Day 22

                                                                                  Day 22
                                                                     Springfield, IL to Tuscola, IL
                                                                       78 miles, AVG 15.6 MPH

     Today was one of those days for which no one in their right mind would be out on a bike.  I've woken up on many a weekend morning, looked outside at weather like we had today, and said, "Time to get back into bed".   However, that's not how it works here on America By Bike.  We need to stick to a schedule, regardless of the weather.  It's not a coast to coast trip in 33 days, weather permitting.  It's 33 days.....period!
     Thus, we set out this morning amidst 15-20 MPH wind, 50 degree temperatures, and rain.  The rain fortunately was not a downpour....just merely a drizzle.  However, with the winds and lower temps, we needed to make sure we were dressed warmly enough.  For me, this consisted of full cycling tights, base layer, long sleeve jersey, rain jacket and long fingered gloves.  In addition, I put my pseudo water repellent rain booties over my cycling shoes.  It's debatable if they did anything.  My shoes still got wet. What's not debatable, is that they are a pain in the butt to get on.  They don't have a lot going for them. 
     Our one SAG stop of the day was at 41 miles where the gas station we stopped at was kind enough to let us huddle inside and eat our sandwiches.  After that, it was back to the same stuff, peddling past quiet farmhouses amidst grey wet windy skies, on quiet roads, the only sounds being the rain hitting the rain jacket and the tires humming along the wet pavement.  It was a bleak day.  It reminded me of Cormac Mccarthy's "The Road" minus all the soot.  The one excitement for the day, other than Lee taking a minor tumble from one of his tires abutting an uneven portion of the road, was being chased by one fast and seemingly agitated dog.  You would be amazed at how fast, even under these adverse conditions, I was able to accelerate.  Flight or fight...I choose flight every time, especially when dogs are involved.  There were other dog encounters during the day, but all were well behaved, and received my positive reinforcement of "Good Doggie" after I was well past them.  (Later at our RAP session, we talked about dogs and how best to deal with them.)
      The saving grace of the day is that it was short, our shortest of the trip.  Over dinner at Denny's, we all agreed that had this been a 120 mile day, this would have ranked as one of the worst.  As it was, although it was our shortest, it was not our easiest.  Tomorrow, we cross into a new state, Indiana, and into a new time zone, Eastern.  Although we're not looking forward to the 120 miles of this, we are looking forward to hopefully staying dryer. 

-Grinner

Bleak day