At breakfast in Marshfield, I was enjoying as much food as I could to prepare for a rather long day of riding through the "lovely" hills of Missouri. I had the place to myself for a while, until a young girl, who looked around high school age, and her younger brother came down. The girl didn't look too thrilled when she sat down, as if she had done this before. Her mother, dressed in some sort of uniform came in to say goodbye to her. Afterwards, I decided to be nosy and ask if they were passing through and visiting someone (out was really me wanting to chat with someone:With very little expression, she told me that their house flooded, and they had been staying in the motel for 3 months. She said that they didn't think that the repairs would be finished until December or January. That was the last thing I had expected to hear. It didn't seem as though she wanted to talk about out so I left it alone. It was extremely hard for me to sit there and imagine what it would be in her situation, to be completely uprooted from her home. My thoughts traced back to the conversation that I had with Dwight, (the man that was convinced that I should be a volleyball player). We were talking about flooding in Missouri, and I stopped him to ask him what it was like to live in a place where you are completely at the mercy of Mother Nature, when there are several times during a year when storm could blow through town that could destroy your homes, even your family. He said that he has lost people in storms, and that it is devastating, but it is part of life, something that they know it might happen. I asked him if he would ever think of living some place else, if he would give up what he had now to move to live where there are less natural disasters. He had slight smirk on his face as he should shook his head no. "You just have to be ok with knowing that it could happen. And then you just deal with it." I am beginning to see that society allows very little time for people to sit back and really contemplate what it would be like to actually walk a day in somebody else's shoes, and I think it can be used as a sobering reality check. It is a way to sit back and see all of the goodness in your life, what you do have instead of what you don't, to recognize your hardships, but count your blessings at the same time. The house I grew up on is still standing. My home in Burlington is safe and sound, and I have a place to go back to. And once again, I find that my bike seat won't really feel as bad as I thought it would.
My tire that I had changed the day before was a little soft, so I put some air in it and I was on my way. Oh, it was a long morning. I did learn, and felt pretty darn proud to realize this "on my own" (I was later informed that I had already been told to do this) that if I stopped or got off my bike, the dogs would relent. Sometimes they would still bark, or watch me longingly, wanting me to start pedaling again, and sometimes they would put their tails between their legs and run back to the lawn.
I stopped to get lunch in a very small town that consisted only of a country store. I was locking up my bike, and the owner came out and told me that there was no absolutely no one around that would steal my bike; they simply wouldn't want to. I walked inside, and there was a man sitting down who was fairly overweight. He grabbed his belly and told me "You think I am gonna try and take that thing? I would break it." He cracked quite a few jokes, and had no problem incorporating politics into them. The store itself was chaos. There were boxes all over the place, and the shelves had no rhyme or reason to them. I ate some pizza, and when started getting hungry at the end of the slice, the owner was laughing at me and have me another. He said that he sees a lot of bicyclists. He just recently saw two families that had two eight year olds on tandems. I could not imagine riding a tandem, and especially on the hills. I also could not imagine doing this when i was 8. He also told me that he saw a guy come through on a unicycle. No thank you. I have hard enough time balancing with panniers. He told me that the real fun would start tomorrow for me, that the climbs that I was doing today was nothing compared to what I would see tomorrow. Soooo exciting. It was 1:00 pm. My muscles were already fatigued, and I still had another 30 miles for the day. I really shouldn't even be thinking about what is in store for me tomorrow, because I had to climb the hills today to get to the ones tomorrow.
Unfortunately there are no shoulders in Missouri. To make matters worse, the drivers take as much advantage of the roller coaster ride as the bikers do, and whip through the hills and around the corners. Honestly, there are times when the shoulders are not advantageous, as all of the broken glass, stones, pebbles, and tire rubber collect in the shoulder, which doesn't make for smooth riding. That is also where most of the roadkill is found. Sounds like pristine riding conditions, right?? Not so much. When there are rumble strips on the white line, I honestly find myself riding on the left side of them, especially down hills, because I would much rather have to cut over the rumble strips on the occasion that two big trucks are trying to get by, than catapult over the dead armadillo in the middle of the shoulder because I have no where to go,or cross the rumble strip from the left and then I loose control in and have a chance of going into traffic.
Anyway, I was making my way up one of Missouri's spectacular straight up and down hills. There was a blind curve, and the hill seemed like it went on forever, and it was steep. I was creeping my way up, minding my own business, and I heard that a tractor trailer was behind me and was in a low gear. The hill was too steep for him to quickly pass and then get back over to the right lane, and the corner was far too sharp. So, he patiently waited. If there had been a shoulder, I would have been in it, but the white line immediately met long grass on it's right side. There was a small driveway ahead, and I tried to pedal as fast as possible so I could pull off and let the poor guy go past me. As I did so, there was a lady behind two cars behind them that started to incessantly honk her horn, and as she was passing me, leaned over her passenger and yelled at the top of her lungs: "Get the f*&$ off the road." After 70 miles of riding, it took everything I had to remain calm and collected, even though I was absolutely steaming on the inside. Honestly I would have been furious if my total mileage for the day was 2 miles. Not only was she going around a blind curve sticking trying to stick her neck out of the window to yell this to me, but I HAD NOWHERE TO GO. I'm pretty sure she hasn't been on a bicycle since she was 7. More importantly, it comes down to a concept called "sharing" the road. I understand why drivers get angry when cyclists ride three in a row. Yes. That is annoying, and they should move into single file when there is a car behind them. The respect should be reciprocated to the bikers, and this doesn't mean barrelling past them at 60 mph and moving over six inches. It is just not safe. Honking at a cyclist, alone, is not safe. It can be very startling. Most likely I can't move over, especially when I have bags that add at least another foot to my width, and honestly, if it bothers somebody that much to slow down, move over, and be "inconvenienced" (I use that very loosely), for 30 seconds of their entire day, then maybe they are the ones who should get off the road... and reassess somethings. Unless their wife is in labor or there is something medically wrong with them, those 30 seconds (or 3 minutes in the trucker's case) are not really going to affect their life.... They will still get to where they are going.
I ended the day in Summersville with 90 miles under my belt. I couldn't help but worry about the hills the next day, after everybody that I had met in Missouri told me that this part was going to be the worse. The elevation map was absolutely daunting, and worse than the one today that is attached below. It is hard to get prepared for something that you really have very little idea of what it is going to be like. Elevation maps are helpful, but they are not always accurate, as Lindsay and I have learned the hard way. All you can really do is know that you will wake up, get your stuff together, and no matter how bad it is, you will give it all you have, and do everything you can to make it through; do the best that you can do. It reminds me of what Steve used to say towards the end of his illness, when Cindy or I would ask him how he was doing. Even when he was struggling the most and it was hard for him to communicate, he would always answer "It's as good as it can be."
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