Deep Dish Rumble Strips, and Two Dimensional Animals

You have to respect the guys at the Missouri Dept of Highways, who developed the specs for the new paving they have done recently.  The have provided a bit of a shoulder where there was none, maybe 20 inches wide, pretty stingy for bikers but better than nothing.  Then they decided to have a rumble strip in the shoulder, to wake up drifting drivers.  If you imagine a cross section of the Ohio River from Mount Adams, down through the river, up the other side to New Cath, that is approximately the profile of the rumble strip, shrunk down a little bit.  It is about 16 inches long, extending from the white line across the shoulder.  This leaves about 4 inches of shoulder.  The depth of the rumble strip is such that it will shake your fillings out if you must run over it to escape traffic.  Fortunately, traffic has been pretty light recently, so we can ride the road most of the time.  And in general, when traffic is light, motorists are courteous and swing wide.  Please spread the gospel to all your friends - swing wide for bicyclists, slow down a little, take your foot off the gas pedal, give us a break.
    Another interesting feature of the rides lately has been the armandillos.  I've always thought the armandillo is sort of disrespected.  People think they are ugly.  I think they are quite unique and fascinating.  Sort of a plump possum with body armor.  Anyway, we first spotted one leaving the park back near Toronto, MO.  One was crossing the road early in the morning.  Since then I have seen maybe a dozen of them, but unfortunately all have been victims of encounters with automobiles - roadkill, sadly.  But some of them have been truly flattened on the pavement, unlike other critters without the body armor, which wind up just a bloody mess on the road.  The armandillo retains a certain dignity in it's flattened state.  It sort of reminds me of stuff I read years ago in physics books, trying to explain higher dimensions by describing a two dimensional world where the inhabitants are unable to conceive of a third dimension, just as we have a hard time imagining a fourth dimension in our three dimensional world.  
    Today, we've had  a bit of a change in our game plan.  After Clair's visit, Sue is going to take a bit of a break and go home for a few days, until we get to Berea.  I have been getting pretty fatigued lately, and have also developed some "saddle sores" from our riding.  So I am  taking a day or two off to heal, and will be driving the support van.  I have some big shoes to fill.  Sue has done an incredible job of supporting us, and I am just beginning to realize how much work she has done each day.  We will see if I can do the job.  Jack and Jeff are riding through the hills of the Ozarks today, one of the toughest stretches due to the repeated ups and downs.
     Jerry