My spirits are sky high after leaving behind every hill for an all day bike ride through the flat ground extending off the sides of the Mississippi. It is just what I've been waiting for ever since the day I left Florida. I surprise myself by being able to sustain a tempo of no less than 13, 14 even 16mph for prolonged periods. For a dedicated cyclist that's probably a yawner pace but for me it's balls to the wall. I convince myself that when I'm out of the hills that I can still turn in a decent performance.The roads may have been flat but it was stressful riding with traffic for most of the day. The exception was a road with no name or signs of any kind which was suggested to me as a shortcut. It didn't even appear on the state map. It was about 5 or 6 miles long and during the ride I did not see a single car pass on either lane. About the most I saw was the occasional cow often locking my stare so long that I thought it might be rude if I didn't say hello or something. At the end of the mysterious road I got dumped onto 61, a four lane highway with no shoulder and, I think, a 100mph speed limit. Talk about stress.
Even that wasn't much to dampen my enthusiasm for riding level ground. However, the morning forecast report issued a tornado warning for the region and sure enough the weather started deteriorating by early afternoon so enacting the wussiness is the better part of valor clause (that's the saying, right?) I decided on giving up earlier in the day to be safe than take a chance. If I had to camp in my wimpy tent and a tornado came through my area tonight (and I'd rather not tempt fate) I'd probably be blown into the troposphere never to come down again.
So I checked in at casino resort on the Mississippi side of the river. Looking dirty and pulling this contraption I very much feel like a fish out of water amid the waves of elderly people all around me looking for an effective way to blow their social security checks. But what do I care. I'm about to get spoiled. The first thing I do when I get to my room is take a hot bath. The bathtub has jacuzzi jets which are oh so relaxing. The water pressure is so strong that I can leave the drain open and the water level remains unchanged - this so that I'm constantly bathed in 'fresh' water. I know, how decadent and wasteful in that sort of nouveau riche way. Again, what do I care. I figure I deserve a little pampering after having reached the river that divides the country into two halves. And it doesn't stop there. I treat myself to a $10 all you can eat buffet. Unlike the Chinese food joint crap that is guaranteed to give you indigestion this buffet includes better grade fare. I take advantage of the pork loin and the something or other etouffee. When a food has a French appellation to its preparation, you know, it must be sophisticated! The pork was better anyway and I helped myself to seconds so as to make sure I'm getting my money's worth.
To round things out, I play $6 at the slot machines. I'm much too pragmatic to delude myself into any thoughts of striking it big (though I briefly fantasized about it anyhow!) but I figure, hey, this will be like playing at the arcades from way back in the 80's. Only there are no bad guys to shoot or high scores to beat. But I found the nickel slots so mind numbingly boring that I was afraid I'd get stupefied and start drooling. Did you see that movie One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Did you see what happened when you got zapped for being naughty? Well, I didn't want to wind up like one of them so I hurried my bets until my credits were all gone. Then I headed to my room to write this before getting to some good snoring on a bed large enough to deserve its own zip code.
