It is my job to tell you the story as it happened, and not to deprive you of any instances that you may find amusing or beneficial. This means this is not a children’s memo, or for anyone easily offended. My family, I know you’ll still love me. My friends, the same. Future followers, don’t pass judgment, just enjoy the ride, as I know I will. Friends, family, and future followers; feel free to pray for me. God knows I’ll need everything I can get.
Week by week, the journey continues. Lauren recovered well form her spill, We had a solid three days rest with the great host family in Owensboro, KY, and It’s time to be back on the road. Going date by date seems to be less interesting, to me anyways, rather we will speak by situation, and I will date when I feel necessary. Wreck on Sunday, rest Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we make our way towards Carterville, Illinois. This is a long distance; 125 miles. Lauren and I are a bit ridiculous, but not unrealistic. We knew that 125miles was unrealistic, but luckily one of my college roommates lives in Carterville and has offered to pick us up wherever we are once she gets off of work, and she has also purchased us train tickets to go from neighboring city, Carbondale, to Chicago. Chicago was not on the original itinerary but Alison threw out the offer to put us on Amtrack, and the thought of covering that much ground in that short of time, have near six hours of free wifi, going to what many of my friends have stated as one of the best cities in the nation, and one of Lauren’s very close friends lives there, it became a no brainer. Wifi is important as I have two finals due in two weeks. Step 1-get to Carterville.
April 30
It is known by a few folks that know me that I can be over-accommodating, to the point that I can neglect some of my own wants. Whatever level this may occur on, even though my dear friend Alison in Carterville said she’d pick us up from wherever, I still knew I wanted to make it at least 80 miles so she didn’t have to drive an hour and a half each way to us, and back home. Illinois is pretty flat, and flat unlike anything I’ve ever seen up in northern Illinois. This is a total blessing after Kentucky, which was laden with unrelenting hills. There is a trade of directly associated with the lack of hills, however, and that is wind. The wind was very strong, and again, we made the ever wise decision to go from the east to the west. It still wasn’t as bad as having the wind on us on day four in KY, where we made it twelve miles in two and a half hours. Wide open spaces; I, for a while anyways, appreciated the flat, dead cornfields. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Being in the piedmont and coastal plains of North Carolina breaks my soul after a while. I was born and raised in the mountains, and I do miss them when I’m gone for a stretch of time. Illinois made North Carolina’s flat lands look well endowed. Throw in the fact that it is a bunch of fuckin’ dead corn and there you have what Illinois was like. We still had a few seventy miles in KY before the Illinois line, however. One thing that must be know about Lauren, the strong one, is that she has the ability to make friends with people immediately.
It must be made perfectly clear that Lauren can make friends with anyone, regardless of situation, instantaneously. We were near seventy miles in, day light was fading as the cloud cover and threat of rain loomed over all day, and it was becoming increasingly more cold as the day went on. This was the first day that I wore arm warmers for the entirety of the trek. Three miles from the Illinois & KY border is a gas station. I walk out of the store after a pee break as Lauren walks in, and this very tall, clearly corn feed, broad shouldered stranger looks at me with a smile on his face, multiple teeth missing, and states how he appreciates what we are doing.
“Hey, thanks man!” I reply.
After chatting for a few moments I realize that he wasn’t fucked up on any hard core drugs, skin looked clear, eyes looked right, maybe he just suffered from poor genetics. He had four Mountain Dews in his hands, and we proceeded to chat about the journey Lauren and I were on, and how far we had to go. He was hauling lumber on a flat bed transfer truck and had been awake since ten a.m. the morning before. Some how, Lauren got us and our bikes in tow of this truck driver and across the state line.
The truck driver and myself hoisted the bikes on top of the lumber stacks, as there was no where fit them on the bed of the trailer itself. Bikes, saddle bags and all are placed atop the lumber, and strapped down very tightly. Lauren and I enter the cabin where I feel uncertainty. It also must be known that as much as Lauren can make friends with people, I am, despite being usually confident sometimes and overly positive, can be a bit of a pessimist at times.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” I mumble to her as we enter the cabin, hoping the sounds of the Volvo diesel engine will muffle our conversation. She laughs at my concern, assuring me that there is nothing to worry about.
I don’t look for the bad in things; I just realize were there is an opportunity for a S.N.A.F.U. and generally try to stay away from those situations. I often have to have conversations with myself that go something like this; we’ll apply it to this situation to keep the story rolling…
“What are we doing, and if so, why? Is there an alternative, and what is the safest.” Pretty reasonable, right? My conversation with myself continues…. “What could go wrong?” Before you know it, I’m convinced that the truck driver is going to pull out a Glock, and point it at me. Fairy white boy in spandex is forced to exit the cabin while girlfriend sits on the truckers bunk. I have these types of thoughts when I recognize that there could potentially be an issue. These conversations always, always end with me telling myself, “Dude, shut the fuck up and live a little.” I can’t let my own fears interfere with living the life that was given to me. I also can’t be completely unrealistic in thinking that these types of troubles would never happen to me; the battle of evermore, clearly.
This guy was nice; near twenty Mountain Dew bottles rolled around on the floor in bags and loose, excluding the four he just bought. If I had to drive a truck, without sleep for over thirty six hours, who knows; maybe I’d have some Mountain Dew too. On second thought……
I talk to my friend Alison, who is getting married in June, whose wedding I won’t be able to attend, who is definitely a true friend, and she is going to meet us in somewhere, Illinois.
“What type of vehicle are you in?” I ask.
“A Hyundai SUV, and you?”
“A large white Volvo.”
Upon arrival and transfer of bikes from lumber stack to ground and into Hyundai, we drive to Carterville and settle on Mexican for dinner. This doubled as my birthday celebration, as it was my birthday. I always feel bad for people who have Feliz Cumpleanos sung to them very loudly with percussive instruments banging, and sitting in a flimsy sombrero that was involuntarily placed on their head. When Lauren somehow negotiated this to happen to me, and perhaps it was circumstantial, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I’m a sucker for fried ice cream, too.
May 1-Amtrack to Chicago.
The time change happened at some point yesterday, from Eastern to Central. Our train was leaving at 7:20, fifteen minutes to get to the station, and fifteen minutes to unload our gear, and thirty minutes allotted to be thirty minutes early to the station. Lauren and I both wake with an exceptional amount of light in the room. Scrambling to get ready, frightened that we’ve seriously screwed ourselves, we realize that it is 5:20a.m. Time change.
Amtrack is a neat way to travel. The opportunity-realizing-being that I am realizes that in an airplane, shit can turn bad very quickly. I’m not sure why I feel so much more secure on trains, but it was a pleasurable experience. Lot of school work done, got to see nearly all of Illinois from a one track, south to north perspective, and drank lots of coffee.
Arriving at Union Station was sick, too. Millions upon millions of people have went to and from the Windy City via this amazing piece of infrastructure. Inside, it was probably the tallest ceilings I’ve even been sheltered by, marble floors looked clean, comprehensive layout, and the sheer volume of human traffic was so impressive. We make our way out to the street, recheck our gear, and start to bike through the city to Lauren’s friend, Paige’s apartment. I’ve biked through a few cities now, and nothing was has been like biking through Chicago. I loved it. Bike lanes every where, however the roads were trashed with potholes from the extreme winter that most of the United States encountered. It was cold, raining, puddles every where, bumpy, windy, and busy as anything I’ve ever seen, yet still was one of my favorite moments on a bike yet. I felt like I fit in. I hate inconveniencing people; I also hate being heckled by passing traffic. Chicago’s bike-ability allowed me to avoid both of these things. This is also the largest city I have ever been to, so seeing this number of people was amazing to me. I love going to Charlotte, NC, even lived there for a while. Charlotte is hardly a city in comparison to Chicago from a volume of human beings standpoint. Two days with Paige, Lauren’s dear friend, real deep dish pizza, and this amazing city. It was awesome.
Paige has the likely hood of being the most accommodating and considerate individual I’ve ever met. I’m sure this amplified my Chicago experience. While she was at work, Lauren and I visited Lake Michigan, Lincoln Park Zoo, and milled around downtown. I loved it there. We biked out on Sunday, May 3, with the help of Paige with her boyfriend and super city cyclist, Christian. I am so glad we had him because 1. he knew where to take us to avoid terrible traffic, terrible roads, and sketchy neighborhoods, and 2. because he was super aggressive on the bike. If it were me on my own, it would have taken at least twice as long, if not three times as long to not only navigate from a mapping standpoint, but from a traffic standpoint as well. He whipped through the city traffic like a slalom skier, while still maintaing safety and reverence; totally rad. The crazy thing about Chicago was that after biking for eleven miles and weaving through many different types of neighborhoods, you’re still in Chicago.
We had a bit of a late start and around 2p.m. we were ready for lunch. We stopped at this place called Glen Ellyn. Beautiful town, clearly tourist driven, however. Before we can get on the sidewalk, this very interested male cyclist strikes up a conversation with us. I didn’t find him very interesting at all at this point, so I tried to keep us on our path, as we were running out of time to eat and go to where we were going. We started looking up more warm shower hosts because we knew our original plan was surely a bust, and the number of miles we were going to travel was over shot. Wind was bad again today. This interested man insisted that we stay with him at his house. Lauren got the heeby-jeebies from him immediately, and my brain was leaning towards “I’m not riding in a transfer truck and sleeping with this fucking creep all in the same week.” We decide we need to elude our new encounter. He was insistent on sharing maps with us. Maps. Fucking maps.
He leaves us to go to his house, and shows back up with a handful of maps around twenty minutes later. We would not have been in a Subway for twenty minutes had we not been trying to contact warm showers hosts. Shit. He joins us at the table and starts pointing out all these routes that we “should” have taken out of Chicago and that we “should” be taking for the rest of our trip. This could have been comical had we not been so low on time. Frustrated, Lauren and I try to give social cues that we were going to be on our way, in his absence. He also kept insisting that we not only take these routes he was proposing, but that we stay at his house, and then bike to his friends farm to stay in a spare cabin over eighty miles away. These all sound great, but the dude seemed like a fuckin’ creep. Somehow I find myself going to his house, for a very, very long thirty minutes, and then sitting in a small truck with Lauren cramped in the back, on the way to his friends cabin. It has never been established if Lauren is actually taller than I am, but we go back and forth from time to time about who has the height advantage; she was twisted like a pretzel in this small truck cab, and for over two hours. One thing about our new acquaintance was, with near certainty, he was the most inconsiderate person I’ve ever met. It is with near certainty, rather than absolute certainty, because after all he was driving us over eighty miles in the right direction.
“You can look on the map and follow along with where we are going.”
“Yeah that’s cool, Spike(we’ll call him Spike, because since he was one of the most aggravating individuals I’ve ever met, I’ll show respect by employing anonymity), but I don’t need to follow along since you know where we are going.” Bothered by the fact that this extremely pushy, inconsiderate individual is my pilot for the next two hours, taking us to his friends house, I just have to accept my fate at this point. Lauren’s tolerance for bullshit is realistically 50% less than mine, meaning that I can tolerate nearly two times the amount of bullshit than she can. You have to remember that this tall beauty is not just smart, but also strong, and this can be a troublesome pairing when forced to sit in a small vehicle with an inconsiderate asshole for a few hours. I recognized that Lauren had flipped her attention switch off within the first five minutes of being in the town with him, then at his house, not to mention the truck ride. I’m still trying to find some good in the situation, besides just hitch hiking with him for nearly 90miles.
“Look at the map here…” wherever that is “… and you will see this…” whatever “this” is, were repeated over and over again by this blunderer. To say it was like a broken record wouldn’t do it much justice, as it was far worse. His inconsideration is now humorous in hindsight, because he has no clue of his actions. It was almost as though he had some sort of autism or Aspergers. His mind was 100% in tact, but the level of social ineptitude has been unparalleled by anyone I’ve ever met. Thank goodness he was nice enough to drive us like he did, cause I would have went totally sheep-shit if I had to spend too much time with this guy without getting anything in return. Lauren felt bad for him, saying that he was just excited to be around cyclists, as he has toured on his bike all over the world, and just wanted some folks to talk to. This guy would ask either of us a question, and once a reply would commence, he would immediately interrupt us and start to file his own answer, about us, to himself. It was beyond comical. Spike also was insistent on talking about things that he has, and things that his friend has. I don’t really care for things; I’m simple in nature and enjoy experiences, and although an experience could be a thing, a hike through the Appalachian Mountains gives me more than owning a big screen TV. I can’t really remember the last time I watched TV on my own accord. Things aren’t really that awesome unless they provide you something in particular. Saying that I love drums is an understatement, but if I had a thousand drums I would never bore you with the details, unless you were just as interested as I and asked questions about them. Spike doesn’t share my sentiments.
Insistent on my following of our paths on a map, he kept releasing the steering wheel and taking his eyes off the road to point where we were on the map. I tried to play along because at least now the distraction of map searching could temporarily block the incessant jibber-jabber of Spike. He took us through Fermilab, a particle accelerator, and the second largest particle accelerator in the world. I’m not entirely sure of what happens in a particle accelerator but from what I’ve ever heard about it, it sounds near terrifying. I am simple, and with simplicity comes an inherent level of stupidity, or better put as a lack of understanding. Any of you science folks out there could speak of these things in detail, I’m sure. I’d look forward to being schooled about particle acceleration if the opportunity arises.
With a half-assed effort of map following while Lauren keeps to herself we continue through flat and rural Illinois to Spike’s friend’s house. Once we get there, thankfully, we interrupt a family birthday party; of course we would. It was cool though; ribs, sausages, beers, cakes and ice cream, not to mention a very welcoming group of people. Spike’s friend was very, very cool. I almost wonder, now in hindsight, that Spike’s friend might have been trying to compensate for his pal. These two have been friends for nearly three decades, so I’m sure he was accustomed to Spike’s ridiculousness. The whole group was badass too, and I found out that Spike, as annoying as he was, was a fan of Tom Waits-that earns some cool points in my book, but also explained a bit of Spike’s personality. Once bed time rolled around, the friend walked us onto the back porch and pointed to the cabin, some 600 or 700 yards down the farm land. Spike drove us out to the cabin, which had no electricity or bathroom, but was really badass all in all. Candles lit up the night, and the only stipulation laid out by the friend was that we had to watch the husky that was boarded in the cabin. Spike almost invited himself to stay in the cabin; awkward. He did pick up on that one social cue, but missed the twenty more that Lauren and I were lettin’ fly over the next hour while he stood in the exit way of the cabin and talked about how ridiculous our route was, due to the fact we were going from east to west. Thanks for your input.
Spike finally leaves, and we’ve got this cabin to ourselves, lit by candles, and companionship from this massive yet friendly husky that we called Yao Ming. Letting Yao Ming out was no problem, and the friend had given us food to give to him. Lauren and I had seemed to grow towards each other as we had shared an experience of suffering that lasted all too long. As the mood heightened and an easing tension filled the air, Yao Ming had the loudest and longest vomiting session I’ve ever heard from a living animal two feet from our bed. I look down, and he has purged a pile that was over a gallon of solids and liquid; impressive to say the least. I spend a few minutes on my hands and knees cleaning up the mess, while Lauren fades into dream land. Great job Yao Ming; after enduring Spike’s bitch ass for well over nine hours and biking out of Chicago city traffic, you took away what few moments that could have built the one enjoyable experience of my day. You suck almost as bad as the basketball player right now.
The cabin was a bit chilly in the morning as the air outside was just above freezing. As we get our things together my phone rings. This is an odd occurrence because do to my current level of responsibility I have not been receiving phone calls. The only people that care enough to keep up with me usually don’t do so via phone call either, plus it was 7a.m. Even though this is central time, my friends still wouldn’t call before noon usually unless there was something wrong. I answer; it’s Spike.
“Hey Jordan, I was thinking, and I just can’t figure something out. You’re going to Seattle before you go to San Diego, right?”
“Yes Spike, that is correct.” An answer of more than five words would have left me interrupted, I’m sure of it. He was a nice guy, he was genuine. He just lacked social tact.
“I’ll never be able to wrap my head around why you guys are going from east to west, but I’ll just have to let that go. So you are going to Seattle. You know you’re going south today, right? Why are you going south today?” …Fuck you, Spike. Fuck you.
We peddled through the grass of the farm road out to the gravel road, and finally out to the pavement. We road for near forty miles, 13 on gravel. At the end of one gravel road, had a nice fellow stop us, and wanted to take pictures. It is funny to have this level of interest, but in the middle of corn country Illinois, they don’t see our type very often. Once we parted ways, twelve miles later, that’s an hour plus in bike time with the current conditions, we went to a small town that was eerily abandoned for lunch. Tacos. We love tacos. I had a long run at a restaurant with a great group of Mexicans, and Lauren is fluent in Spanish, having studied in Madrid for seven months, but having medical experience from her stay in Ecuador brings in the Latin American flair. Once we pull in the young man that stopped us for a picture pulls through town, clearly stoned, and wanted to know if we wanted to hang with him and his friend. Clearly people are just bored out in the country.
We have a warm showers host set up in Port Byron, Il, and he was planning on riding out to met us around twenty miles north of his home. It is awesome to have people met you or ride with you on their bikes. Lauren and I seem pretty compatible, enjoy each others company a great deal, and I couldn’t think of a better traveling companion, but when you introduce someone new to the day, there is a new energy to feed off of. We road twenty miles on the Great Illinois River Trail, which goes down the coast of the Mississippi River. It was cool. The host tells us his wife cooks popcorn for dinner on Sundays, as they are both retired and don’t eat much anymore, so we stop at a Dollar General to pick up breakfast sausage and baked beans. Pretty good, really. Night sets in at their house on the river, and week two comes to a close.
Young, Dumb, and full of Freedom 
I’m loving this. I feel like I’m reading a novel. I can’t wait to see what happens next. ❤