Tomorrow...Michigan

It's been a long week of riding.  I think we've averaged 90+ miles for five days straight (including tomorrow).  That's over 450 miles in five days.
Tomorrow, we enter Michigan, Lord willing.  After almost six weeks of riding, I come home for the weekend.  It's the longest Mary and I have ever been apart.
Since the massive climbing in Iowa, Illinois has been much flatter, but wetter.  Two days ago, we left Fulton and it rained off and on into our night's stop -  Shabonna State Park.  I found a nice, relatively dry spot under a large pine, but it rained all night.  This morning, the rain stopped, but the mist was so thick, I needed wipers on my glasses.  It finally dried up at about 10 AM.
We made remarkable time into Lansing, Ill today.  Len and I rode at about a 17+ mph average.  Actually, Len rode like a madman - I just drafted him as best I could.  We did 100 miles in under 6 hours of riding time (not counting stops).  Not too bad.
The change from rural to suburb to city happens pretty quickly.  It is surprising and a bit overwhelming to see how much corn this country grows.  Corn is everywhere.  It's about the only scenery we've had for the past week.
We had a great welcome at Illiana Christian High School.  I have fond memories of Illiana:  in high school, our school choir sang down here.  On the bus ride back, Mary and I shared our first kisses.  Aww.
Anyway, back to today:  the area churches fed us dinner and will feed us breakfast.
We also had an ice cream social where I met shirttail relatives, Jim and Shirlene Medendorp, who drove up from Indiana.
I am so looking forward to a weekend at home.
In some ways, these six weeks have flown by.
In some ways, they've been very long.