I awoke after 7 hours of sleep in a Quality Inn in Charleston, MO and felt as if I was a character in a Marlowe mystery novel. My head was still spinning, my stomach still turned and the eight and a half hours of driving the day before left me feeling as if I had been tumbled dried on the delicate cycle in a dryer. A shower helped but not the breakfast that paled miserably compared to the breakfast we had at the Marriott the past two days. I had a bowl of oatmeal and a few sips of bad coffee. I contemplated doing my daily ride before I hit the road for the remaining six or so hours to Fayetteville. The idea was attractive and the roads around Charleston were rural but pushing on and riding later when I got home prevailed.
The night before, the last 60 miles of the trip was mostly along two-lane roads and that made for a long 60 miles. Today, I was afraid that most of the trip was going to be two-lanes and I wasn't looking forward to that at all. Fortunately, the trip started out on a divided four-lane, thus getting the trip off to a good start. After that, I followed again roads that would have been part of my AR-NY route and that made the ride more interesting. For the most part, there was little traffic but the road took lots of sharp turns and roller-coasted up and down creating lots of blind spots. It would have been a mostly safe ride, I thought, but it seemed as if it could have had the potential for some close calls. Riding the two lanes did make the trip feel longer as I wold glance down at the trip odometer and think, "Surely I have gone farther than that." It reminded me of biking uphill and the tenths of a mile would slowly tick away before adding up to a full mile.
With only about an hour left in the drive, I had to pull over for a badly needed coffee break. I skipped past all the stops in Harrison and pulled into the convenience store in Alpena, a small town with a population of only a few hundred. Stopping at the store had some current historical significance as a trial just concluded over four white males taunting four Hispanics at the gas station then following the Hispanics and running their car off the road resulting in the car catching on fire and severe injuries for all four. I looked around at the gas islands trying to picture such a scene transpiring.
Arriving home around 1:30PM, I did some unpacking of the van and was on the bike for my daily ride by 2:30. Being on the bike felt good but I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I was doing a VERY slight incline against a modest wind and found myself slowing down to 5mph. I don't think I had ever felt so weak on a bike. My energy picked up a bit but I did make the right decision by sticking to the neighborhood instead of venturing out on the roads where I would be dealing with more traffic.
Needless to say, my mind nor heart or creative muse could focus on photos. The sky did keep captivating me with its white field of clouds against a sea of blue.
All right, There is a face here. The long thin mouth with one visible right eye and a barely visible left eye sitting up high on the face.
And, something about this lone cotton ball cloud caught my eye.
As I said, the muses were rather exhausted this day.
21 June 2011 Ride: 60mins 10.38 miles. 92 degrees. Miles YTD: 3,816.5
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