05/19-21/24 After the rain quit, we got 🥵. Not sure how high the temperatures reached, but with the hills, heat, and humidity our legs were feeling like noodles. We stayed at 3 campgrounds near lakes, but
05/19-21/24 Our tandem couple had a surprise visit from their son, who is soon to be deployed to Greece, with a new baby grandma had not seen yet. Kevinn and Mary were ecstatic!
05/19-21/24 More pictures. Beautiful houses, some bioengineering project, Paul’s dinner preparation, and fertilizer tanks lined up in a row.
Beautiful houses
Paul’s dinner preparation. Special tonight is 🌮! We take turns cooking in pairs. Cooks for the night have to come up with a recipe, shop, cook, and clean up at night. Then they have to make coffee, get breakfast ready, put lunch makings out, and clean up before they leave in the morning.
05/19-21/24 Pictures that didn’t upload. Beautiful houses, buggies in the front yard, and fertilizer in bomb shaped containers….
05/22/24 Crossed the state line into Indiana today! Immediately realized we were somewhere new when all the convenience stores and city parks had restrooms open to the public. Very hard to find a place to pee in Ohio. Some leaving Ohio pictures. Knee high by the 4th of July! And old churches.
05/23-24/24 We spent a necessary rest day in Franklin, Indiana at a city park. There were showers in a public swimming pool. The water was cold, the shower was not private, and Paul and Jon were told that it was inappropriate for them to shower naked as this was a family facility. 😵💫
05/24/24 We washed laundry, picked up necessary supplies, walked about town, and rested. There is a college here named for Benjamin Franklin, and they have a “lazy Faith” chapel….
05/24/24 Paul and I did not eat with the group, but went out for a nice dinner at a Mexican restaurant. I asked for a glass of Merlot wine, and the waitress served me a Miller Light! Sigh. It was still a lovely evening.
5/25/24 Today’s ride made us all fall in love with Indiana. We stayed in the small farm, wooded low areas with all kinds of birdsong and charm.
05/25/24 And then we got to our campsite for the night : Misty Morning Campground. ALoud music, no running water, despicably filthy portapotties, and it was hot with very little shade. All-in-all, our worst camping experience so far.
5/26/24 Things got better once we got on the bikes the next morning. First we went through Poland, where they spell “text” differently. We chose not to detour through Brazil. But we got caught in a thunderstorm anyway!
05/26/24 We backtracked to a coffeehouse to wait out the storm. They had great art on the doors of the restrooms. When the storm passed, we biked through a deserted Indiana State University campus, passed a porta-john farm, and several Veteran’s Memorials on Memorial Day.
05/26/24 Memorial Day
05/26/24 On to Casey, IL, where we camped in a city park with showers! If you ignored the warnings on the wall about black widows, the shower was divine! Then the police, emergency responders, and a guy from across the street came by to warn us about a potential tornado warning that night. Only a thunderstorm!
05/26/24 Thunderstorm, not a tornado. Thankfully , no one floated away or sprung a leak in their tent.
05/27/24 The very most important thing about this day is that we met the cicadas. All three broods (annual, 13-year and 17-year) have emerged in Illinois. In some areas, the noise is overwhelming. Imagine being in a theater showing a fifties sci-fi movie and the alien spaceship is taking off.
05/27/24 The cicadas are now a constant presence. We hear them in groves of trees, they fly at us, stick to us, and we hear them pinging off our bike tires. One even got under my sunglasses and was crawling on my eyelid before I stopped and flung my glasses off my face and to the side of the road.
05/27/24 Despite the cicadas, we soldiered on. Some scenes from Casey, IL, where they have the largest stuff all over the downtown core: largest pencil, largest swizzle spoon, largest post box, etc.
05/27/24 Cicada video didn’t load, and I missed the world’s biggest pencil. Let’s try those again.
And the thunderstorm in the tent!
And the thunderstorm in the picnic shelter the day before.
5/28-28/24 Two of the most difficult days we will do on this trip, I am sure. Both days had strong headwinds, bad roads, and lots of traffic. At the end of both days we were exhausted. 😩 Both days were about 65 miles. Glad they are behind us. ?Is it “Van-Day-lyah” or Van-da-Lee-a”?
05/27-28/24 We went through Madison County Illinois, and saw a couple of wooden bridges. Is this the setting for “The Bridges of Madison County’”? And one town had a unique way to congratulate its graduating seniors.
5/29/24 Paul here, trying my hand at the blog thing.
Two big milestones to note: we reached the 1000 mile mark in our journey and we cross the Mississippi River. Alton IL is an old Mississippi river town where we bed down in a generous Baptist church. We also reconnect with cousins Jean and Al from nearby Fenton MO for a fabulous dinner and reminiscing. These were the kind folks that bailed Rhe and I out at the end of last year’s ride.
More from 5/28/24:
The other big news is we start down the Katy trail. The last big trail of our journey
5/28/24 And at the State Street Market Cafe in Alton with Al and Jean Manalaysay.
05/29/24 From Alton, we rode over the Mississippi River and found our way to the start of the Katy Trail. The wind was still blowing, but once we got on the trail, the trees blocked it and the riding was easy.
