Day 27: I Hate Popeye

We slipped off the official route leaving Carbondale, onto Highway 13 — it looked like the obvious shortcut and turned out to be one, shaving off a few miles before the day had properly started. Another 95-plus scorcher was already stacking up, so the sunblock came out thick, though it’s doing precious little against the farmer’s tan by this point. My hands are the real comedy now — brown wrist, then a stripe of pale where the glove sits, then brown again past the knuckles, like I’ve been dipped twice and missed a spot.

Nice shoulder on our short cut

Terry had left before the rest of us, chasing the cool of early morning. Joe and I had an alternate option on the map — a levee route running along the Mississippi, flat where the official road wasn’t. Michael had warned us the night before it might be washed out after yesterday’s flash flooding, but an email from Cooper that morning said it was clear, so we took the gamble. It paid off. Nothing I’ve ridden on this whole trip has been easier — flood plains stretching flat on both sides, not a hill in sight.

Of course, easy never lasts. The last eleven miles into Chester — home, proudly, of Popeye — turned into a coal truck highway with no shoulder to speak of, eighteen-wheelers thundering past close enough to pull us sideways in their draft. I counted something like twenty separate near-death experiences inside half an hour. Rolling into town offered no relief either; they let those same trucks barrel straight up Main Street. The whole place is plastered with Popeye murals, on nearly every wall you look at, and between the trucks and the spinach iconography, Joe and I agreed without much debate that this was the worst place either of us had been on the whole ride. We caught up with some of the ACA group there and found them shaken — Joyce had been clipped by one of the trucks and decided, right then, that she was done with the ride entirely. The sheriff came out to take her report while Michael got straight on the phone to Adventure Cycling to have the route changed before anyone else got hurt.

But it’s funny how the worst days find a way to turn themselves around by evening. We ended up at the Fraternal Order of Eagles, who let touring cyclists camp free on their grounds — the American answer, more or less, to a working men’s club back home, complete with a proper bar, a couple of pool tables, and screens tuned to the World Cup. We pitched our tents out back and spent the evening inside over food and beer, watching the highlights. Given how the day started, I’ll take it.