This is going to be a bit abridged tonight, because we are exhausted from our 80 mile day today across most of southern Illinois. We rode all the way to Cave In Rock, a little town on the Ohio River and I am not exaggerating at all when I say the whole 80 miles looked like this:
Do you see Alan in that photo? No? That’s because of the enormity of these hills. Here- this should be better:
All day it seemed as soon as we came to the top of one of these monster steep hills we’d fly down and crawl up another. Yesterday I think I wrote something about how we both enjoy this roller-coaster riding. Let me amend my statement: we love riding roller-coaster hills in moderation. Not for 80 miles straight.
The day wasn’t all rough though. We ate lunch/breakfast in a little cafe call Delaneys where they give free pie or ice cream sundaes to cyclists. Super amazing.
The hearty food fueled us through another few hours and just when we were feeling exhausted again, Alan noticed something coming up behind us. It looked like a cyclist, but it was moving super fast. Freakishly fast on the hills. Finally it caught up and turned out to be a young man from Switzerland riding from San Francisco to Washington DC. Now here’s the amazing part: he left San Francisco 17 days ago. He’s averaging 140 miles per day. Needless to say we were very impressed and as we watched him blow through the hills in front of us, we were motivated to bear down and pound out some more miles.
Finally we reached Cave in Rock and found the campground. As we climbed yet another hill (this one pushing our bikes) towards the showers, a couple stopped us and asked about our trip.
These two are so great. They are Linda and Walter and they’re from Illinois, but just visiting this part of the state for the weekend. They invited us for a couple beers and some delicious chicken salad sandwiches, chips and dessert! We gratefully accepted and were thrilled to have some conversation to take our minds off our aching legs! Thank you so much Linda and Walter! You made our night!
Tonight is actually momentous for us. Tomorrow first thing we take a ferry across the Ohio River and leave the Trans-America trail for the last time. We pick up the Adventure Cycling Underground Railroad trail which we’ll follow to Buffalo, NY! We’re super excited about that, but also super tired from today. Tomorrow looks like more of the same so we’re going to rest up and have a big breakfast! For now? Sleep!
Pretty cute! But eventually we got the tires changed and headed further south towards the Trans-America trail until we finally, finally (seven hours later) arrived in Chester, IL- home of Popeye and all things Popeye related. That includes a museum and pizza shop and statue and park… Popeye runs this town.