Halloween!

We will be taking an off day in Knoxville, TN for Halloween. If we're lucky, we might see a SEC football game. If we're not, we will still be dressed to kill in our sweet costumes. We will then attempt the Great Smoky Mountains tomorrow with fresh legs and a fresh hangover.

Pictures to follow soon.

Jerseys and Attacking Animals

Dave currently holds all jerseys. Doping rumors continue to circulate among the tour participants as neither competitor has been the victim of random drug testing.

Dogs attack at every house, so we have been forced to redefine attacking animals. Epic sprints to state borders have resulted in some missed opportunities for Justin, and a huge mental lapse right before the Kentucky border most likely sealed the green jersey for Dave. The only hope is more llamas, which Dave cannot spot for some reason. Justin also picked up the first dinosaur of the trip with a beautiful 20 foot triceratops for three points.

Liquifacton: A day of Torrential Downpour

Indiana is not the friendliest place in the world. It's a lot less friendly when it rains on you for 8 hours. This was our first rain day, and it ended in ridiculous fashion. We hit some road construction, roads with no shoulders, and puddles in the road that bordered on the label lakes or rivers. We were a mandatory ride to the Kentucky border with no places to stay in sight. Day had turned into night quicker than normal because the storm that rained on us all day blocked the setting sun. This was the new scariest moment of the trip. It was also the wettest I have ever been with clothes on my body since I fell into a creek when I was five years old. On that day, I remember my parents despartely running towards my friends and the creek thinking that I had been swept away. I can only imagine they would do something similar in this situation.

And then we were saved. A man named Steve flagged us down on the side of the road. Steve is a retired geologist. He lookes for liquifaction that is caused by old earthquakes, so people do not build nuclear power plants on top of a fault line. Before we met Steve, we were deep in the world of a different kind of liquifaction.

Our savior had a farn house less than one mile away. Steve cooked us warm vegetable soup with ingredients from his garden, let us use his dryer, and his shower had the best water pressure I have experienced in quite some time. He certainly saved the day. Flapjacks and eggs in the morning provided the needed fuel for the sprint to Kentucky.

The First Bad Day

The day started as a Monday. Normally days of the week, dates, and even time make no difference. We have not had a chance to update the blog in a long time, and we just entered eastern time. Today time does something different and we gain an hour? I really have no idea. Regardless, this day started as a Monday.

I was out of it from the beginning. Our first stop was a new breakfast at a Hampton Inn. This was a business a hotel. We are not business men. We silently ate our eggs, toast, and muffins next to man with a finely pressed shirt tucked into his khaki pants. His eyes occasionally strayed from the Wall Street Journal to the television as Jim Cramer babbled about new corporations, the S & P, and inflation. The man was clueless to the fact that his neighbors just slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot, were living out of trailers connected to bicycles, and were about to ride 100 miles to another home yet to be determined. The only thing we had in common was the free breakfast.

We started the ride heading south into a head wind and deeper into the midwest and eventually the south. I could not help but notice the pounds starting to pile up on the people surrounding us with accents thickening. The friendly waives of Nebraska and Iowa slowly turned into dumb looks and disapproval.

My mind quickly entered the dangerous subjects of relationships, friends, debt, jobs, and the other life that I have been ignoring. These are all of the things a person in their mid-20's tries to figure out and probably never will. I usually ride without an ipod, but no ipod turned into one headphone and then eventually to two headphones as the sounds of Band of Horses, Jimi Hendrix, and My Morning Jacket tried to get me through the day.

My mind continued to jump from topic to topic with no real answers. Suddenly, the wind shifted. I thought the funk had ended and maybe the tide had turned. I was wrong. We had just missed all of the places to eat in our lunch town and we were now in the terrible world of car repair, farm machinery, and the last landmark of a town - the landfill. We just road 6 miles in the wrong direction. We had no choice but to ride the same six miles and go back to our turn for a total distance of misc. (or miss) miles.

The day finally ended at a flooded campground on the edge of the Illinois/Indiana border. Surprisingly, we stil managed close to 100 miles. I hoped the next day would be better and the great state of Indiana would bring a better ride.

Continental Kings and the Next Generation

With population sizes rapidly picking up as we head into the east we have been forced to develop new camping strategies. Wal-mart has been our latest discovery, providing oversized parking areas with well trimed fenced in grass, wal-mart is a good place to camp in towns big enough to have one.

Over the weekend we were lucky enough to meet up with my uncle, Marcello. We quickley adopted the method of motor-pacing, as the winds have picked up in the open farm lands of Illinois. Being a former cyclist himself, Marcello was used to riding behind the car, not driving. The highlight of the weekend came that night after we checked into the hotel room. Being a Chicago native, March knows how to eat, and he brought us itallian beef from Portillos. It was quite the treat and we passed the night drinking beer and reminiscing about our trip thus far and some of March's experiences on the track. Luckely he went over some of his horific crashes from motor-pacing after we were safely in the hotel.

Crossing the Old Man

We left Iowa City and our good friends behind only to experience the thick of the storm and massive down pour. Before we left, we ate at my old dorm Hillcrest (a.k.a H-Block). H-Block delivered big with Hawkeye waffles and a buffet that included breakfast sandwiches, 10 choices of cereals, chocolate pancakes, muffins, and a variety of other foods that would provide the necessary fuel to take us into Illinois.

We crossed the Mississippi River with important sprint points up for grabs. Dave made an unecessary delay on a left turn, and I took complete advantage. My first sucessful attack in a long time put me in the Land of Lincoln well ahead of the slower Dave Palazzo. Unfortunately, Dave picked up some attacking animal points just before the border when a dog made a silent attack but was easily outrun by the cyclists. The attacking animals are getting smarter.

We road into the rain when a nice women stopped us and offered her home as a place to stay. After a short debate, we decided to continue to another 25 miles towards another town in order to take advantage fo a brisk tail wind. We arrived at our overnight town well past dark, wet and tired. Camping spots were nowhere to be found. Hotels were pricy as elementary aged gymnists flock into small-town Illinois for an important tournament.

We continued through town looking for a city park or anywhere for a place to sleep. But then we saw it. It was like a beacon of freedom glistening in the night illuminating the town with capitalism and low prices - always. Yes, Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart provided the pefect camp ground. We found a nice spot in the corner of the parking lot well out away from customers. The local high school football team was playing close to our camp site. We quickly set up shop, and I slowly dozed off to the sounds of marching drums, the winner of the 50/50 split ticket, and the occasional screams from high school girls as they cheered on their boyfriends in 40 degree temps and steady rain.

This morning we left our Wal-Mart heaven for a nearby hotel where we poached the free breakfast and managed to update the blog you just read over a warm cup of tea and a steaming hot waffle.

The Kenworthy Factor and the Man-Made Vortex

We left Des Moines and headed towards Iowa City with the help of Adam Kenworthy. You may remember Adam from such blogs as "Special Thanks." Adam motor-paced us all of the way to my alma mater and the home of the undefeated Iowa Hawkeyes.

Motor-pacing is a special form of cheating where you follow within inches of a rapidly moving vehicle. The massive draft allows cyclists to mainatin high speeds. We made it the 107 miles to Iowa City averaging well into the mid 20's, which included speed bursts over 40 mph. We made the journey in a little over four hours.

Iowa City is a great town with great people. The weather was terrible with rain all day. Because we we were with such great people and still feeling some negative post Gutter Ball effets, we settled on yet another off day. The off day ended with a few beers and Dave dancing with the local belly dancer. Unfortunately, photographing Fajita was prohibited.