IlInKy

Yesterday we finished our riding time where we had meant to begin it: Indiana Dunes National Lakefront. We are staying in La Porte, Indiana, largely because we found a Holiday Inn Express & Suites here, and the other two we have stayed in on this trip have been especially comfortable. The beds are great, the rooms have plenty of space for bikes, they have good wifi, guest laundry. So here we are. But we didn't really do a whole lot of measuring. We are about 24 miles from the middle of Indiana Dunes. No problem. We could just ride over and wander around until we felt like coming back. So that's what we did. It was a pretty nice ride over. We have figured out that Google is a bit unreliable at choosing bike routes. At best, they are utilitarian; at worst, impossible. But we are now in an area with plenty of cyclists, plenty of routes added to Ride With GPS, so we took Google's ideas and modified them. More or less threw them out, really, and adapted RWGPS to our exact ...

Brrr. We also seem to have found fall weather. Or what seems to me to be winter weather. The lows were in the high 30s last night, the highs eventually reached the mid-50s, so I rode with almost all my layers almost all day. I guess that's going to happen soon at home, too. But it was beautifully sunny. So we ran across a couple on the Honker trail who told us we really should visit Gray County State Park, it's famous for the fall colors, so maybe be prepared for crowds. So here we are. We drove up to Nashville (not THAT one - there's also one in Indiana, and as it happens, one in Illinois. Who knew?) yesterday on a gloomy day. We are staying in a nice local motel with a super friendly staff. But the walls are paper thin and we had neighbors last night...Two women (one happened to announce in her penetrating voice that she was 74) seemed to be playing poker, and the louder one was not doing well. She offered a continuous stream of comments to her pal, very little of which...

We rode out from our hotel in Louisville yesterday morning. There's a really nice loop that goes along the Ohio River for several miles, then up & over the Lewis & Clark Bridge, which has a separate bike/pedestrian path, then along the river on the Indiana side, over the bike/pedestrian Big Four Bridge (according to Wikipedia:  It took its name from the defunct  Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway , which was nicknamed the "Big Four Railroad")  back into Louisville. Although there was some traffic, and the River Road has no shoulder, it is a popular bike route and the cars seemed polite, or at least resigned to our presence. There were several chances to ride on bike paths or driveways through parks which we took happily. Louisville is a city that reminds me more of coastal cities than the smaller cities we have seen so far. It feels more vibrant. There are tons of waterfront activities and trails, there is a lot of public art, including (wish i...

I spotted this area on a map as I looked for ideal stops on this trip. It's a huge National Recreation Area, a long, narrow strip of land sandwiched between two long, narrow lakes. When we got there and read some of the signs and saw some of the exhibits at the visitor center, we learned that it was actually two rivers, but that people decided to rearrange things and turn them into lakes surrounding the land. You cross a big, new bridge to reach the area. The area is several miles across and maybe 50 or 60 miles long. There's a major road across the middle, a major road down the length of it, and several minor roads wandering around the two narrow sides of the lengthwise road.When we arrived, the weather was still pretty gloomy, so we went to the visitor center, picked up a few maps and lists, chatted with the woman at the desk, and decided to drive through the elk & bison prairie area. We would not have been allowed there on bicycles (or motorcycles). It's a large fenc...

We rode a Rails to Trails route today - Tunnel Hill Trail, which runs for 47 miles across southern Illinois. We only rode about 13 miles, from Vienna to the southwest end of the trail where we found a wetlands preserve that kept us happy and busy for quite  awhile. Plenty of wood ducks, and a fair assortment of other local birds. Bruce spent a happy hour or two checking up on the plants. Then we rode back. Flat, flat, flat, very well maintained.     Then we got back in the car. Felt weird, but as we drove south, we wondered how the roads would have been. The relatively minor road we chose to take was narrow - no shoulder at all - and fairly busy. Might have been a bit unnerving. But that was nothing compared to what we found as we entered Kentucky. There are two bridges going into Paducah; one is freeway, so we took the other to see what we had missed.   We had missed a fairly long bridge with zero shoulder or sidewalk, plus one of those metal grating surfa...

We are taking a rest day today. We have been riding more days than I anticipated, and spending less time looking around. So we decided to do some planning, which led to Bruce's departure to pick up a rental car. We have enjoyed the trip so far, and if I had another month to finish it, I would keep right on with what we are doing. But we don't have another month, and we do still have a lot of places we want to see. We have ridden about 375 miles s far - in 12 days - we have 13 days to go, and to see everything would involve about 900 miles of riding. It would be possible to ride in Kentucky and Indiana by just cutting through little bits (especially Kentucky; Indiana could get us right back to the Chicago area). But we'd miss the high points. So we are now going to do the travel days by car, and just ride in the areas we really want to see (exchange quantity for quality rides?). I have never been to these areas before. What are the chances I will be back to take a closer l...

Tuesday was to be a longer day than the rest have been. To get to Carbondale, Bruce, who had originally said he wanted to keep daily mileage under 50, had proposed this route. No problem, as far as I was concerned. We made a point of being ready early in the day - left at 9AM when other days have been closer to 9. George, our host Monday night, had made some great suggestions about roads, so we headed out with his choices in mind. Of course, Google was forever trying to route us around some of the main roads. Sometimes that was a good idea, others, not so much. But with only a couple of stops to rearrange ourselves, we were on the route to Pyramid State Recreation area. We got there late in the morning, and actually took one of the side roads to get a better look at the birds and plants and general views. I didn't see a whole lot of variety, but did see two birds that had not been reported at the location previously. No, I am not a super-birder; I am pretty sure they just ge...

We left Columbia feeling uncertain. After the previous day, we didn't feel too sure about what to expect. This whole trip, really, has been very much the adventure we wanted. But there were, for once, no surprises! The route was about 47 miles, just as we thought. The roads were mostly paved. The traffic was not much of a problem. The turns took us where we thought they would. After a leisurely ride with stops to look around (some birds, some plants, some miniature horses), we arrived at the Orchid House B&B in Sparta, Illinois. Someone in the area must have liked Greek history. Our one stop for snacks along the way was at New Athens. Sparta is another pleasant but sad looking town. Most of the businesses in the downtown area are gone. For lease signs are on most buildings - and look like they have been there a while. But Orchid House is very nice. We arrived earlier than we had planned, called Julia and were told where to find the key. We went in and dropped off our stuff (b...

Last night while I was typing on the hotel computer I overheard the desk person telling another customer about the local marathon that was to take place this morning. I went out and asked and learned it would occupy most of the early part of our route today.Uh oh. So we scanned the internet sites and decided we'd have to choose a different way to cross the Missouri River; lots of the run took place on the Katy Trail, and the marathon went over the bridge we had pictured crossing. Twice. When we left this morning, we figured we would at least check things out. One of the course marshalls said we could just go as we had planned. There were not a lot of runners at that point yet. So we did. We passed the 3:30 pace guy & his little crew. And we kept passing more and more runners ahead of them. Wow.Some fast people out there. So maybe we call today "Riding a marathon," or "Passing the fastest guy." After we passed the turn-around point, we continued on a re...

So Mark, the Costa Rica guy, has lived in St. Louis & St. Charles all his life. He is a fantastic advocate for his cities. He rashly offered to give us a bicycle tour of St. Louis while we were staying at his guest house in St. Charles, and we jumped at the chance. We don't know this area at all. I was dimly aware that St. Charles existed; I knew about the Arch, but didn't even know it is known as the gateway to the west. And I had no clue how far apart the cities are until I rode in from Illinois yesterday. So I was fairly relieved when Mark announced he'd be by with his car, and that he has a very good, large capacity bike rack on his car. We'd been riding every day for 5 days & were not all that sure we were wise to hop on the bikes again. The 50 or so miles we'd have done had we ridden from the house...well, better to draw a veil over any images that brings to my mind. So we had an easy drive into the huge and beautiful Forest Park where we got out o...

We were so happy to be leaving with windbreakers on!!! Our first few miles were on a fairly busy road, but when you are leaving Jerseyville, IL, the traffic doesn't go on very long. We were soon feeling quite comfortable. Once again, the roads were mixed. Mostly they were good surfaces, but there was a short stretch of loose gravel, and it corresponded with the area where we began going up and down consistently. I don't know about you, but I am pretty nervous descending a steepish little hill with loose gravel. It's just not possible to anticipate how deep the gravel patch at the bottom of the slope will be, and I have heard plenty of stories about being stopped abruptly by a deeper bit of gravel. So I took my time (read: walked a bit) on a couple of the steeper ones. Before too long, though, we were back on pavement, and on a shady, winding road along a nice little creek, and soon after that we had reached the Mississippi! There's a great paved bikes-only trail tha...

We decided yesterday that going all the way to St. Louis today would be a mistake. We were right. We only rode 33 miles today, and were happy to arrive in Jerseyville, IL, where we are spending a night . Tomorrow, Missouri. Bruce asked Google and Ride with GPS to offer routes for today. Google had 3 suggestions, and one of them went by the only eBird hotspot in the entire county. It was a state park called Beaver Dam & it showed up about 10 miles into our ride. It was a good one! There's a smallish lake with a trail around it - 1.7 miles. I walked around the lake looking for birds, and watching various frogs & turtles plop into the lake as I walked by, and breaking about a million spider webs that had appeared across the path since anyone else walked there. Not only was there a nice walk, there was a little restaurant/snack bar right there. So we had a great start to our ride. Up to that time, we'd been on a fairly busy road with construction trucks (the ones that c...

Easy, right? Except for chip seal roads, rumble strips, confusing directions, 90 degree heat with very little shade available, and a steady headwind. We managed to average a little over 10 MPH. At home, I would expect that on a ride where I was averaging somewhere between 50 and 100 feet of climbing. Per mile. We left Springfield this morning feeling great, eager to see more of Illinois, confident that it would be a fairly short and easy day. About 10 miles out we reached the end of the very pleasant Interurban Trail & got to chat with a couple of local guys who had been riding it at the same time. The trail was varied - some through suburban areas, some along the freeway or the railroad tracks, a fair amount along a big open space area. It ended in Chatham, by which time the heat was enough that we happily stopped to get ice cream at the nearby convenience store. Then we headed out into the rural areas that made up most of the day. Corn, soybeans. Very mixed road qualities, ...