Day 36 - 7/13/16 Chicago to Park Ridge, IL

I only learned about Bob a year ago.  My friend, Mike met him while they were both teaching English in Taiwan.  I never would've met Bob in person if my knees didn't fail me on my attempt to walk across the country.  Being home for another 2 months worked out perfectly to meet this friend of a friend.  When I finally met him face to face, he had a box of donuts in his hand.  If you ever want to make a good first impression, bring a box of donuts.  Bob is the reason I'm in Park Ridge, Illinois.  

I guess you can say he lives here but, he's out on a road trip to potenially find a new city or town to make his home – part of the reason I met him in Boston on the first place.  So I'm just here with his parents, Jim and Ellen and their dogs, Mia and Mickey.  They're just very kind people, have a great collection of music, books, and artwork, and are also open-minded considering they're letting me spend a couple days here only having met their son once.  I can see why Bob is such a great dude, his parents have been guiding him in the right direction all along.  Over pizza and beers I talked about my life and my trip thus far and they filled me in on all the great family backpacking adventures they've had over the years.  We discussed some similarities between Boston and Chicago; we're both about a 20 minute drive from our homes to our cities which is kind of funny.  Illinois is feeling like some sort of parallel universe in relation to my home.  Especially since I've spent so much time here compared to anywhere else on my trip.  

Do places just start to feel like home once our mental maps develope a bit further after we've spent a few days in one spot?  I assume it's because I really like this place as well.  Maybe it's just all the donuts... All I know is I can say I love Chicago now.

Day 35 - Chicago to Chicago, IL

No, it's not a typo and neither was yesterday's post.  I don't want to call these 'off days' because I'm technically riding and ending up in a different place for the night but, it just happens to be in the same city.  I did mention I'd be slowing things down but, it's almost time to pick things back up again!  I don't know what I'm more excited about, seeing my friends or continuing my trip. 

 

I guess these things have to happen in a certain order so, friends it is!  But man, am I ready to have a nice long day of riding.  I'm even more stoked after looking at some photos from Neil's first bike tour.  I'm staying with him and his girlfriend, Rett tonight.  Neil has plenty of experience with cycling and doing multi-week tours but, Rett just learned to ride a bike within the last 3 years and went on an 800 mile ride from Chicago to Skaneateles, NY!  

If that's not motivation to go out, try something new and push yourself, I don't know what is.  Numbering the days like I've been doing has been a very handy tool for keeping this long, strange trip somewhat organized.  It's nice to be able to go back and see what happened when and where and how many days and miles away things are from here and now.  When I try to think about what has happened without this trusty journal, the timeline seems like a tangled cord that I can't straighten out for the life of me.  Traveling day after day, seeing different things all the time, meeting new people does something to your perception of time.  

Neil even touched on that aspect of touring.  For him, after about 3 weeks on the road, a different mindset starts to set in.  I have the same feeling – you just become untethered, free from any set schedule other than taking care of your own needs as they come.  Not everyone has the opportunity to adopt this kind of lifestyle so I need to embrace the lack of structure and see what it can teach me.  Day after day, I feel more and more grateful and blessed for the situation I'm in.

 

There is no end in sight, no job or home waiting for me on the other side.  Every day is its own adventure when you're on the road (even if it's just for 10 miles) but someday, I don't care when, I will take the bags off my bike and have a place to leave them while I go out abd ride in a neighborhood I can call my own.

Day 34 - 7/11/16 Chicago to Chicago, IL

Is there anything better than waking up in the middle of a beautiful city where a short walk around the corner brings you to fresh coffee and donuts?  I'm only 26 so there might be but, for now this is the best thing I can think of.  The place is called Do-Rite Donuts and the name says it all.  I ate a strawberry rhubarb and a pistachio donut.  Flavors like these aren't readily available at home so it was a particularly joyful experience.  As I sat outside, alternating delicious bite with delicious sip, watching people hurry off to work, I made some friends.  

Maybe half a dozen sparrows perched on chairs and tables hoping for a crumb to fall.  I'm just glad they were polite enough to wait for the crumbs to be on the ground before swooping in rather than eating right out of my hand.  

I checked into my first hostel in the early afternoon after a short bike ride along the lakefront trail.  Lincoln Park, where the Getaway Chicago Hostel stands, reminds me of Somerville – neighborhoods with tightly fitted, older homes stemming off main roads with Mexican food and bars and little grocery shops.  

I had a few places on my list to visit in the area but, I got completely sidetracked after meeting Jeremy, a younger dude from Canada that's been driving around the U.S. for a few months now.  Then the two of us ended up on the patio with a half dozen or so other travelers staying at the hostel.  By the end of the night our group had doubled in size.  

The whole environment just reminded me of college – the community space and kitchen, the shared bedrooms with bunk beds and most people not knowing one another.  And the cigarettes, everybody was rolling their own cigarettes (except me, it seemed).  I met people from Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, The Netherlands, North Carolina, and even a dude that was born and raised in Chicago.  What a fun night.  It was great hearing and sharing stories of how we all ended up in Chicago and where our next stop will be.

Day 33 - 7/10/16 Palos Hills to Chicago, IL

My friend Max really set me up for a good time in the Windy City.  Not only did he compile a list of pizza and donut places for me to visit, he also used his hotel rewards points to get me a swanky room right in the heart of downtown.  

I felt like Ferris Bueller rolling up to the city seeing the buildings getting bigger and bigger until they surrounded me.  

I followed the bike path right along Lake Michigan where I even saw a kid wearing a "Save Ferris" t-shirt.  Cities are all very similar.  The architecture varies a bit but they use all the same materials.  

You can find the same sorts of attractions: museums, zoos, sports stadiums, shops, restaurants, public parks.  Visiting a city for the first time, all these never-before-seen features seem familiar in a way –

 

like deja vu or the slightest memory of a dream but, it's real life.  My mental map of Chicago has been slowly developing as I've been traveling from restaurant to park to bar to jazz club.  

There are times when I feel like I've been here and then I remember, this is Chicago, I've never walked these streets before.  And what's even more surreal is I rode here on my bike.

Day 32 - 7/9/16 Gary, IN to Palos Hills, IL

Yesterday's ride was tough.  On top of it being hot, I rode along Rt. 12 which felt like riding on the side of an interstate.  Luckily, I didn't have to ride too far. I don't know how much more Rt. 12 I could ride on.  

To make getting off that busy street all the better, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was right off the street I turned onto.  I didn't even have to think, that blue water of Lake Michigan hypnotized me and pulled me in like an undertow, still wearing all my riding clothes.  

The water was perfect, just what I needed to help me ride the last mile to Edward and Monica's house. 

Today's ride wasn't so great either.  I rolled through some not-so-glamorous neighborhoods in Gary, IN but, the worst part of the ride was going through some very industrial parts of the outer city.  

The sites and the smells and the roads were all disappointments to my senses but, at least it was a flat ride.  My destination was Palos Hills today, a suburb Southwest of Chicago.  Alex and his girlfriend, Tiffany took me on a groovy ride through some wooded trails to the nearby brewery.  

How great it must be to live in a neighborhood with quiet streets and backyards close to wooded trails that lead you to beer and just a short drive or train ride to the heart of the city.  

I guess it reminds me a little of Stoneham. With a short list of suggested places to visit that we formulated over some jazz and breakfast, I was more than ready and beyond excited to ride into Chicago.

Day 31 - 7/8/16 Michigan City to Gary, IN

Today marks one month of being out on the road.  Time is just going by so quickly but that always happens this time of year.  I think I would be right on the money in terms of getting to Portland, Oregon by September if I didn't have this amazing opportunity to spend a chunk of time in Chicago.  I'll gladly be late if it means getting to explore a new city with some of my best friends from home.  I have made all the arrangements in terms of places to stay from now until Monday, July 18th, the day after Pitchfork Music Fest, and the day my friends head back East and I continue to head West, starting the second half of my trip (although, I'll still be less than halfway once I leave Chicago).  

A 20 mile ride is still waiting for me today as I write this.  I actually backtracked a little to visit a coffee shop 3 miles East of the motel I stayed in last night.  I've just got a lot of time to get to the next stop in Gary, Indiana where my host, Edward lives a short walk from the shores of Lake Michigan.  These short rides are nice but, I feel better about eating my weight in peanut butter sandwiches when I actually break 50 miles on a day's ride.  Soon enough I'll be exhausted and starving in the Western, more barren half of the country so I guess I can enjoy this vacation within a vacation as much as possible – I'm certainly looking forward to it!  I just have to say it again how appreciative I am of all the good people I've met that have fed me and given me a place to stay in this first month – this has been a completely unexpected part of the journey.  I thought time alone in isolation was going to be the main theme but I have been so lucky to experience, first hand, the kindness of strangers in strange lands.

Day 30 - 7/7/16 South Bend to Michigan City, IN

I liked riding through the city of South Bend on the way to Bob and Patty's place.  I liked the coffee place I stopped in – a take on a cafe you'd find in the French Quarter of New Orleans.  I've never been there before so I can't comment on how accurate this coffee shop was to what you'd find in NOLA.  There's something about South Bend that I like but I'm not sure what.  Maybe because it's small.  Maybe I just really like small cities that don't have an overwhelming amount of places to go and spend money.  On the West side of South Bend, Bob and Patty live right next to a small lake.  The 2 of them are pretty laid back.  We just chatted in the garage while Bob was figuring out some adjustments on his new bike and then ended up doing some work on mine: lubing my pedals, adjusting my brakes and my wheels.  Both Bob and Patty rode with me to Michigan City today.  We woke up real early, about 5:30am, so we could eat some breakfast and start riding before it got too hot and humid and so they could make it back home before the rain hit.  It's nice when someone else is leading the way.  I just had to ride, not think about anything else.  We rode through some very quiet country roads while the sky threatened us with some heavy weather.  It never rained on the way here but I don't know if they got caught in anything on the way back.