Chicago-Champaign

We arrived in Chicago at Millenium Park Friday to greetings from several family members and friends of the team. After snapping a few pictures in front of "The Bean"--a polished chunk of bean-shaped metal in downtown Chicago--we organized our bikes for travel to Homewood in the van, and I left with Allison and Mike to attend a wedding of one of Mike's high school friends.

Mike's mother picked us up from the train station in Lisle in a very well maintained '91 White Cadillac, which I became enamored with for its retro electronic displays, plush leather interior, massive size, and general air of American sophistication. After showering, I borrowed some ill-fitted clothes from Mike and tagged along to a small wedding at which I knew no one. The wedding, quite honestly, was tacky and beautiful. The tackiness was due to the ceremony itself in which some rather mundane vows were taken ("I know that I will hurt you, but I promise not to do it intentionally." I assume the vows were written or modified by the bride and groom who seemed to desire an air of dreamy informality.) and in which a guitar-strumming, flower-child rendition of "All You Need Is Love," was played for the recessional hymn. The beauty was provided by the arboretum of Lisle, and I am dissapointed not to have been to explore the park more. Instead, I had a few drinks, talked to a few people, listened to some nervous speeches, and finally broke it down on the dance floor but only with the greatest self-conciousness. It was obvious that Mike, Allison, and I were outsiders, but none of that stopped us from putting on a show for the fifty or so guests.

The following day I drove from Homewood to Chebanse. I met Hatim who drove a second support vehicle, an almost-member of the team, and an excellent conversationalist. We spoke at length about religion, particularly Islam and Christianity, and I was thankful to have spent a day with another person interested in serious intellectual affairs. The breaks between conversation I filled by improvising routes and providing water and food for the team. Driving the support vehicle was more busy than I anticipated, but I still don't care much for it, simply because a day-off breaks the routine of riding, physically and psychologically. Arriving in Chebanse to the hospitality of Jon's family was refreshing, and they provided us with perhaps the best meal yet on the trip.

Yesterday, we rode from Chebanse to Champaign, and the course was boring. Illinois is mostly a homogenous landscape of field after field. The wind blew from the west, and the monotony of pedaling through a plain region with the steady rush of air through our ears was broken only by the guest riders. Several alumni traveled with us from Homewood to Champaign, and their temporary presence on the team gave us a break from ourselves. Even more riders joined us for the last leg (~15mi) into Champaign, where a welcome party had assembled at the Alumni Center. All in all, it was a solid day of riding that felt more familiar than any of our previous days.

One story of note is drawn from an experience near Paxton. We stopped at a gas station in this tiny town to fill our bottles and wait for the arrival of the caboose. While waiting, a long-haired, hoary man pulled up to the station on a lawn-mower. The hood of the machine was held fast by a bungee-cord, and the local parked in a spot reserved for cars. While he went about his business inside, another man pulled up in a maroon BMW-convertible, and despite the other available parking locations, he stationed his car directly behind the lawn-mower. The most perplexed expression remained upon his face as he stared at the lawnmower and moved his car back and forth a few inches at a time. He paused for what must have been three minutes, and during the entirety of the episode, the contortion of his visage remained as in stone. Then, suddenly, without apparent reason, he sped off down the highway, accelerating at a rate high enough to burn the rubber from his tires. A few minutes later, the owner of the lawn-mower stepped out of the station store with a case of Bud in his hand and spoke with us about our trip for a minute or two before giving us a $3 donation. He flirted for a few minutes with what appeared to be another local, a middle-aged woman who drove a real car, and then put the beer on his grass-cutter and putted off at 5mph across the adjacent railroad tracks. I, with Anish and Jon, stood silent.