Day 16
Madison, IN to Dry Ridge, KY

Today was set to be decent day. I wanted to ride from Madison to Concord to Kincaid Lake State Resort. This was about 85 or so miles of ups and downs. Today was a bit of a disaster. I woke up around 4 or 5am feeling super hot, I was on fire with a fever. I was able to get back to sleep and around 6 when my alarm went off I was feeling super duper under the weather. If I were home I would have called in sick, shut the blinds and stayed in bed. I was wishing I were at home. This was the first time on the trip, I really wanted to be home. I got up and got ready, I tried for a minute to pretend like I felt fine when I went downstairs to greet Bob and Charlotte. I didn’t want to be the party pooper guest but it was impossible for me to fake being chipper. I felt crummy. They were pretty insistent that I should stay there but I told them I wanted to ride. Bob even suggested he drive me all the way to my next nights stay if I didn’t want to stay at their house, I’m pretty sure if I said I wanted a ride to Cincinnati he would have totally driven me all the way there. That’s just the kind of people that they are. I insisted on riding. Charlotte chopped up an orange and zip lock baggied it, and gave me bananas and snacks to take with me. Bob did talk me into grabbing a ride for about 10 miles with him across the bridge and just outside town because he said the road gets pretty busy with semi’s in the morning commute time and the bridge can be bad as well. Usually I would just ride it but today I felt so crappy and agreed that not having to deal with that may be a good thing. He drove me down the road a bit, we unloaded my bike and I pedaled off. It was apparent pretty quickly that I for sure was not going to make it to my intended destination. I considered stopping when I hit Buttler State Park which was only a few miles from where I was dropped off. I thought maybe I’ll just pitch my tent, curl up and sweat it out till tomorrow. But my fierce determination pushed me to keep going which was a mistake. Another 15 miles down the road I reached my max for crappy feeling. I had to stop. I was barely pedaling and yet was dripping with sweat. I was parallel to railroad tracks and there was a little mini platform jutting out from the tracks with a little operator booth on it. Booth was locked but I could hear the radio in there. Nobody was around. Some woman stopped her car to chat with me after I stopped and I pretended like I was taking a break and getting snacks out. She was drinking her 40 in her car. After chatting for a bit she wished me luck and drove off. I was so happy to see her go and I could stop pretending like I didn’t feel like death. I stashed my bike and crawled under the train operator platform. It was hot out and I was already profusely sweating so I needed shade and I wanted to be out of sight of the road so nobody would stop to talk. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and feel sorry for myself for just a little bit and think about what to do. I was kicking myself for not staying at Bob and Charlotte’s house. I also knew that if I called them, there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind, they would come get me and wouldn’t even act as if it were an inconvenience. I pulled out my phone to set an alarm, I was going to give myself about 40 minutes then see how I felt. My phone kept freezing and I had trouble setting a timer. Then the phone rebooted a few times. It was crapping out on me when I needed it most. I hoped I didn’t need to call for help, this was the worst timing for my phone to poop out on me. I curled in a ball and rested my head and shoulder on the pole next to me and shut my eyes for a bit. Eventually, I started to feel better. I slowly emerged from beneath the platform back out into the world. This timing was impeccable because in my fog I failed to consider if a train came down the tracks how deafening that location would be. I heard the toot of a horn in the distance. I gathered my stashed bike and ever so slowly pedaled back down the highway. My phone still wasn’t working properly but I was able to finally get it to boot up. My new destination was Dry Creek campground. I needed to make it about 20 miles. I progressively felt better as I pedaled on. (Thank goodness!!!) For a minute under the platform I wondered (dramatically) if I were going to die under there, I felt so ill and my phone wouldn’t work. How long till someone would find me… (Doh! Parents don’t read that part)

I reached Dry Creek in remarkably good time considering the day I had. I stopped to grab bite to eat and while texting a friend my phone completely went black. Would not turn on. Would not charge. Nothing. Dead to the world. Given the day, I had realized how important it would be for me to have a phone. Dry Creek had a Walmart so I went over there to see what phone options they had. I was able to get a pay as you go phone that I could at least make calls on. In theory it had some internet functions but good luck getting them to work. At least I could call for help (assuming the service wasn’t as bad as the internet). I really needed my iphone. Aside from paper maps, this was my navigation. I rode over to the campground to setup camp. After I setup, Ewing, who was staying in an RV next to where I was camping came over to chat. He owns his own trucking business and is in the process of moving so he was staying at the campground temporarily. He was crazy nice! He asked if I have GPS or how I route and I told him my sob story about my phone today. He went to his truck and pulled out his old iphone and told me if I could swap the sim cards and charge it up (his charger wasn’t working) I could have that one and hopefully make it work for me. Who does that?!?! He straight gave me his old iphone. Wanting nothing in return. This was crazy. How am I meeting all these amazing people?  

I was curious how his trucking business works and bidding and how he gets jobs. He showed me his computer system in his RV. His RV was setup like a traveling office with computer, printers, etc. He showed me his booking and bidding system, it was pretty rad to see how it works. Ewing has kids, grandkids and had been spending a lot of time out in Florida with his son and granddaughter and now back in Kentucky near his other kids. Ewing was great company for the evening and a pleasant ending to the awful day I had.