USA

Riding America’s National Road

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Since leaving Indiana, I have, as predicted, been sweating like a pig. It’s the hottest week of the year here in south Illinois, and the humidity is genuinely disgraceful. I’m not going to harp on about it, I promise. But just so you know, it’s nasty.

I’ve spent two days riding a national landmark as I head towards St Louis (I’ll still be riding it tomorrow as I head towards St Louis – big country, America…).

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Route 40, as it is now, was built to get settlers westwards after the Louisiana purchase. It’s much less famous than Route 66, but it’s fascinating to imagine the convoys of covered wagons and horses heading west along the same route I’m travelling. It was fascinating enough to take my mind off my raging thirst for a few minutes, at least…

The countryside is changing, with less corn and soya (though they are still there), and more woods. And even some small hills – quite exciting after all the flat lands, but a tough ask in the heat. One result is a new contender for nicest camping spot; in the shade, next to a lake with no mossies – spot on.

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The heat’s set to last for at least a few more days, but I am slowly getting used to it. I’ve gained time in the morning, as the clocks are another hour back in Illinois, so I’m trying to make ground early. And then slowing dramatically as the heat takes hold. And I hit the 2000 miles mark on the bike yesterday. Another little milestone ticking by…

There are still a couple of things I don’t quite understand about America (this is a colossal understatement; it’s a few more than a couple of things). The camping in Illinois is half the price of either Ohio or Indiana, which is nice, though the reasons are unclear. And I’m drinking a root beer. Which I don’t understand at all. I’m not sure what it’s made of, or what it’s supposed to taste of. But then, that seems to be the extent of my worries at the moment, so mustn’t grumble 😉

Heat, Humidity and Thunder – Sweating Across Indiana

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I felt bad yesterday morning (Tuesday).  I’d had a good night’s sleep and a splendid fry-up to kick the day off, so all should have been well.  At first, I put it down to pushing too hard, or maybe a bug of some sort.  No energy, and feeling dehydrated despite drinking three litres of water before lunch.  I’m a bit slow sometimes, and there was a headwind which I was blaming for all my ills, as usual.

I did get to see a couple of covered bridges in the morning, which was nice.  I’m not sure exactly what the point of a covered bridge is; maybe it’s just so you stay dry in a storm while waiting for the bridge to be washed away.  But they are very much a mid-west institution.  This one was outside Darlington.20140821RTW_2

At lunchtime, I stopped at a petrol station to grab a load of sugary stuff to kick-start myself; I still had a way to go.  Coming out of the shop, it finally hit me.  Like a sauna (or at least the air within a sauna).  The humidity, which the headwind had been masking as I rode, was immense.  I struggled off into the afternoon, passing two helpful signs suggesting it was either 87 or 91F.  I’m not sure what the centigrade equivalent is (and probably don’t want to know), but I do know that’s pretty hot.  This all cheered me up.  After all, I’ve been beating the elements every day (even if they always come back for more).  Something internal would have been much, much worse.

I continued south-west through a town called Waveland.  Which is so named because the land around it is kinked up into a series of short, sharp rolling hills.  Like waves.  A brilliantly literal name for a place.  I was heading for Rockville, but was disappointed to discover very few rocks.  And very little rock-n-roll.  Obviously doesn’t work everywhere…

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What I did find at Rockville was a colossal thunderstorm, which hit just as I got the tent half-up.  This was bad because all my bags got soaked, but also good, in that the people in the RV next door dragged me in, dried me off and fed me.  While having a long discussion about rugby, which I was not expecting in the US.  Oh, and they somehow reduced my camping fees to zero as well, slightly mysteriously.  I know almost every post is turning into an Oscar acceptance-speech list of thanks, but I can’t let that go without acknowledgement.  Or the free breakfast I got this morning from a bloke in the local diner.  I might have to just put a ‘thanks’ page up.

I checked the weather forecast, and it looks like the whole week ahead is going to remain in the 90s F, with loads of humidity.  There are weather warnings out for heat in the area I’m riding into (around St Louis), and thunderstorms are breaking out pretty regularly, which is a little alarming on the bike.  I turned today into a half-day just in time to get under cover before another couple of inches of rain dropped in.  So more strength-sapping heat, worries about carrying enough water and dodging lightning strikes to come for a while…

But tomorrow looks drier, and I’ll finally be leaving Indiana, and crossing into southern Illinois.  Probably sweating like a pig and moaning endlessly about the heat and humidity, but still making ground.

More soon, I hope.  And I finally updated the Progress map!  Many more exciting red markers to explore; how much more fun can you have?

 

Little Switzerland and Roller-Blading Amish – Indiana Rocks!

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Having tanked up on a bucket of coffee at the edge of Ohio, I headed for my first state line. State lines have a sort of mythical status, derived from old films; make it to the state line, and the police can’t catch you. Make it to the state line and everything changes.

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Having seen masses of fields with nothing but soya beans and sweet corn in Ohio, it was a little disappointing that I crossed the line to find, on one side of the road, a field of soya. And on the other side a field of sweet corn. But I pressed on, and things did, indeed, change.

I stopped at a petrol station for a drink. There was a young guy sat outside, who I think was Amish (might have been Mennonite, or something similar – I’m not an expert, and somehow we never got round to it in conversation). Anyway, Phil had a home-made haircut, a clean-shaven face with a beard sprouting enthusiastically from under the jawline, and was dressed in a sober white shirt and sensible black trousers. We had a chat, with him seeming especially interested in ‘campsite hotties’, which I couldn’t really help with much. And then he got up to leave. On his roller-blades.

It may (well) be my ignorance, but I’m not sure that roller-blading is a standard Sunday morning activity in either the Amish or Mennonite traditions. Phil may well be a dangerous radical within his community, so I’ve changed his name to save him potential grief. But he was a sure sign that things were different in Indiana. I was happy.

Another sign was the amount of horse droppings I was having to navigate around on the edge of the road. There were more blacksmiths around than I’d seen for a while too. And the road signs were different.

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I only saw one actual buggy, which I flashed past at a junction. I guess it was pretty quiet because it was Sunday. But I’m definitely not in Ohio any more.

Pressing on to Berne (the clue’s in the name), I was suddenly transported to Switzerland. Chalets popped up by the roadside, and I sat for a while next to Berne’s magnificent Swiss clock tower. Slightly disappointing that it’s not a cuckoo clock tower (at least literally) but still impressive.

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I decided against heading further south to Geneva, as the alps would be in the way, and turned west towards Marion. I got distracted by ice cream (again) at The Point, a nice little restaurant on the highway. Phenomenal strawberry cheesecake ice cream, incidentally. I headed on, looking for a campsite. Four miles further on, a man had parked his car, and was waving what turned out to be free T-shirts at me. This was the owner of The Point, who’d heard I was English from his staff, and chased me up the road to give me free stuff. Amazing.

I mentioned looking for a campsite, and he stood aside, revealing a sign (I should point out that he wasn’t so big as to entirely block the sign, I was just distracted by the T-shirts). 200 yards up the road, Wildwood Outdoor Escape beckoned.

Serendipity is not to be denied. I’d done a hundred km, so decided to call it a day. I came in, paid for my spot, and had a chat with the owners about the ride. And a few minutes later they came to my site and gave me my money back (and a little extra) to ‘help me on the road’. Astonishing.

It’s fair to say that was quite a day. I’ve been a little bit blown away by Indiana so far, and have to offer my heartfelt thanks to all those who made my first day here so memorable.

Maybe there is something in the old state line myths after all…

It’s the little things…

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Well, nearly across Ohio now; having a rest day today (Saturday) at Van Wert, with the usual non-rest activities – washing clothes, shopping etc.

Ohio’s been… Pleasant, I suppose. The riding is easy (temperatures in the 70s F / low 20s C, and there are plenty of towns to slake my thirst and indulge what is fast becoming a serious ice-cream habit). And I’ve been lucky with the wind, which is pretty light.

This is farming country, so the scenery has its limits in terms of stunningness. And when the highest things in the state seem to be farm silos, you’re never going to get the big vistas that you find in the mountains (or anywhere with any hills). I came through a town called Ottoville yesterday, where the school football team (or maybe baseball – what do I know?) is called the ‘Big Green’. An entirely appropriate description of the whole section of Ohio that I’ve seen.

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So if the scenery is nice but not inspiring, you have to look to the smaller things. I had a great breakfast yesterday just outside Findlay. On my way in, I encountered four, erm, comfortably-upholstered gentlemen with a combined age of around a quarter of a millenium. We chatted about my ride, and whether I was doing it for charity. One of them claimed that the four of them were fighting anorexia. I had to admit that it was a battle they seemed to be winning. They laughed, thankfully.

And then I got to my campsite last night, and was given a 50% discount because I was by myself. Nice. There were kids riding bikes with cards stuck in the spokes to simulate engine noises. So I got a few minutes of nostalgia – used to do the very same thing a hundred years ago when I was a kid.

And then a beautiful finish to the day. Just as it was getting dark, the area around the tent lit up with a load of fireflies of some sort shaking their little electric booties. To round off a day with something you’ve never seen before is a proper pleasure.

Anyway, enough of Ohio; tomorrow I just need to get about ten miles down the road before I’m in Indiana. Maybe the ‘Bigger Green’ for all I know, but I’ll keep an eye on the small picture as well as the big scenery from now on…

Apols for no pics, by the way. The Big M’s free wifi here is diabolical. Consider yourselves lucky the text is there…

UPDATE – campsite wifi much better than the burger stuff; big green picture should now be visible (and representative, if not inspiring)…

A Month In, and Country Number 6

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Well, this is a surprise.  I thought this would be a little retrospective glance at the trip so far (yesterday was the one-calendar month mark since my departure from Greenwich), written from another location somewhere in Southern Ontario.  Instead, I arrived in the seething metropolis of Sandusky, Ohio.  Country number six already, and this one will last for a little while.

I’d intended to head for the big border crossing at Windsor in Ontario, which drops you into Detroit.  I’d built up an impressive collection of shocked facial expressions from the various Canadians regarding this plan.  Responses ranged from “turn left and ride like [insert four-letter-word here]” to “you’re going to ride through Detroit on surface streets?  That’s suicide.”

Now, there may be an element of exaggeration to these reactions.  All the people in Southern Ontario live in a delightful, semi-rural or rural environment with (as far as I could see) very little in the way of crime etc, and no big cities.  So maybe they were overstating things.  I have a standard response to this sort of thing, which is to research.  And a good job too; turns out that the Windsor-Detroit border is very difficult to get a bike through.  The whole place is set up for trucks and cars, and I’d need to bag the bike, put it on a bus, and so on and so on.  Looked like a nightmare.  And the alternative border crossing at Sarnia would take me a few days out of my way to the north.

One final act of Canadian goodwill was to come; a tip-off about the small ferries which run out of Kingsville (the most southerly town in Canada) to Pelee island (the most southerly island in Canada), past Point Pelee (the most southerly point in mainland Canada).  Lots of ‘southerlys’ there, then…  It should then be possible to get another ferry to the US from Pelee Island.  And it worked beautifully; I’m in the USA a few days earlier than expected, having had a nice boat ride, and a very friendly, quick and non-problematic entry to America.  A good route for any bikers heading this way.

IMG_0209The Pelee area of Ontario is quite interesting, by the way, and not just in its role as an important stop for migrating birds, of which I’m sure you’re all aware.  Remember Terry from Brantford?  He’d told me about Point Pelee when we were discussing places to camp, and said that it was so far south that it was level with Northern California.  This seemed extremely unlikely to me, so I checked up.  And it’s actually true; there are tiny bits of Ontario which are to the south of the California / Oregon border.  Who knew?

In any case, I’m getting set for the first day’s ride in the USA; basically I’ll be heading roughly west-south-west for a couple of months.  The plains, the Rockies, the desert and the landmarks of the West (Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon etc) hopefully lie ahead.  Plenty more from the US to come, I’m sure…