Update from Carbondale, IL!

DONE WITH KENTUCKY!
Crossed into the third state of the bike trip yesterday morning, woohooo! Lots of things to write about, but not a lot of time to write, so I'll try and cover most of it:

Today:
Woke up at the state park and rode ~5 miles into Carbondale. Spent the better part of an hour hunting down a waffle (it really shouldn't be that hard!) and eventually located one at the Corner Cafe. Went over to Phoenix Cycles, one of the three bike shops in town, and killed an hour and a half or so waiting around to eventually get to dig through a parts bin in hopes of finding an old rear hub that's the same as mine. Didn't find one, but was finally able to pick up a can of dog spice (pepper spray - not the official name of the product,) a couple new spare tubes, and some grip tape that I'm going to wrap over the exsisting tape to make my handlebars cushier. Went across the street to Carbondale Cycles (think that's the name of the place) and within minutes they had a brand new axle assembly including new cones for my hub - exactly what I needed and with labor included, it should only end up costing $25 or so! Yay for awesome bike shops! Strolled over to the library to do some updating, and here I am! Just got an email from Continental about my tire that's somewhat coming apart (not sure if I mentioned that here - not a big deal really) and it sounds like they'll be glad to replace it, so going to take care of that as well hopefully.

Yesterday:
Woke up in the Baptist Church in Sebree, KY, packed up, and went out for breakfast with Aaron and JJ. Decided to take the shortcut that we had discussed the night before, figured I'd like to get done with this trip in a reasonable amount of time to get set for school, and it's supposed to be flatter than the main route :). Got off to a moderately late start, 9:30 or 10, then rolled across some gentle terrain on to a gas station just shy of the Ohio river for lunch. Had some fun conversation with the guys working there, then headed on west! The bridge over the Ohio was a little bit sketchy, but fortunately there is a long stretch of road visible from the base of the bridge, so I was able to wait until there was a gap in traffic and zoom across pretty quickly to arrive in Illinois! The terrain on the Illinois side is very flat, and the roads have wide margins for the most part, so I ended up just tucking in and riding all the way to a state park just shy of Carbondale, IL. About 98 miles of riding, but considering the shortcut, I covered something like 140 miles of the offical route in one day. Met a motorcycle tourer, Bryant, from Texas and ended up chatting about travel stuff for a good while before bed. Nice day!

During the day, I noticed that there was a ticking sound coming from the back wheel on my bike - pretty sure it's one of the bearings in the rear hub. Long story, but I had checked it out before the trip and noticed it was getting a little worn, but wasn't able to do anything about it because of limited time and it being an old hub. I can't just replace the hub with a new one very easily as it would require converting the bike to a 9 (27) speed - quite a lot of new parts involved in that. Hoping to track down a solution in Carbondale, where there are a few bike shops - first ones in ages!

The day before yesterday:
It's hard to tell when this day really started, but we'll say it started when I woke up after finally getting an hour or so of sleep - say 7am. Groggy, not too happy, kindof hungry, and very tired. Packed up, thought about letting the air of a few people's tires, thought better of that, then headed out of the campground. Stopped at a gas station for breakfast after a couple miles - typical bacon, eggs, and gravy type breakfast. Gradually, the riding day got better and better; good weather, cool people, not too many bad drivers, and by the end of the day (~70 miles,) wonderful accomodations! There's a large baptist church in Sebree, KY that's been hosting bikers for a while now, and I managed to stay there as well! Violet, wife of preacher Bob, took me in along with JJ and Aaron, two eastbound riders. We got to shower, Violet did our laundry, we had a large space to spread out and relax, and to top it off Violet made us an excellent dinner! Good night, a very nice way to recover from the craziness of last night. Had a chance to talk with the eastbounders for a good while and got many tips about places to stay, alternate route bits, all that good stuff. Think that tomorrow I'll spend pretty much the entire day off route, but will cut off a solid 40 miles of riding by taking a more direct route to Carbondale!

The day before the day before yesterday:
Shorter day today, don't remember the milage off the top of my head, but I think it was about 60 total. Gradual rolling hills most of the day, with a heavy thunderstorm in the early afternoon. Fortunately, it was one of those very well defined thunderstorms that you can see the edge of, so I pulled into a gas station for lunch a few minutes before the sky let loose. The storm was intense, but very short, so by the time I was done eating, it had turned into a mild sporadic drizzle. Talked with some old time farmers for a while, then took off for the campground at Falls of Rough. Got there soon after leaving the gas station and reserved a campsite in what I thought was a quiet corner of the campground. Setup camp and took a nap before making dinner, then trying to go to sleep. Some local guys (~8-10 people) setup camp right next door and commenced with drinking, general roudiness, etc until sunup. Not a fun night. There was everything from friendly, but annoying, drunk people, loud talking, arguments, crying, fighting, breaking glass, more yelling, loud cars, bright lights, more annoying people, someone spraining their ankle (I got out of bed and checked it out - figured it would be good for someone with a little less alcohol in their system to see what was up - it was no biggie and they decided not to do anything about it,) blablabla. At any rate, I didn't sleep at all until a little break between 6 and 7am or something along those lines. Should've called the police early on, but honestly I kept assuming someone else already had, and I didn't have cell reception to make the call either way. Oh well.