Yard decoration near Charleston, Illinois -- a scarecrow on a bicycle with a BEWARE OF DOG sign beside it.
Yard decoration near Charleston, Illinois -- a scarecrow on a bicycle with a BEWARE OF DOG sign beside it.
Midwestern house in Oblong, IL.
Concrete truck wreck near Lawrenceville, IL.
Last Modified on 9/24/97 at 5:13:15
Day's Narrative: Schedule Aug. 30, Saturday -- layover in Vincennes. I left Charleston, IL at dawn just after breakfast. Down the road a ways I saw a strange yard decoration (see photo). There was a dummy resembling a scarecrow sitting astride an old bicycle. I wanted to get closer to take the picture, but the BEWARE OF DOG sign kept me away. Later I got to the town of Oblong, IL and stopped for a sandwich. I wanted to find out why the town was named Oblong, so I asked a young woman at the convenience store. She said she really didn't know, but that the name used to be Hen Peck. I said I thought that must be the reason it was changed. She replied that she thought that the old name suited it better. Another person told me a few minutes later that she believed it was named Oblong because of the shape of the town. As I was leaving I took a picture of the house across the street which looked so typical of so many we have seen here in the Midwest (see photo). While I was stopped here Connie must have passed, because I never saw her today on the road. Just outside of Lawrenceville, IL I came upon a concrete truck which had overturned only a few minutes before. The driver was being loaded into an ambulance as I rode up. A bystander told me that the truck's brakes had failed when the driver tried to slow down for a turning car, so he steered it to the ditch to avoid hitting the car. There was a concrete culvert in the ditch which turned it over. The truck had a full load of concrete. You probably can't see it from the photo, but it's hard to imagine anyone getting out of the truck alive. I was told the driver got out by himself. He was wearing a seat belt. I found Connie at the motel about 3 pm. Neville arrived in Boston today. I received an email message from him at his brother's. He bicycled from Seattle to Boston in less than 35 days and rode 3100 miles (4988 km). Neville called the other night and told me about the tractor-trailer tanker truck that ran him off the road in Ontario. Neville's email account of it follows. [Neville] Just west of the town of Cayuga, Ontario the road surface is good but shoulderless. I was cruising along a downhill stretch and was doing an estimated 25 mph and riding that narrow margin of asphalt as one does when traffic is heavy. The noise of an 18 wheeler came up behind me VERY quickly and the blast of his air horn sounded just as he came abreast. His wheels were right at my elbow and the air turbulence caused me to waver. My front wheel hit the gravel and I saw there was no regaining the pavement as his wheels were where mine should have been. I was instantly plowing the gravel and over the handlebars I went. I came to rest in some grass after skidding, leaving the bike about 10 feet back. I don't need to tell you that all I could do was lie there and moan. Road rash is a terrible trophy of biking. Now the cars were stopping, people were all over me, someone was telling me to lie still, someone else was wiping up the wounds. An EMT passerby from another town began asking me those questions they ask. Two people said they saw the whole thing, and used their cell phones to call the ambulance and Ontario Provincial Police. By this time the trucker had been stopped. He came over and I just let him have it, calling him almost everything in the book. Actually if I hadn't been so shocky, I would have done worse, then I would have been arrested for assault. I was given a tetanus shot and mopped up at the local hospital, and Jake the bicycling constable from the accident, brought me my bike. This is after they measured my flight distance at 3 meters, gave the truck driver a ticket for reckless driving and took statements from all who saw. Later I was dropped off down the road a bit and I rode another 40 miles to Buffalo on the purest form of energy: ADRENALIN. [Connie] We first heard about Neville's escapade when Ray talked to Neville's wife, Barbara, just after it happened. We had been keeping track of Neville in a roundabout way by contacting his brother Joel, or Ray's brother Jim Poore. They served as contact points to pass on phone numbers as we each traveled. We were shocked to hear of the incident and worried about his condition. We are in Indiana now. How do we know? Was there a big deep outline that we crossed or change of color like one sees on a map? Nope, there was only a sign, saying "Welcome to Indiana." Otherwise it could have been Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota or any other Midwestern, green, corn, soybean place. A flier about Vincennes in the motel tells us that the town started from a fort built in 1732 by a Francois-Marie, Sieur de Vincennes. The fort subsequently was held by the French, British, and finally by the Revolutionary Americans. We find here some of the great names of American history, Virginia governor Patrick Henry, Shawnee chief Tecumseh, and ninth president William Henry Harrison. This is the "rich prairie land that was destined to become the 'heart of America' and 'the breadbasket of the world.'" That's what all that corn and soybeans are for! As one drives along on the back roads of the Midwestern U.S. as we are doing, one constantly sees signs pointing out various churches off on other side roads. Signs display the things that are important to a culture. It would seem that church and, by implication, religion are one of the very important things for the area's population -- what we call Midwestern values. © Ray & Connie Poore, 1997
Aug. 31, Sunday -- Owensboro, Kentucky.
Sep. 1, Labor Day Monday -- layover in Owensboro.
Sep. 2, Tuesday -- arrive Munfordville, Kentucky.
Sep. 3-7, layover in Munfordville, Kentucky.
Sep. 8, Monday -- leave for North Carolina.Return