Overall Missouri I Love You (Already)

Day 51

Everton, MO to Marshfield. MO

Distance: 55 miles

Total climbing: 4,183 ft

MO angels: everywhere

As I rode into the farm where I stayed last night, the fact that I had spent a mile on a rocky road of loose stones and gravel meant that I knew I would be doing the same first thing this morning to get back out to the highway. I just hadn’t quite expected the road to be quite as rocky as it was.

I woke early with the light creeping in through the windows of the bedroom. I’d slept on the top of the bed in my PJs, covered in my Pashmina (princess!), since it was hot anyway, and not getting under the covers meant that it cost $25 rather than $60. But I slept fitfully, dreaming, waking hearing noises, and just generally unsettled. I was also scratching myself all over, not due to the farm, but as a result of the copious number of mosquito bites I have picked up over the last few days.

As I made myself a coffee from the Maxwell House Instant I’d brought with me, adding a little icing sugar from the cornucopia cupboard for good luck, and pushed the hamburger buns into the toaster to make morning toast, I heard the TV in the background talking about a case I’d been aware of before. The horrific incident where NFL player Ray Rice is seen pulling his unconscious fiancée from an elevator.

Only as I walked into the room today, there was a CCTV camera video of him punching her straight in the face, knocking her out with one blow.

Instantly tears welled up in my eyes, and I felt sick as they replayed the video over a few times. I listened to what they were saying and was in total agreement with the comments made by Tamron Hall, the NBC presenter who is leading a campaign against domestic violence (more on this below).

But for some reason, the images affected me. As I tried to go about getting myself ready for the day, I couldn’t seem to stop the tears pouring from my eyes.  

I thought it would stop when I got on the bike, but it didn’t. I pedalled around 7 miles, crying intermittently, gasping for breath, until I reached the small town of Ash Grove.

Realising that I needed to do something to calm myself down, I stopped at small the gas station there and kept my face flat as I bought a coffee and a Twix and sat down outside to try to comfort myself, give myself time to recover. I phoned a friend back in the UK, who picked up and just listened to me sobbing down the phone, telling me it was OK.

After going back into the gas station and using the restroom to re-apply the sun cream to my face where it had washed off, I was trying to keep my head down and make my exit, when a nice older man in denim overalls, sitting in a rocking chair in one corner of the gas station stopped me. He looked just like the Grandpa from The Waltons, and had obviously snuck in when I was outside and looking the other way.

A photo of Grandpa Walton (in lieu of Tommy)

“You OK?” he asked. “What can we do? Do you need a drink, food, money?”

“Oh, that’s sweet.” I replied. “Really, I’m fine.”

“You sure?” he pressed.

I knew then he had witnessed my meltdown.

He stood up as my face broke again, and gave me a hug, willing me again to sit down, which I then did.

I held it together, and we chatted about a few things, and then he reached for a game that he said was an ancient maths teaching aid from the area. We played for a few minutes – he won.

One and Six is...oh fiddlesticks...

And then he told me that his wife had just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. When a lady came into the store, she asked about that, and he described how they had found tumours in her liver, around her intestines, in her lymph nodes and more – she had gone back in today to have the rest of her body scanned.

“We’ve been together 45 years,” he told me. “It’s going to be hard.”

We chatted a little longer and more people came in and out, and then he said he should go. This time I stood up and gave him a hug. He said his name was Tommy. I wanted to take a photo of him, but he wasn’t keen. And so I thanked him for his amazing understanding and kindness and told him how sorry I was to hear about his wife’s illness.

“Just remember us,” he said as he went.

And I know that I will remember Tommy, and his wife, for a long time to come.

As I carried on with my day, I felt like a weight had lifted. In the morning I had been too upset even to speak to the cows by the roadside. Every set of cows gets a “Bonjour les Vaches” whether it likes it or not, but not this morning. But after speaking with Tommy, I knew that I had to just get on with it, and so the next unfortunate set of cows got not only a general address, but I decided to take a photo too.

MO Cows

It wasn’t long until I reached the town of Walnut Grove, where I stopped again at a gas station, and was grateful that they allowed me to eat my leftover pasta at their tables (I made enough to feed the 5000 last night), and gave me a half-price slice of pizza to add a bit of variety.

I spoke to another couple of older guys in overalls. Indeed, there were more overalls (dungarees) on display today than on a replay of Play Away from the 1970s. These guys were curious not only about the trip, but keen to banter about a few things relating to the UK. After we’d spoken for a while, one of the guys (Jim I think) remarked at how hot and hilly it was outside.

“I can put you and the bike in my pick-up and give you a ride to Fair Grove, if you like,” he said.

But the other guy (Mr Palmer) said, “She’s riding cross country on a bike Jim, because she wants to do it on a bike.” 

Their gentle little tiff made me chuckle, and I thought about how they were both a little bit right, given how I felt today. But I knew I would keep plodding on until I got there.

From Walnut Grove to Fair Grove, the temperature continued to rise, as did the size and gradient of the hills.  

Wall or Road?

But I kept pressing on, until eventually I arrived in Marshfield and my comfortable hotel.

I knew I would have a couple of packages waiting for me, as I had asked Valerie to send me a few essentials, including contact lenses, and had ordered myself a couple of replacement cycling tops since the current ones are starting to get caked with sun-cream and Gatorade stains.

I couldn’t quite believe my eyes at the package that I received…

Speechless...

Amazing – and in a weird kind of symmetry it brought happy tears to my eyes to finish the day. Thank you Valerie, so much.

Heading over to the Mexican next to the hotel for dinner, I unwittingly ordered a “large” Margarita, which turned out to be a 50oz affair called The Monster.

Make Mine a Stein and The Monster?

The food was excellent and I made a good effort, eating almost all of it. Having joked with the other diners around me about the drink, I was stunned when Sally and Beth, who were on a table diagonal from me chatted to me on their way out and Sally insisted on picking up my check “just because”.

And so I am back in my hotel room marvelling over the kindness of the people I already know, and of the people I am meeting on this trip.  

But it has also convinced me that I need to be more active in my quest to try, by making this trip, to raise money and awareness for people affected by domestic abuse.

And so tonight, and into the last few weeks of the trip, I will be posting occasional supplemental posts on this blog to try to achieve this aim. It is still not a comfortable thing for me to do. It is deeply personal, and I am sorry to friends and family who might be upset by what they read (please don’t read if you are worried about that), but I feel it is something I need to do to help change attitudes and to support those who are still in abusive situations.

In her commentary on NBC today, Tamron Hall raised a vital issue. Why is it, she asked, that seeing this video is not enough? Why do people still ask what it was that led up to this? Looking for a reason, an explanation, trying to see what it was that the victim did to provoke what happened, rather than simply accepting that, whatever she did, it did not justify what happened next.

I got sick of talking to people I knew in London around the time of the Nigella Lawson photos of her husband holding her by the throat, and having a similar discussion. Sitting there where seemingly intelligent and caring people commented on how media savvy and clever Nigella was, and how there was no doubt a story behind it that we did not know.

What more did they need to know? Nothing (other than self-defence) would ever justify the pictures we saw then, or see now in the Ray Rice case. Whatever happened before is irrelevant.

The question that needs to be asked is of the aggressor, to understand what was going on his head, and to work out what needs to be done so that he never does the same thing again, to that woman, or another one.

Abuse is never OK. But for so long as we as a society continue to ask the wrong question, this stigma will remain and, as you will see from my supplemental posts, victims will continue to ask these questions of themselves.

I am on day 51 of my trip. I have cycled almost 3,000 miles solo. Some days it is hard. And yet every day is amazing. Because I am free. And for that I will be eternally grateful.

Thank you for your support.

Me x