Emotions are up and down.

I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotions this week. I had an email from the cattery where our cat and 2 kittens are on ‘holiday’. They are fine, but the kittens have grown a lot. All I could think of is that the cattery has had our kittens for longer than we had them and are watching them grow up. I miss them and Bob my cat so much it made me very homesick. Then we found out that there had been more strong earthquakes at home. So we felt a bit down.

 

Then cycling along we saw a father teaching his child of about 7years old how to shoot a rifle. Nowhere else in the world would you see that so obviously on the side of the road. How can that father live with himself?  It is bad enough that the child is being taught how to shoot to kill, but at 7 years old he does not have the reason to understand what he is doing.  What was he shooting at? A target circle? No it was a human figure.

Look at the difference in size of these biscuits, cheering myself up with a big bikkie.

 

Playing dodgems with road cones in the forest.

No Niel you don't need anymore road side junk, put it down. No it would be great for .......

We stopped for a lunch and met a family from Halifax Nova Scotia, and we realised that we are meeting people from our destination. And then we realised that we only had 28 cycling days left and every day that amount gets less. So that cheered us up. We even tried to do a nice short day of 80kms, but we are so fit that we couldn’t do it and had to keep going until we had done 120kms.  After doing that a couple of times we now have an unscheduled day off up our sleeve. So we have managed to cheer ourselves up, and to carry on.

We are in Escanaba Michigan (just above Chicago for those that are not sure where that is). So we are at the great lakes at last.  I have been looking forward to this bit of the tour, as there should be nice scenery with views – I have missed views. Trees are nice, but the fact that you never see a view makes me feel a bit claustrophobic. Hopefully there will be more towns with shops too so that we don’t have to go hungry and thirsty any more. We have been meeting more cycle tourists now that is always nice to compare stories and just to talk to people who understand life as a cycle tourist.

A house festooned with junk, but they call it collectibles here.

 

We are having a day off here, only our 4^th day off since we started. I managed to talk Niel into having it in a cheap Motel. So we have wife, TV, and have the comfort to clean things including clothes and bikes. Actually the bikes are starting to show a bit of wear, mostly in the gearing. Niel’s bike only has a 5 cog rear cluster so his cogs have worn out to the extent that he can only use 4 of those gears, if he carries on, then another gear will get worn out, so he needs another cluster and chain to get him to the end. My chain may need a link removed; if I am not gentle with my gear changes then the rear derailleur gets a bit caught with the looser chain. So he is off to find a bike shop. But the best thing about being in a motel is that there are no insects biting you, and you can sloth around barely clothed. Bliss.