Stage 13 - Fillmore

It's a heavy load. It's a trail of tears.

The miles are starting to take their toll on my body and my mind.

Here's a list of what hurts; legs, butt, shoulders, triceps, neck, upper back, mid-back, lower back, head. Other than that I'm feeling pretty good.

It now takes about 30 miles for my legs to loosen up and by then they're tired.

Today's route was similar to yesterday's other than I gave most of the towns a wide berth to add a few more miles. It was again hot and windy.

Because of Wisconsin's brutal winters, the road surfaces around these parts frequently crack and separate. Pot holes are not uncommon. The usual remedy is for the highway department to apply what is called 'chip and seal' to fill in the holes and gaps. This does not mean that the road surface is level however, and what it does mean to a cyclist is a bone-jarring ride. I'm surprised that I've got any teeth left.

All the roads that I biked today where like that, with one exception; Fillmore Road. Talk about presidential. The road was wide, perfectly smooth and completely empty except for yours truly.

The town of Fillmore however, was not so special. One church and two taverns. Typical Wisconsin.

Now if you're like me, you don't know much about our thirteenth President, Millard Fillmore. One thing that we can know, is that his childhood dreams probably did not include getting a rural road and a dumpy town in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin named after him. Such are the whims of history.

Here is one Fillmore fact with which to impress your friends; he became President when Zachary Taylor died from, of all things, indigestion (unless you are a conspiracy theorist in which case you'll believe that it was intentional arsenic poisoning).

I'm riding down the road in the middle of nowhere. A car drives by and I note the Wisconsin plate. "Hey!", I think, "Someone from Wisconsin!" It was the feeling you get when you've been on a long road trip and you're in Kansas or Pennsylvania and you see a Wisconsin plate and you get excited because it's a little bit of home.

The euphoria passes when I realize that I'm only 30 miles from home. There's a sign post ahead. Next stop, the Twilight Zone.

I have been feeling a little beside myself the last few days. Really. Beside myself, as in, next to. It's as if I'm not quite 'in' my own skin. The sensation is one of watching myself do whatever it is that I'm doing, as I'm doing it. A bit detached.

I sure hope it's just fatigue or lack of sleep. In any event, it's weird.

I needed 54 miles today and I put in 60. I've now got 99 miles in the bank. We'll see what I have after tomorrow and Sunday, when I need a two day total of 132 miles.

Since I had my head down for most of the ride I didn't get a chance to observe anything beautiful today. The only good moment was unclipping from my bike at the end of the ride.

I did get a chance to clean the bike, finally. So as my head was down I did notice how pretty it is. I guess the fact that I haven't gotten to the point of hating the bike is somewhat positive.