84 miles?

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well at all after the deer incident. I guess I was probably in its bed. The ground where I had set up my tent was somehow perfectly contoured to my body. I didn’t even use my sleeping mat. I got up as soon as it started getting light out, around 5:30 am, and flicked all the slugs (there were SO MANY SLUGS!!) off of my stuff and got the hell out of there.

Now I’m at Biggby Coffee, regrettably. Why does it feel regrettable to find myself at a huge franchise? I guess when I travel I have this sense that I want to experience the things that are unique to each place, because those are the things that differentiate the place from every other place. If I don’t bother to find what makes a place unique, what is the point of going? 

So, it makes sense to avoid gas stations and Biggby Coffees because they are identical everywhere. But, having stopped at SO many gas stations and big franchise type places on this trip just out of sheer necessity, for water, calories, and toilets, I’ve found that there is something so absurd and surreal about these places’ sameness in all these different places. 

More generally, too, I think we have this automatic perception that big corporations lack soul. They do, usually, but we’re all hypocrites. The perception is that once a company reaches a certain size, it starts valuing profit over people. This is often true, but it’s not necessarily true. If a company is small and profitable, we don’t assume it treats its employees badly. What is the real relationship between profitability and human decency, and what is reasonable to expect? 

It’s going to be hot today.

…

Today took a really long time. I was on bike trails for most of the day. I saw almost no one. I watched an ant dismembering a dead bug for a while when I sat for a break. This trail is crushed stone, which started getting to me after a while, and the highway seemed quiet enough, so I jumped off the trail after reaching Fowler, and I was suddenly FLYING on pavement. I stopped for coffee and donuts in Ada. I tried to buy bug spray in four different stores, but everywhere was sold out. This is not a good sign.

I failed to apply sunscreen today. Partly, I figured the trails were shaded, partly I have a good base tan now, and partly I don’t like how sticky it makes my skin feel, especially combined with sweat and road grime, with no promise of a shower at the end of the day. I was determined to make it to Sleepy Hollow State Park tonight, to have a rest day.

I stole an ear of corn today from a field. I justified it to myself because all of this land is stolen anyway. I plan to roast it over the fire that I just made with the firewood that I paid someone $5 to carry to my campsite for me in their truck, since the woodshed was very far from the campground itself and there’s no reasonable way to carry one of those things on a bike after riding all day. With all this humidity, I was able to get a tiny little flame going, which I nearly snuffed completely out when my little bark strip tower toppled over, but I huffed it back to life until my lungs were burning and my face was full of ashes. 

I also found a roadside farm stand earlier and unloaded all my spare change for a basket of fresh green beans. I’m excited to eat them. I haven’t been eating many fresh vegetables on this trip, mainly because they’re relatively heavy to carry for the amount of calories they provide, and they don’t stay fresh very long without any means of refrigeration, so whatever I buy has to be consumed pretty much immediately or it gets wasted. Instead, I’ve been eating roughly 1-2 snickers bars a day for weeks, and I think I’ve still managed to shed fat and gain muscle. I guess the best diet really is exercise.

I’m obscenely excited to take a shower. There is so much grit sticking to me. I’m right next to the bathrooms, which means I can hear the electric hand dryer going off regularly. I’m also right next to a site with a baby, all of which means I’m probably going to sleep with earplugs tonight and really catch up on the hours I missed last night.

My odometer stopped working today, and Strava was paused for about half of the day, so I don’t know how many miles I did exactly, but it was more than 80. I have a spare battery I will install tomorrow. 

I haven’t decided what tomorrow will look like yet. My rough plan is to stretch, read, maybe swim, clean and lube my chain, eat, and hydrate.