Aah. A nap.

Wednesday, 30 July: I decided I needed a day off after all, despite the predicted-to-be-helpful wind. It's supposed to be the same tomorrow, so it's all good. I managed to whine/stumble my way into a discount here at the trashy trailer park-- $6 a night instead of $17! Yay! I like it $22 more than I did last night.

I laid around eating, reading, stretching, sunbathing and napping all day. I made an actual plan for the next few days, which involves riding Thursday and Friday to my friend's mom's house west of Chicago, then riding to my cousin's place in Chicago on Saturday. Then it's a week of non-camping and non-bar food and my first haircut on the road. I'm all a-tingle. Or maybe that's just the wind blowing through all of my freakin' hair.

I keep thinking of part of a song from one of my favorite musicals, "Cabaret."

"I used to have a girlfriend
known as Elsie
With whom I shared
Four sordid rooms in Chelsea

She wasn't what you'd call
A blushing flower...
As a matter of fact
She rented by the hour.

The day she died the neighbors
came to snicker:
"Well, thats what comes
from too much pills and liquor."

But when I saw her laid out like a Queen
She was the happiest...corpse...
I'd ever seen.

I think of Elsie to this very day.
I remember how she'd turn to me and say:
'What good is sitting all alone in your room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret.'

And as for me,
I made up my mind back in Chelsea,
When I go,
I'm. Going. Like. Elsie.

Start by admitting
From cradle to tomb
Isn't that long a stay.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Only a Cabaret, old chum,
And I love a Cabaret!"

Yup, I'm a giant show-tuning dork.