The kindness of strangers

Wednesday, 13 August: I got an early start today, which was good, because I managed to do a few miles before it started raining. It kept up for most of the morning-- mostly a heavy drizzle-- annoying, but I could ride in it. I stopped for hot lunch and hot cocoa at a little café, and sat around drying for a while. When I left, the rain was pretty much done, and I had the whole afternoon and evening ahead of me. The weather stayed decent all day, but I started to feel funky in the evening, and riding didn't go as fast as I had hoped it would. When I hit a detour, I knew there was no way I would make my intended destination before dark. I rode until the sun was almost down, then stopped at a house that had much activity inside. They're remodeling. I explained the situation and asked if I could put up a tent on their property. They said sure, and put me in the backyard next to the firepit and lit a fire to keep the coons away. They offered me all my favorite things (food and a shower), but they seemed really busy and I was feeling bad about imposing. I was also feeling super tired, so I thanked them and said I just wanted to sleep. I had trail mix and a handy-wipe bath in my tent before quickly typing this up. Yawn.

My dad called this afternoon to tell me about the good shoulders on the road he was on in Indiana. I pulled out a map, and it turned out he was literally 15 to 20 miles north of me while we talked. Wacky! He said the shoulders were so good because it was Amish country and they drove their horse'n'buggies there. Shortly after that I started to see more evidence of horse on the shoulder, and then I saw some Amish people on bicycles. I don't know how the women ride in those dresses. I would get all caught up in the gears so fast.

I'm thinking all of those yellow warning signs I keep seeing with little pictures of bicycles might be marking Amish communites. I was wondering what that was all about.

Hwy 6 has pretty decent shoulders for most of the way, and the traffic is sporadic. The view is mostly cornfields, but there are plenty of nice trees to break it up.

I forgot to say it yesterday, but Indiana seems to be the kind of place where everyone smiles and greets you. People seem quite friendly here, even when I was still basically in the Chicago suburbs. In fact, I even noticed more of this in south Chicago. Not everyone, but certain demographics were smile-and-greet kind of people. In Indiana, there are less demographics involved; people are almost uniformly friendly.