Week 3- Danville, KY to Carbondale, IL

It's day 24 and I haven't any "grand" revelations yet and I don't have my 6 pack yet. There have been some good days on the bike and some not so good. A few nights ago we accidentally ended up camping in the remnants of Tropical Depression Bill at a state park in Western Kentucky. Getting very little sleep due to my tent being pummeled all night by rain and wind, we woke up in the not so best of moods and ended up being the first day of the tour where I really didn't want to ride my bike. It's been a couple of days since then and for some reason I still feel a little on edge and mentally drained from the experience. Tonite the rest of the crew went out to eat and I knew that I needed to stay in and have some alone time off the bike. I feel like I need to do a better job of journaling and of having more me time off the bike. I absolutely love the dudes I'm traveling with and love the hang every day when we're done riding but I need to find that balance so I can feel my best. All a part of the tour!

Other than the weird mental stuff that I've been dealing with out here on the road for the past few days, we've had some truly magical trail moments recently. Last Thursday, we hit up the makers mark distillery and as we left, the skies got dark, the air got suddenly 20 degrees cooler, and the sky pummeled us with rain. An angel in his pickup truck stopped Dylan and invited us to wait out the storm in his garage. Dude ended up giving us 3 bottles of liquor and his dad even drove us 15 miles to where we were planning on camping AND THEN bought us all dinner. If there's anything I've learned on tour so far it's the refreshing reminder of the good in most people. Last night even we met Alfred who let us crash in his cabin in Southern Illinois, bought us Taco Bell, and spoke with us for an hour about life and the pursuit of happiness and all that. Didn't agree with all of it but it was nice to meet a dude with so much passion. Fave nugget- "Of course you're gonna wake up tired. You're biking across the country! Enjoy the tiredness!" For some reason I really needed to hear that after a week or so of not feeling my best. 

Anyways, we made it to our third state- Illinois! gonna be in Missouri by Thursday which will officially be the most western state that I've been to. Everything past here is brand new for me! So stoked. 

Thanks for reading this far if you are. I don't really know who I'm writing for yet but yeah! Bernie Sanders 2016

Love

Kody