Welcome to the Land of Susan! (and Lincoln): “You’d better get out as fast as you can”

(Susan here)

I know just about everyone in the world is sick of us talking endlessly about headwinds and tailwinds, but the degree to which they make a difference is huge. Riding in the car with Rachel in Bloomington, it was amazing to think, OK, I have no idea which way the wind is blowing right now and neither do these other drivers and it really doesn’t matter.

Today was a great illustration of the importance of winds, because they were out of the SW all day–because we rode north and then turned to the west, we got to experience both a headwind and a tailwind on the same day. From an average of 14 mph, we dropped to something that approached 5 for huge stretches of time in between Crawfordsville and Perrysville, IN, when the winds were the strongest in our face. It was really awful. We were in the saddle for about 7 hours, the longest we’ve spent since traveling from Pittsburgh to Wheeling. It was also probably our most physically exhausting day since then, too. But–at least it wasn’t raining and there was no danger of hypothermia, although it did stray a bit too far in the other direction, thermia-wise. Our sweet bikers’ tans are developing impressively.

So our plan for completing a century and getting to Urbana did not quite pan out. Instead, we’re stuck in Danville, IL tonight, a city that, to say the least, has seen better days.

On the way into town, we were waiting at a stoplight when a dude in a pickup truck leaned out the window and asked us about our trip. As everyone has been, he was really friendly and enthusiastic, but then he ended the conversation at the green light like this:

“Welcome to Danville! You’d better get out as fast as you can. There ain’t nothin’ here!”

He was right. For a city of its physical size, Danville actually contains what seems like nearly no commercial activity and very few occupied residential buildings. All the demolished stretches of downtown give it a rather post-apocalyptic air; I was happy that we could finish dinner in time to make it back to the motel before dark.

Tomorrow morning we’re getting up super early and hitting the road towards the west, which should bring us to our friends’ Su and Martin’s house in Urbana well before lunch. I’ve been friends with Su since the first day of 6th grade. She’s nine months pregnant with her second child and I’m really happy that we’ve made such good time that we’re actually hitting Urbana a couple weeks before her due date. The winds will be strong all morning, but out of the south. Hopefully we can average at least 12 on this nice flat terrain.