Author: Paul Rito (Page 26 of 28)

A modest 58 miles today over hill and dale, but much more friendly hills and dales than I’ve been following. I think this might be the first day that was all on pavement. At 14 miles in today, I hit 1,000 miles on the trip since leaving August 7.

I had a really restful night in Falls City at the Stanton Lake Campground. I had Shrimp Salad ala Dole Bag, a nice juicy peach, hit the pad and slept until 7:30. The shelter kept things dry so I was all packed up and ready to go by 8:30. I forgot to mention that PH’s front wheel had a slow leak and with water to test the tube, I found and patched that leak before I headed into town last night.

As good a night I had yesterday, today’s was not so great. I was camping at Warnock Lake in Atchison: streetlight in the camping area and I somehow managed to site the tent so it was right in my eyes replete with a barking dog until 3 am which earplugs only somewhat dampened, So I tossed and turned and tried to block it out, but didn’t get much sleep. The good part of all that was, about 5:30 am, I heard two owls hooting to each other In a call and response. That was cool and actually very soothing and I fell asleep listening to it.

Had a great night’s sleep and a good breakfast with Mark, and he escorted me out of town. Good to have a local perspective on the routes that the mapping tools pick. We didn’t go that way.

Mark is also an LCI as I am. LCI being League Cycling Instructor, sanctioned by the League of American Cyclists. In his retirement, he’s been going to elementary schools in the Kansas City area and teaching cycling skills and traffic law. So we had a lot to talk about, including the progression of the great infrastructure in KC.

The train ride let me catch up on some bill paying and paperwork for Medicare, and writing the earlier blog post. On arriving in Kansas City, I was glad to see that Union station was still in almost pristine shape, and that many of its nooks and crannies are being used for active businesses. There was an informative display on the railroad mail workers. I rode up to the World War I memorial and then headed to my warm showers host Mark.

A lot to catch up on since arriving at Jean’s and Mark’s. After the concert, we had a very good rest and woke up relaxed and refreshed. Dana borrowed running shoes from Jean and hit the Katy Trail to prevent, as she calls it, “Dana Head.” I had some breakfast, chatted with Jean and generally just relaxed for the first time in two weeks. It was a challenging but fun trip with Dana, and it started hitting both of us that that part of the party is over. It’s going to take some adjustment.

It is 17 years since I’ve been to Jean’s and Mark’s on my first cross country tour in 2005, a much too long time, but we are here. Different locale in Maumee, OH that time, but same warm welcome. It was 39.4 miles from Pontoon Beach, IL where we stayed last night. Some country riding, some city riding, some getting through road closed detours riding, but we made it. We rode 845 miles in two weeks, about 60 miles a day. We are glad to be off the bikes for a couple of days. Despite all the trials, it was a great fortnight together.

After leaving Greenville, we managed to avoid miles of fresh chipseal with a little backtracking to the perfectly fine highway we had been riding. We found that Illinois highways are shoulderless mostly, sometimes with just gravel for a shoulder, but mostly devoid of traffic. The traffic we did encounter was respectful and pulled over to the other lane when they could so we felt pretty safe.

Updated 12/19/2022

More on day 12: we had 2 more miles of the pavement from Hades, and managed to find a county road that was old, smooth out chip seal. We rode that for 20-25 miles.

And all those roads led to the Nords; Eric, Angela, and Emma. We’re so grateful for them opening their home to us even though they had just returned from a 6-week teaching expedition in Washington State. The Nords lived in State College from 2004 to 2013, and I did many a ride with Eric and the Wheelworks group. In 2015, when Dana and I were riding from Bar Harbor to Trenton, I heard my name called out on route 1 in Maine. It was Eric on a tour with his son’s church group. Such a random, but cool encounter. We had an excellent meal of Emma’s Bruschetta on homemade bread, sweet corn, and Angela’s pasta primavera, a great rest, and a good time catching up. Eric also worked on our bikes and fixed some shifting issues and checked my wheels out for true. Both were okay.

Whenever I teach a class or workshop on touring, I always ask the participants to ask themselves, “What’s my tolerance for adversity?” My tolerance was tested today. Not an injury or an unrepairable mechanical failure, but more overcoming physical and mental fatigue.

Today, we were shooting for a big day – 70+, but about the time we got halfway through, neither of us was feeling it. Fatigue. Overworking. Pushing too far. Too little rest. While we had some of those on this trip, we didn’t feel any of those when we started out. We had a pretty good rest, felt good (well, minus our bottoms-sore, but manageable), and we were riding fine the first 35 miles of 70 or so, enjoying quiet back roads, watching the migrants fill their transport buses with watermelons.

Today’s mileage: 56.4. Total miles: 613.7

We started the day from the campground in English, IN facing the same steep hills we did getting into the camp yesterday. After 20 miles of steep up and downs, we finally got into the plains and nice, flat, rolling hills. And they were actually more flat than rolling. And very straight, straight roads where you could see miles ahead.

Right now we’re sitting looking at the red sky at night (sailors’ and cyclists’ delight), at a campground overlooking Prides Creek lake in Petersburg Indiana. 10 bucks for a campsite with showers. It was two miles into town where we picked up shrimp lo mein at a local Chinese restaurant, and and ice from a Sunoco mini stop, and had dinner and wine.