SATURDAY JUNE 28, 1997
"TRASH BOY" IS CHRISTENED! No one slept well last night due to the noise from cars and trucks tearing up and down the road adjacent to the park and trains coming and going. Stayed hot and humid all night. It was barely dawn when we got up and after putting away all my gear I started to open up a can of fruit cocktail. I asked if anyone wanted some as I was not able to eat it all when Eric looks at me with that expectant air of tremendous teenage hunger. When I asked him what he had to put it in he looked around and dove into the trash barrel and came up with one of Dennis’ Michael Jordan plates we’d used last night. I was slack jawed! Told him, "No way!" It’s probably been crawled on by who-knows-what during the night. He did not seem disturbed by the possibility. I suggested he use his water bottle and then rinse it when he was done. He agreed and we also had a new name to pass out—Trashboy!! We pedaled into Dixon under threatening weather conditions and had breakfast at Gardener’s Café. Stuffed ourselves silly and then Matt orders OJ. He gets a HUGE glass of it for a seeming pittance. Then Hugh gets it. The Eric. Then me. But never all at the same time. Weird how it worked out but as soon as the waitress brought a glass out it seemed as if someone else wanted a glass. She thought we were pretty weird. She was patient with us---and cute, too! It started to rain as we sat there so we hunkered down for a while and bullshitted with the locals. We talked of harvests and one of the men said it would be bad this year due to all the rain that had fallen. He had 200 acres to plow in corn and wheat and was not expecting good yields. He’s also a coal miner and one of those like Mike Young (Grundy, VA) who goes down quite a way, in this case 1800 feet and then 12 miles laterally under the surface. Takes an hour each trip. So far everyone we’ve chatted with has been very friendly and nice. I am beginning to enjoy this part of the trip where we get to know the locals. Dodged the rain pretty much all day and eventually rode our way completely out of it. It would rain and then the sun would come out then it would rain and the sun would come out. It ended up fun trying to dodge the puddles in the road. Especially since they are so devoid of traffic. Something to do to pass the boredom. Along the way Dick, Hugh, and I were waiting along side the road and this guy in a pick up truck comes by and asks what we did for a living. I said, retired, Dick said retired, and the guy blurts out, "then I’m retarded!" and leaves laughing. WHOA! That was different! Merle is having a hard time adjusting from his pre-retirement days of being a truck driver. He’ll be up at 430 in the morning, hustles around, leaves, and we hardly see him until the end of the day. It’s like he’s delivering a load of cargo. Gotta get it there as quickly as possible. So off he blasts to his destination for the day. It must be frustrating for him. Hugh and I take our time and I make it a point to keep looking around at virtually everything I pass by. Not much gets by me on the road. Stopped at Druther’s Restaurant in Marion and had a very good salad buffet. Pigged out on green beans, potatoes, 3 bean salad, cottage cheese, potato salad, beets, etc. etc. etc. Finally made it to the Ohio River, crossed on the ferry, and got the hell out of Kentucky and its nasty hills and coal trucks and dogs. HOORAY!! Arrived in Cave-in Rock, IL, headed to the campground just across the street from the ferry, and got separated from the group. Just like that! Weird! It was a bitch of a hill to climb into the park itself and the tent area. Found out it would cost us $2 per person for a site with no showers and pit toilets. Met up with Eric and Matt so we went to a restaurant and had ice cream when all of a sudden the rest of the gas house gang shows up. We decided to splurge and get a motel room with A/C, showers, and a good bed. It was just too hot to put up with that "no shower" shit. Went back into town because they were having a festival. We caught Americana at its best: The Cave-In-Rock Frontier Days Parade. It was fun. They’d go by in fire trucks, floats, old cars, etc. and toss out candy that everyone scooped up off the streets. Earlier in the day during breakfast we held a lottery to determine when Kurt would show up. Dennis picked 4 PM, Hugh 5, Dick 530, and I picked 6. Merle thought we’d only see him in Chester. Dennis and I went to get ice cream before the parade when, lo and behold! There was Kurt. At 6 PM sharp! He’d ridden 100 miles today. It must have been brutal. After the parade we went to see Cave-in-Rock where Jimmy Stewart acted in the film, "How the West Was Won." Just for shits and giggles, the motel we stayed in was run by a fairly eccentric old man who claimed to be subsiding strictly on Social Security disability and that the motel was kept open as a hobby to pass the time. The place was better than the one Kurt and I had in Booneville---but not much better. At least the room Hugh and I stayed in was better. Kurt said his sucked worse. Crashed at 820 PM. SUNDAY JUNE 29, 1997
EARTH, WIND, AND FIRE WE’RE NOT! Lady Luck was with us again last night. It rained but we didn’t care. We were safely snuggled indoors. The A/C in the room ice over as the compressor never shut off. I think the melting ice would not have left a pretty picture on the floor but there was no way to chip it off the cooling fins. Got 50 yards down the road and Hugh blew a tire (or at least his bike did. J ) Having slept like a rock, we left at 6 and rode into Elizabethtown for breakfast. What a cool little town! Right on the river, quiet, peaceful, rustic. Ate at Lee and Louise’s Town and Country Restaurant. Nice place. Worth eating at. Fortunately there was plenty of cloud cover all morning and it made riding so much more a pleasure. We were warned there was a steep hill 9 miles out of town but when we got to it, it proved to be no big deal and we cruised right up it. The problems, though, began when we got on Eddyville Road towards Eddyville. Had to climb six or seven miles of grades some of which were in the 8% grade range. Suicidal frogs littered the roadway with one even offering his body to Dennis’ spokes. Tried to jump through. Didn’t make it. PING! Bye Bye Froggie! When in Eddyville we oinked on turkey sandwiches and gatorades at a convenience store with a sandwich bar. Then we went to a local town fair and had a pork BBQ sandwich. YUMMY! In case the maps still are not changed by the time you read this, note that Simpson Lane is now called Gilead Church Rd. Zipping along from one top of hill to the bottom I got up to 41 MPH but within seconds was back down to 3 MPH trying to climb the other side. The Lord Giveth and He Taketh Away. Eventually made it to Goreville and had some cherry pie. We discussed the merits of going to Fern Clyffe since it was three miles back the way we came and unanimously decided we were not for that. We expected Dick to spend the night there, which he did. Kurt was nowhere to be found. I think he tried taking a shortcut to Eddyville and may have been surprised by the climb involved. So we pressed on to a campground 15 miles away. Fern Clyffe is supposed to be very pretty what with tens of thousands of different ferns growing there but I was in no mood to camp among ferns. Once we made it to the area with Devil’s Kitchen Lake and Little Grassy Lake with their campgrounds the decision to go to Carbondale was an easy one. We were not tired and the roads looked good. Sure went through some beautiful countryside and even had tail winds. We ended the day around 530 PM quite fatigued. Met Mark Robinson and his wife, Rachel. He’s the Bike Surgeon. Bike shop in front, limo service in back. All of us showered and then BS’d for quite a bit. Then one of us asked Mark where we could find a trough to tie the bag on (maybe I’m not supposed to advertise this or maybe Mark was in an expansive mood but….we’d heard from another cyclist who had stayed at Mark’s place that Mark took him to dinner in one of his limos. We were fully prepared to ride to a restaurant but going to dinner in a limo, now THAT’S the way to do it.) So Mark offered to take us to the Ponderosa Steak House. In the limo! YESSS! It was so cool to be chauffeured around. Merle, Hugh, Dennis, Matt, Eric, and myself went in the back. Rachel and Mark in front. Tooling along, this other car pulls up next to Mark and the passenger, a Black lady, asks if she can get a ride. Mark tells her he’s got folks in the car now and can’t. They chit chat for a few seconds (she keeps looking at our windows to see if, in fact, anyone is back there) when Mark tells her that he could not take her around right now even if she paid because he had "Earth, Wind, and Fire" in the back. You should have seen her eyes light up! "Earth, Wind, and Fire?" she yells. "Yes", said Mark. And we took off. In the back Dennis, Matt, Eric, and I are cracking up. Hugh never heard of them and I do not think Merle had either. What a hoot! We tied on the feed bag at Ponderosa. With gusto! Also picked up the tab for Mark and Rachel’s dinners. It was, after all, the least we could do. Mark’s quite an entrepreneurial spirit. He’s got quite the limo service going. As the only one in southern Illinois he is often tapped to take all sorts of big shots around. He also bought a building right around the corner from the shop and is converting it into security storage with a live in guard. He calls it his Area 51. It used to be a crack house and the cops are happy he’s doing something constructive with it. Of course, I am sure the neighbors are, too. He also owns what he calls a party bus for bachelor and bachelorette parties. Keg in the back, toilet, sound system, etc. He also wants to buy several busses and begin a service to Chicago for $40 to $50. He’s been the "Bike Surgeon" for 15 years and is now located on 800 Sycamore. He lives in the same building as the shop and it is outfitted with antiques. Many of the purchasers are made from estate sales and distress sales. The ceiling in the living room was an old tin ceiling that came from a flooded Masonic Lodge. He and Rachel restored it and boy!, is it ever beautiful! When we returned from dinner he drove us by a $300,000 federally funded piece of "art" in front of the City Hall originally called "A Flotilla Of Kayaks In A Storm." That name must have offended some bozo in the town because now it has no name. It is merely a ziggurat. What a waste of money! Back at the OK Corral, Rachel put in a video for us called "The Dancing Outlaw", a biography set in West Virginia (Boone County) about the last mountain dancer. The biographer, a student at a university, wanted to find this mysterious person and ended up locating the son, Jesco White. From there the movie got Tres Bizarre! What a weird person. This guy used to huff gasoline and lighter fluid, drink beer, etc. Anything and everything just to get high. The film did a good portrayal of Appalachian trailer living at its worst. From the satellite dish in the front yard (which I guess is now the equivalent of what I remember as a kid how my Father would comment on people who lived in miserable looking conditions yet had a Cadillac parked in front of their shack) to the trash, and the broken down cars everywhere. The local excitement was to get drunk and drive cars in circles on muddy roads at very high speeds until the engines blew up. Jesco had three personalities: Jesco, the Devil; Jessie, the nice guy; and Elvis. He even had a "recording studio" in his bedroom (a can on a string hung from the roof and a boom box.) His father was the original mountain dancer but was shot to death in a fight. OOOH, now there’s a novelty! A very strange film featuring his wife (who he threatened to kill on a regular basis), his mother, brothers, friends, etc. Before getting to the movie, though, Mark told us about some of the people who came through his place. One was a 17 year old girl, the daughter of a professor at Rutgers, I believe, who had never watched TV, never tasted a Pepsi or Coke, and considered herself an "unschooler" a term to describe someone taught at home. She wanted to join an "intentional community"---commune for us 60s/70s types, where the women ate after the men did (she called herself a feminist, too!) and where folks that worked outside the community gave all their earnings to the community which then dispensed back to them a "stipend." Too weird for me. I guess maybe that’s OK for a 17 year old but you have to wonder where her parents are in this whole thing. Much later in the journey she comes up again. Got little sleep as it was very hot indoors and even the ceiling fan did not help much. As for the riding conditions today, for the most part all was well. Came across some roller coaster roads where the object was to power down the hill and try to make it up over the top without losing much momentum. A bit of a challenge but was fun to try. What truly amazed me about today was the fact that Hugh made it as far as he did. I was bushed and when I think of how he’s 67 years old, partially paralyzed on one side due to an injury caused by a fall several years ago and still made it 85 miles, I can only admire the man.
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