Highway 54 to Gibson City

Saturday, October 23

I awoke at 4:15 thinking it was beginning to rain but it turned out to be only the quaking of leaves in the wind. As I was now fully awake I decided to get an early start on the day, so after my morning routine of coffee followed by oatmeal followed by coffee - I packed up and started down the road looking for Highway 54 which would take me in a northeast direction. As the day dawned the grey sky was threatening rain and after several hours of walking - down it came! I stopped to put on my rain gear and for the first time of the trip I covered my cart with plastic. It is bad enough just pushing my normal cart - I’ve been asked by people if I’m looking for cans, am I selling hot dogs, or perhaps am I an ice cream salesman? Now with my cart covered with blue plastic - I thought I looked like a bum going down the road but it’s better to be dry than to worry about appearances. Though Highway 54 does not have paved shoulders, I was lucky that the traffic was extremely light being a Saturday and also due to the harvest season winding down in this section of Illinois and hence there are now less agricultural trucks on the road. I had all of my lights flashing and most cars gave me a berth while a few others gave me a bath. After some soggy miles of rain accomponied by lightening and thunder, I soggily struggled into Gibson City, Illinois, and checked into the only motel in town. The motel did not have internet service but the McDonald’s next door did. Therefore I ate at McDonalds more often than I would have wanted to allow me to post these blogs.