As I said before, you don't want to read a weather report even if is the main thing we think about and experience. Today was a brilliant clear day with a stiff breeze blowing out of the northeast at about 60 degrees. We headed north along the Lake Shore bike trail. We felt like sissies, with our long tights, jackets and gloves on, and all the natives were in shorts and t-shirts.
Before too long, my rear tire gave up the ghost. A piece of green glass this time. No big deal, I have probably changed 1,000 tires in my time, as I was a bike mechanic during college. However I am very disappointed in the Bontrager tires and am switching to Continental Gatorskins.
As promised, most of the day was on bike paths.
You'd think that on the first day of the trip with absolutely no rain, all bike paths, and coming off a rest day, that we would be "biking gods". No way. Maybe it was the relentless headwinds, maybe it was the 7 miles of walking we did yesterday, but for some reason, we were both wasted. I was in doubt that we would make 40 miles for the day. However, like Lance, I will take any performance-enhancement that is available, legal or not. In this case, legal:
Yes, I ingested 2 scoops of "coffee and donut" flavored ice cream in a waffle cone, as you see advertised. Marie had Snickers-bar flavored ice cream. This was in Waukegan, Illinois at about 40 miles. This carried us another 23 miles to Kenosha, Wisconsin. We looked up bike shops to find one that carried the Continental Gatorskins tires, and I purchased and installed it there in the spot.
Of course we ended up making friends with the bike shop guys. Wherever we go now, people can see that we are traveling so they ask where we are coming from and where we are headed.
Marie was impressed with the Baha'i temple in Wilmette, Illinois:
The guy in the bike shop referred to his home town as Kenowhere, but it has a Holiday Inn Express and an Olive Garden restaurant, so I'm happy. I thought the W hotel in Chicago was a pretender (that is to say, not the Four Seasons in any way, shape or form). My feeling is that if you pay $51 for breakfast (for 2) you should get fresh-squeezed juice--or any juice, for that matter. We just watched a "Top Gear" episode where they talked about the fact that when you pay a lot of money for a car, you bring high expectations. So they rated the Lexus SC the worst car in the world, because they said that you expect Trabants and Pintos to be terrible cars so when they are, your expectations are met. Whereas no one would expect a Lexus to disappoint. I guess if you want to be impressed, lower your expectations.