55 Miles Seems Short These Days

The 55 miles today seemed like they went by in the blink of an eye. We started out around 7:30 and cruised the county roads, reaching Rough River Dam campground around 12:30. We actually entered Central Time Zone, making it only 11:30 and giving us an extra hour in our day. I guess you could say we time traveled today.

After lunch in the lodge, I set up camp, took a shower, then crawled into my tent to take a nap. Not sleeping well is catching up with me, and my eyes just wanted to close for awhile. The heat, the humidity, people riding bikes past, people setting up tents, and the sweat tricking down the sides of my face made it impossible to really snooze. I know I nodded off at one point. I was in that floating, dreaming space of not hearing anything, but it only lasted a few minutes at most. You'd think with all the riding and the heat I'd sleep like a rock each night, but no, I stare at the top of my tent or end up pulling out the tablet to read a book. Once I do fall asleep, my dreams take on a life of their own, scaring me or making me feel so sad, like the one of my Beautiful, Lovely Daughter telling me she never wanted to talk to me again. I think that came about because of my sadness over not being home when she arrives from China this week.

Kentucky is slipping by quickly. In just a couple of days, I'll be in Illinois, close to home. It took us 15 hours to drive to Yorktown, and now, 19 days later, I'll be a mere 5 hours away from my own bed. The temptation to just say I'm done, I'm going home, is strong, and to some degree, it would have made much more sense for me to say I would do the ride to Carbondale as getting home from there would be so much easier than getting home from San Fran. But the part of the country that I really, really want to see is Colorade, Utah, Nevada, and California. What I've seen so far from the bike has been truly beautiful. What I've yet to see will be even more so, I'm thinking.

At least I get to see my boys in Carbondale. That will be like the breath of freshness I'll need to get my second wind and continue on.

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