Day 24 June 4th

Pittsburg to Toronto 100 miles
I got a pretty good amount of sleep last night. As usual I had to wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I think I should start limiting how much I drink after I finish riding and at dinner because I’ve been waking up every night. Peanut butter for breakfast and on the road a little before 9. The morning was great. I did 60 miles by 1 o’clock. I missed the turn onto an unassigned road right out of town and ended up riding on a gravel road for a few miles. It was pretty bad and slow but I knew that if I kept going I would be on a major road and wouldn’t get lost. It didn’t add any extra miles it was just a pain since the surface wasn’t good for riding.
The wind was behind me from the north east again and I only had a few portions where I was heading into it. I met a guy named Dave on the road who was heading from Astoria to Yorktown. He traveled down the coast of California and straight across to Colorado instead of going through Montana and Wyoming. He said he did this because it still is too cold to travel through Montana and Wyoming in early May. But he still had a major problem. He got an infection from a sore that was caused by sitting in the saddle for so long which cost him a few days. But I’ve been getting showers a lot more regularly and my clothes get changed every day.
Subway for lunch at 1 after the first 60 miles. My bike seemed a lot heavier after lunch than it did before and I think the wind was coming more from the north and wasn’t helping as much. But the road was still flat and I knew I wasn’t going to be heading into the wind until the very end. My knees started hurting in the late afternoon and it wasn’t helping my spirit knowing that I was going to have to turn into the wind for the last 10 miles. But I still had plenty of day light to make it to my goal so I decided to take it easy and not worry about my speed at all to try to conserve my knees.
I got into town a little before 5 and chilled at the library until it closed at 6. In the morning when I was packing up my tent and everything the community pool was opening and they had music over the loud speaker. They played to Lady Gaga songs in a row and both were stuck in my head all day. I didn’t hate it. And the night before they played a song from Mama Mia and I didn’t hate that either since Ali would play that when we were in Greece because the play is set there. So when I was in the library I was sure to listen to those songs on YouTube. I left the library and headed for the Italian restaurant across the street where I had unlimited bread sticks and some more Alfredo. Courtney, the restaurant owner told me that the camp ground had showers which I was happy to hear since I knew I could stave of infection for another day. But I found out the water in the showers wasn’t heated and it was a little too cold outside to wash my hair right before bed. So it wasn’t the best shower in the world and I was a little cold before bed but I didn’t pay to stay there so I can’t really complain.
Kansas is a lot nicer than I imagined. I was expecting just miles of wheat fields and silos but there are trees and small hills that break up the landscape. When the sun hits the wheat the right way it looks golden and can be really awesome.