[Okay the emails are starting up again. I'm going to try not to drag out the conclusion too much. Only 15 more days worth of email to go.]
Woke up on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store at 06:00 as some construction workers showed up for work remodeling the store. We hit up the McAfee South End Restaurant in down town Maquoketa, IA and filled up on cheap tasty food. The owner came outside to look at our bikes and saw the"I Had A Malt At Yellowstone Drug" sticker on the side of my bike. She exclaimed that it was too bad that they didn't have anything like that to give me. She went inside and came back out and with a pen with their address on it and told me to send them a post card.
Around 11:00 we finally crossed the Mississippi into Illinois. The bigger bridges are always a little bit sketchy, they're most often two lanes, have no shoulder, and a metal deck that's awful squirrelly to ride on. It was a good thing we didn't have much traffic passing us, I had the phrase "East of the Mississippi" echoing in my head the whole way across. It was a real trip when I looked down thought the metal grate deck of the bridge at the water below. While the river isn't as wide as in Louisiana it's still a BIG river, definitely something to write songs about. Brad and I had a couple of stupid looking grins on our faces when we finally got across and took pictures in front of the welcome to Illinois sign.
Half a mile down the road from the bridge was Savannah, IL. Brad hit a payphone to call Erin and let here know that we would be arriving in Chicago on July 26th. When he was done I got on the phone and ordered two Model 490 Handy Horns from Wolo Manufacturing (www.wolo-mfg.com 1-800-645-5808). For $14.95 you get a 120-decibel (read LOUD) horn that fits in a water bottle cage. We looked around for someplace to eat lunch but nothing sounded good, and between the two of us we'd spent an hour on the phone. It was hard talking ourselves into getting moving into that headwind again but we still had 40+ miles to ride if we were going to make Chicago on time.
The afternoon was mind numbing, I spent most of the time trying to think of anything that could possibly distract me from how frustrating the hills and headwind were. When we finally did stop and buy lunch in Lanark, IL it really did feel like we'd earned it. A few frustrating hours later we camped in Oregon, IL, hidden in the middle of a clump of trees in a park that didn't allow camping.
andrew
Posted by drewish at July 25, 2001 12:00 PMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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