I didn't have time to write yesterday's before going to sleep because I was so tired and knew it wouldn't be good if I tried writing it then, so I'm writing this the morning after. These blog posts are actually kind of time and energy consuming, so I like to be in a good and comfortable state of mind when I write them. This way I can write something I actually enjoyed writing as opposed to something I just churned out to get it out of the way.
As a whole thus far, our schedules have been pretty tight. I haven't had much time at all to just do nothing and relax. But I assume the days will get easier as time goes on and we get a better hold of this whole constantly traveling thing. Here's what a typical day for us looks like thus far: clean up camp in morning, bike, lunch, bike, dinner, fix any problems that arise along the way, decide on an area or town to stay in, find a camp spot, scope it out (if it's not an established campsite), hope that spot is good, if not scope another one out, if good set up camp. By the time we've been arriving in the town we plan to camp in, most days it's been kind of late around 5 or 6. We leave each day expecting to arrive by 3 or so but we keep running into bike problems or other obstacles which pushes us back for the day and squeezes our schedule a bit. Not horrible by any means but also not optimal.
Aside from our expected increase in efficiency of daily scheduling and whatnot, the roads will begin to flatten out as we leave the East, so that'll be a plus as well. Excuse my language but these damn hills have really been killers. You don't think twice about going up a hill when you're in a car. But when you're on a bike, it's all you think about, and more. Because it's not just all you think about, it's also all you feel. Double whammy. I've found the best way to face each hill is to lock in to my low gear. My physical low gear of course but also my mental low gear- focusing on one single pedal at a time. I can't stress how important the mental part of it is because I'm not sure I'd ever make it up a hill if I had to think about the total amount of pedals I'm about to churn out in the next 7 minutes just to get over this large hump. Maybe I still could do it, but it sure would be a lot more painful if I thought about it that way.
Anyway, enough with Mike's mentality on getting over hills. Let's get to the thing I thought only happens in movies. We had a late day because it was still rainy in the morning. We didn't check out of the motel until 11 but made really good progress. We got to our destination almost 40 miles away by 4. With lunch excluded we punched in about a 10, 10.5 MPH pace- not bad. Was definitely our coldest day riding yet which personally I wasn't a huge fan of. But I will admit it was a nice break from the scorching heat of the prior few days.
The ride was very scenic. There were many cows and beautiful horses to be seen.
The closest 4 cows are looking at me because I was saying hello as I took the picture. I took their eye contact to mean they are friendly cows and are saying hello back.
We were off of Route 6 for a good portion of the day. So Roads looked like this:
If you zoom in you can see more cows in this picture.
Once we got to our destination -the town of Mansfield- we decided to have dinner at a chinese buffet. We tied our bikes up in front of the restaurant so we could see them, and just about everyone who walked in and saw the bikes, then saw us, would enthusiastically ask "are you boys the bikers??" We must've spoken to 6 or 7 different people just during dinner. Explaining our route to strangers and listening to the ooo's and ahhh's doesn't get old haha. They were all very nice people and pleasant to speak with. But 1 of those people did something a little extra nice for us by paying our bill. And what makes it even more interesting is he didn't even speak to us before paying for our bill. I was at the buffet getting my probably 11th round of food (that's a joke I hope that didn't fly over people's heads) when Owen said the man walked over to our table and asked if those were our bikes. Owen replied yes. The man said okay and he walked away without following up with any questions or anything- kinda weird. Then Owen said our waitress walked up and said the same man payed our bill. So Owen went over to shake his hand and thank him before he could leave the restaurant. I assume they got to chatting and the man asked if he could sit with us for a few minutes, to which Owen replied of course. All this happened without me knowing as I was busy over in the food court making my toughest decision of the day- whether I should get ice cream or pudding. As I was coming back from the food court I saw a new member at the table sitting with Tom and Owen- the man in question. He was an older gentlemen, with gray hair almost to his shoulders, a cool looking mustache and a weathered leather cowboy hat. I thought nothing of it as I assumed he was just another friendly local who simply wanted to sit and chat. I hopped in the conversation they were all having at the table- not knowing he paid for the plate I just sat down with. We had a very nice conversation and he asked us simple questions like where we're going, why we're going there, etc. After five or ten minutes of chatting the man thanked us for letting him sit with us, wished us luck and was on his way.
After he left I said "huh he was pretty cool." Tom replied "yeah he's pretty cool, he just paid for dinner." This was my first time learning he paid for our food. I was surprised and delighted. I wished I knew earlier so I could've thanked him too. I was still processing the information and he was already quickly out the door. Later in the day I was wondering if I would've had a different disposition towards the man or a different conversation with him if I knew he paid for my food before meeting him. Perhaps I would've said more if I felt like I at least owed him a good conversation for buying dinner. I felt good knowing for the most part the answer was no. My internal disposition probably would've been different, but externally I spoke with that man as I've been trying to speak with everyone- just being my genuine self. I can't speak for them, but I think Owen and Tom have had similar dispositions about themselves as well. It's something about constantly moving everyday that roots you in yourself. Almost like you Can't be fake or it's a lot more difficult to be so. Not really sure why or what that is. Maybe it's the nice people, maybe it's being in brand new environments everyday so ourselves are the only sure roots we know. So it forces you to be rooted in yourself. Not quite sure. If I figure it out though I'll report back.
But back to the MVP of the day. I didn't even realize people were kind enough to actually do that kind of stuff outside of movies or for perhaps without some alterior motive. Like a man buying a lady's drink at bar for example. Or maybe even someone with more evil intentions which I was cautious about at first when they told me he bought us dinner. Because my first question was, why? But he didn't ask for any specific information, and didn't give off any weird vibes or anything to be cautious about. There was no clear answer and I found myself pondering this question. After some thought in my tent I realized maybe it's more simple than I'm making it. Maybe he just wanted to buy some bikers some dinner. Whether they were doing a cross country trip or weekend trip didn't matter- because he didn't he know where we were going, he didn't even speak to us prior to paying our bill. Or maybe he did know if he overheard us conversing with others. I'm not sure. But he bought us dinner, we all had a nice conversation, and it felt as though we were all thankful for each other at that table in that moment. The man for us and us for the man. I don't even know his name.
Afterwards we set up camp in the middle of some woods. We saw giant bear footprints leading up to where we were planning to camp. We made sure to hang our food away from the camp grounds to be safe. After setting up camp we went back into town to get some drinks. Came back to our site and knocked out for the night.
Here's the setup:
And stats for the short day:
Edit: I meant to mention as we were leaving the chinese buffet, just about every table we walked by in the restaurant wished us luck on our trip, it was pretty cool and funny too.
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