runway wedged between to two steep hills. Landings created tension for pilots, and occasionally plane accidents occurred. The Pamerola Airport in Comayagua is new, about six months old. Located about an hour outside of the Capital of Tegucigalpa, the huge structure is inviting. The winding mountainous road to the airport is picturesque. I particularly like the horses and donkeys grazing along the side of the highway.

As usual, I was early, about four hours before my flight. I paid $35 to enter the VIP lounge, where I sat in a comfortable arm chair and charged my devices. A server brings a menu, from which you can order a sandwich or salad. Then she brings a tray of snacks: You can select two. Drinks are unlimited. I chatted with my wife on several last minute issues, including a nanny she was going to hire. Then I took a nap.

Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have paid the additional feel for these services. But nowadays, I treat myself. Much like, my wife does when she goes to Walmart to get her nails done. I tell myself, At your age—62—and with prostate cancer, go ahead and splurge. You can’t take that $35 with you to the grave.

That’s just the way I roll.

When I awoke, I started reading a Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls through the Seven Transitions to Adulthood. My youngest daughter recommended it because I have a teenage granddaughter at home and one more who will get there before you know it, and we both want me to do better than I did with my own three daughters. The writer is really good. She describes these transitions as very natural, and provides parents some insight into them.

I always described the transition to teen years as a little like when you buy a baby alligator at the circus. They are so cute when they are young. But before you know it, they have grown into this snapping, dangerous monstrosity that you want to flush down the toilet.

The flight to Houston was good. I napped a little. We arrived about ten minutes early, and swept through Immigration and Customs: No checked bag to wait on. Got on the train to the hotel, checked in, and ordered something from Door Dash. I felt really relaxed. This is fun. I watched the latest episode of The Boys, which is reminiscent of the arrogance, cruelty, ignorance, absurdity, and compassion that I witness everyday in real life.

For about five years, I have been fantasizing about this bike trip from Indiana to Florida. But if I am going to do it, I need to get on with it. In January 2020, I took nearly three weeks off to ride 650 miles to Orlando and back from Panama City Beach, Florida. In January 2021, I rode 750 miles from Panama City, Florida to Louisiana and back in three weeks, taking three rest/rain days.

But I am not getting any younger. And my routine of adding a month to my Christmas break to ride will not work for this trip; not that the heat wave of July is much better. And with the cancer, I decided to just do it now. Or attempt it now.