Kiki Bikes Across America

Archive for June 15th, 2009

Monday, June 15th – Rest Day in Carbondale, IL

Today was a rest day / bike maintenance day for us. We got up around 9:30 and headed downtown. The guys rode their bikes down to the bike shops. I decided not to as my bike is in pretty good shape still and I figured why spend money on a tune-up if I don’t have anything wrong with it or anything that needs to be tuned-up? It seems to be riding just fine, so I don’t want to mess with it.

We then met up at Long Branch, the cafe where Rachel works. We all had breakfast down there and it was really yummy. We all had vegetarian burritos and then Rachel drove us to the movie theatre and we were an hour early before the first showing, so we walked over to Walmart and picked up some snacks to sneak into the theatre with us:) We saw Taking of Pelham 123 at 1:15 and the movie was really good and had some action. It was a good choice for a movie for the three of us, I’d say. Afterwards, we went back to Walmart to pick up a few other things. I got some terry cloths, degreaser, a new toothbrush for cleaning my chain and cassette. I then started to walk back to Rachel’s when my phone rang. It was a couchsurfer I had contacted two days prior about looking for a place to stay here. Aur is his name and he is friends with Abed (another couchsurfer) who said I should try to contact Aur since Abed was out of town. Anyway, Aur offered to give me a ride back from Walmart to Rachel’s since it was about 2 miles or so. So he gave me a ride back and then we went to the Co-Op to check out the store (it’s a small version of Whole Foods). I picked up some trail mix and dates because I love them and they looked really good!

Then I walked back to Rachel’s and started working on my bike. I replaced my brakes on both wheels and cleaned my chain, crank, and cassette pretty well. It was black beforehand and now it’s shiny and silver again. It was pretty gunky, but it’s much better now. I just did a general cleaning of my bike including the rims and tubing too. It’s in good shape now for the next 1,000 miles.

I came back inside and showered and then started updating my receipts/expenses in my spreadsheet, updated the biking log I’m keeping for statistics and averages and such. Now I’m finishing up blogs and now going to head down to Denny’s (courtesy of a gift card from Michele), so will be enjoying some dinner down there and then probably go sneak some internet from the co-op and sit outside on the bench while I use it.

I started to look at our maps for Missouri and it looks like we’ll be in Pittsburg, Missouri by Sunday evening (21st) next week. It’s almost 411 miles from here to there, and with the Ozarks to start climbing over, but I think it’s doable. I need to get an address for a post office there to have mom mail me my insurance card for my new health insurance, so hopefully I can call tomorrow and get some info on that.

Anyway, enough for today – pretty decent rest day, especially since it rained this morning and was overcast/dreary this afternoon.