Day !#: Okay, let's just tell you right now. This is a story. This isn't the shitty talking about miles or ass hurting or wind I've been writing of late (but sometimes there's just nothing else that happens). This is a real story, one of the random occurrences that happens on your random bike ride across America.
We were planning to spend the night in Hoopeston. On Google maps there was a little motel, called the Downtown Motel, and it was our only option considering we were in middle of nowhere Illinois at this point (yay for our first time zone crossing!). We were kind of tired from fighting the wind all day, so we ride directly up to the motel. In the window there was a piece of, what looked like, butcher paper with a scribble, looking not much better than a 4 year olds hand writing, claiming the manager was in room 5.
I'm kicking it outside with the bikes while Stumbles goes to find the manager. I'm chillen' minding my own business when a woman comes up to me and starts asking if we were planning on staying at this motel. She was Susan, one of our saviors for the day. She proceeded to tell me there was no way we are staying there. We just couldn't stay there, there is no way, and we should not stay there. She'd find us a better place. Then, right at that moment, Stumbles walks back out with a look on her face like she'd just seen a ghost. Eyes wide, she looks at me, and slowly shakes her head no, as if to say we are going to get murdered if we stay here. We follow Susan.
This is how Stumbles later described the room to me. She walked into the room and the first thing she sees is the sink in the middle of the room, completely detached from the wall. The manager was like "Hey, y'all don't need a sink do you?", but, apparently, it was in the middle of the floor! No sheets on the bed and when Stumbles asked him about that he pointed her to a pile of gray rags on the floor claiming they were 'clean'. I think that's the point where she walked out without one word or explanation and we followed Susan into the church next door.
We were quickly introduced to JoHanna and a few of the other people who work around the church. They told us all about how the motel next door is crazy terrible. It's one of those sorts of places that people live, not stay, for dirt cheap and it actually sounded like a drug house to me. There was even an unsolved murder there a few years ago. Susan was calling all sorts of people to find a place for us to stay finally landing on the community building in the park, which sounded awesome to us. It would save us some money and of course it just sounded like an awesome opportunity as well.
It was crazy like this, they'd just seen us going over to the motel and said to themselves 'we cannot let them stay there'. And, so, the townspeople of Hoopeston came to rescue us from what was, apparently, going to be our inevitable demise at the Downtown Motel. We hung around the church for a bit chatting it up and talking logistics before the biker hunger overtook us and we went across the street to find some chow.
We were the only people sitting in the little Chinese food restaurant when a man with a camera comes in. It's the editor for the little towns newspaper and he has come to interview us for the newspaper. We're already laughing at the randomness of this situation as well as our good fortune and this makes it even better, we're going to be in the paper of this little town just for riding our bicycles through! Darn hilariously awesome!
After we get our photos taken and slay a plate of Chinese we go back over to the church where Susan tells us, I still don't know why, our new names are Sven and Helga. Which I think is great! Sven is a great biking across America name right?! And Helga, well, Stumbles I guess you're Helga now (hilarious). We're introduced to the pastor and his wife and the pastor is an incredibly nice guy. From talking to him it sounds like he's been all over the world doing all sorts of things and those are the kinds of people I like to chat it up with. Because it's not like me telling someone about Greece or whatever, it's like us talking about Greece and remembering our respective times there together. So they bring us cake and we chat it up until it's time to take us over to the community house we're going to stay in.
We're introduced to Paul, one of the groundskeepers, and he shows us how to prop the door open with a rock so we can get in and out. The place we are staying in is this crazy huge theater sort of thing with a stage in it and of course we choose to sleep center stage. Just as we were lying down to pass out we hear some loud rapping on the window that gave us a start. We tentatively investigate the source of the ruckus to find Susan and JoHanna outside with a huge blanket for us to sleep on.
Hoopeston was seriously one of the most sincere, sweet, and honest little towns I've encountered. The total and complete unexpectedness of meeting all the people from this church in this tiny little town and all the help they gave us was magical. These are the things that make a trip like this, these are the people that make a trip like this something that you can never forget, restoring your faith in humanity all across America. Seriously though, we just show up randomly and the townspeople rescue us, put us in their paper, feed us cake, put us up for the night, and make us comfortable there?! Thank you so much for everything Susan, JoHanna, and everyone else we met over in Hoopeston! I hope I can come back to visit sometime, it was an honor to meet you all!
Stay happy everyone,
Sven (haha)
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