Love from the Cheese state

hello all,

I just spent about 45 minutes wriitng this and the stupid library computer erased it-so imagine you are reading the most amazing and poetic post of your life while you read what I have left in me to give.

I can't believe I'm in Wisconsin already. The time just keeps rolling by. I get to see my dad tomorrow on his birthday and some other family members-and I have a day off, which is something my soul and body crave.

We woke up at 4:30 am yesterday so we would have time to peruse Chicage when we got there. We had true Chicago pizza, which put my friends and I into a food coma that made the last half of the day miserable until we met an angel dressed as a Marathon gas station attendent. He refused to let us pay for our slurpees and bade us off with free lemonade.

In my previous post (that is lost forever), I was trying to describe how it felt on the bike.

...

Some days are more poetic than others. Some rides are kind of Zen-like. I get real familiar with that white line on the road for miles, and I don't realize what's surrounding me until the fields have changed into rolling hills with houses in them. Other days I'm looking up and taking in everything-the gray cat playing in the corn fields, the orange butterfly playing in the grass, the gardeners up early to water the grass.

The smallest thing can change my mood. Today was open sky, golden fields and corn. There were these pavender-periwinkle wildflowers sprinkled along the side of the road. The overcast light made them dull but just bright enough to stick out over everything else and make me smile.

And these days, I have never been so happy to see a church.

I fell of fmy bike for the first time the other day, but I'm fine. A big semi came speeding from the opposite way and blew up a bunch of dust and gravel. It brought my friend to a stop and me slamming into her. Luckily she jumped off her bike and was fine, although her bike met a different fate-my handlebars were stuck in her spokes and her back wheel had to be retired. It all worked out though, because when we got to the bike store they gave her a $400 wheel for $35 since it was a wheel they used for demos. A possible tragedy turned good.

While in Ft. Wayne we saw a drag show-the worst one looked a lot like Howard Stern and the best shouldn't have been performing in a little bar in Indiana. The next night we enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean II at a drive-in. Sleeping bags, light bugs and M&Ms, mmm.

My body aches, but I'm learning to listen to it and strech it the right way.

Love from a woman wearing spandex in a library in Jainesville, WI,

Happy July 4th

So I just realized tomorrow is July 4th. People I meet keep telling me to enjoy the holiday and I had no idea what they were talking about. I told you, my days keep melting into one and I can't keep track of the day of the week or the date. But, now that I know, I'll be in Bowling Green, Ohio camping out under the stars, watching some spectacular fireworks show, I'm sure. Tonight I get to sleep in a bed, which is quite luxurious compared to a thermarest and sleeping bag on a church community floor. Tonight we're in Avon Lake, Ohio overlooking the magnificent Lake Erie in home stays. My friend Aviva and I by some luck got the sweetest family of them all. Harry the hugger (who resembles and occasionally dresses up like Santa Clause) and Johanna and their grandson Matt are our host family. They have a honey house, meaning a bunch of bees nested in their ceiling and when it gets real hot honey drips from the ceiling into a bucket on the floor.





Over the last couplle of days we flew through the last bit of New York (after stopping at Niagara Falls-entering from the Canadian side), sped through Pennsylvania in a couple of hours, and landed in Ohio. The unofficial count is a total of 850 miles.



Now let me give you my run down of these states. Our last two days in New York were filled with rain, which is nice as long as it doesn't hail on you (which it did) and as long as you're not biking on a highway (which is illegal) while constuction was going on (which we also did-a cop pulled us over to inform us that pedestrians, bicycles and horse-drawn carriages were not allowed on it). So basically that day sucked. And my friend got a flat and we sat there fixing it on the side of the road in the rain (luckily my raincoat was safely tucked away and dry in the van).



Despite everything in New York, I got to see my friend Beth who lives in Rochester. She cooked falafels for me and fed me wine. It was the most amazing meal of my life. We also worked on a habitat for humanity house there, and it was really great to see how much of the community was involved. I cleared land, cut out a window opening, put siding in and installed insulation. It felt so good to not be sitting on my bike.



As we left New York and headed to Pennsylvania, the headwind made us feel as if we weren't moving forward at all. In fact, sometimes I think we actually went backwards. We were along Lake Erie, which reminded me so much of the ocean (especially because the whitecaps from the wind) but we were fighting every minute. I kept praying that it wouldn't be windy in Ohio (even though I know state borders are a crock), and somehow, a couple of hours late, ithe wind really did die down in Ohio. What a glorious state.



Niagara Falls was beautiful by the way. It was strange how it was surrounded by casinos and big theme-rides that reminded me of disney world and distracted from the falls, but it was fun nonetheless. We got lost walking our 1 mile back to the church and took a 2 hour detour through the ghetto of Niagara on the US side, which was kind of sad. All the stores were closed up and the houses were rundown.



It's almost 10 and my head is nodding. good nite



jess