Days 4-6. Holy cow.
Hey there. Wow. I camped the last 2 nights, which is why I haven't posted until now. Tonight I'm staying at the "Althoff Motel" on the far outskirts of Quincy Illinois.
Did I say I wouldn't talk about the heat anymore? Today I cut it a little too close, and misjudged how much water I would need. Quincy is about 20 miles from the previous town on the route, and I figured 3 liters should be sufficient. Apparently not, because when I was still 12 miles out I was over half done with my last liter. Luckily there was a small town with a gas station about 3 miles off route, which I arrived at with about a cup of water to spare.
As is becoming typical, the morning was wonderful. I woke up around 2am and couldn't get back to sleep (possibly because of the freight trains passing next to the park, or possibly because I was edgy). So I packed up and was on the road by 3:30am. Those 2 hours of riding in the dark were magical. Cool, quiet, hardly any traffic. The only downside being of course that there was no scenery. Just the sounds of nighttime insects, birds, and the occasional dog.
Just as the sun was rising I found myself in Nauvoo looking up at a magnificent Mormon temple. There was a lone Mormon there in front of it, and we ended up talking for about an hour about Joseph Smith, atheism, etc. Turns out Nauvoo was the town where Joseph Smith was killed by a bunch of angry townspeople. I asked what the townspeople were so angry about, and he said they "didn't like his message." Heh. Maybe that and his polygamy? Yeah, he admitted that that might have been a small factor as well.
At one point I asked him why Mormons have so many children. He said there are all these unborn souls waiting to be born and the living Mormons want to do them the favor of allowing them to be born and live on Earth. Of course I asked what about overpopulation of the earth, and he said "no such thing." Hmm. He said it's just that people are not taking good care of the planet and that is why people are starving in Africa, etc. OK. I tried to pursue with him the idea that the exponential growth of the Mormon population was not sustainable - I said after enough time all the land surface would be covered entirely with people all jammed together, and how would they eat, etc? His reply only clicked with me later... he said essentially that it wouldn't get to that point because there would always be some evil people who kill people... so in essence, he's saying that at some point the population would stabilize because evil people would be killing (on average) 8 of the 10 kids that each Mormon family was having. That sounds pretty miserable. Too bad I didn't think it through to that point during our conversation. :)
I have a few pics and other stories from the past few days which I'll post later.
Did I say I wouldn't talk about the heat anymore? Today I cut it a little too close, and misjudged how much water I would need. Quincy is about 20 miles from the previous town on the route, and I figured 3 liters should be sufficient. Apparently not, because when I was still 12 miles out I was over half done with my last liter. Luckily there was a small town with a gas station about 3 miles off route, which I arrived at with about a cup of water to spare.
As is becoming typical, the morning was wonderful. I woke up around 2am and couldn't get back to sleep (possibly because of the freight trains passing next to the park, or possibly because I was edgy). So I packed up and was on the road by 3:30am. Those 2 hours of riding in the dark were magical. Cool, quiet, hardly any traffic. The only downside being of course that there was no scenery. Just the sounds of nighttime insects, birds, and the occasional dog.
Just as the sun was rising I found myself in Nauvoo looking up at a magnificent Mormon temple. There was a lone Mormon there in front of it, and we ended up talking for about an hour about Joseph Smith, atheism, etc. Turns out Nauvoo was the town where Joseph Smith was killed by a bunch of angry townspeople. I asked what the townspeople were so angry about, and he said they "didn't like his message." Heh. Maybe that and his polygamy? Yeah, he admitted that that might have been a small factor as well.
At one point I asked him why Mormons have so many children. He said there are all these unborn souls waiting to be born and the living Mormons want to do them the favor of allowing them to be born and live on Earth. Of course I asked what about overpopulation of the earth, and he said "no such thing." Hmm. He said it's just that people are not taking good care of the planet and that is why people are starving in Africa, etc. OK. I tried to pursue with him the idea that the exponential growth of the Mormon population was not sustainable - I said after enough time all the land surface would be covered entirely with people all jammed together, and how would they eat, etc? His reply only clicked with me later... he said essentially that it wouldn't get to that point because there would always be some evil people who kill people... so in essence, he's saying that at some point the population would stabilize because evil people would be killing (on average) 8 of the 10 kids that each Mormon family was having. That sounds pretty miserable. Too bad I didn't think it through to that point during our conversation. :)
I have a few pics and other stories from the past few days which I'll post later.
posted by Dave at 2:11 PM
3 Comments:
we need more evil people.
A package for you arrived. :) Some bike part maybe?
The package is probably a bunch of maps from Adventure Cycling showing Paul and I how to ride from Pueblo Colorado to Yellowstone. I'm not sure that they'll be relevant after all. :)
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