Distance: 89 miles Kyle’s Campground, MO to Rockwood, IL
Ride Time: 7:26
Average Speed: 11.4 mph
Altitude Gain: 5442 feet
Average Temperature: 96
This morning my goal was to get into Illinois. We had another miracle. Kathie’s GPS sent her out on the freeway. She was nervous to be driving our rig in such busy, fast traffic and didn’t know how to find me or the course again. At the first exit, she saw a Dairy Queen off to the right and thought a Blizzard may be a good way to unwind and develop a plan on how to meet up with me. She exited and turned left. She entered back onto the freeway thinking that she was now way ahead of me. She chose an exit and pulled off to the side to look up the route that day between the town we had come from and where we were going. She wasn’t finding anything and looked up at a road going off to the left, just as she saw me go around a distant corner. When she pulled up along side me, I was surprised and said “How did you get here?” She was usually ahead of me. There was a place on that corner to pull off the road and I had lunch there with gratitude for the Lord’s timing. Just as I was finishing up lunch, we saw and flagged down Dave passing by. He started earlier in the morning and without a lunch break had caught up with me. Kathie offered him an ice cream sandwich and we filled up his water bottles with ice cold water. He was very appreciative. (He always refused our invitation to eat with us, but would come inside the trailer to cool off and loved anything we gave him that was cold.) He had stopped at a bike shop to get his rear wheel repaired. He said they stopped everything to work on it and didn’t charge him anything. He left our lunch spot before I did.
The riding was much less hilly now we were approaching the Mississippi River. We crossed the river at Chester, Ill. Kathie was waiting for me there. She had met some people selling vegetables on the bridge and had picked up some very good-looking produce. As we were talking about where to stay that night, Dave rolled up. I hadn’t noticed passing him and asked him where I had passed him. He said he had taken a wrong turn and it had cost him some time.
Dave and I both planned on staying in Chester, Il for the night. Dave was going to pitch his tent at the city park. We couldn’t find a campground, but we did find a church parking lot that was near a laundromat. While we were doing the laundry, a man came in and began talking with us. He said the only road out of town was going to be closed due to railroad construction at 6 the next morning. My route map gave us two routes out of town. One of these was along the Mississippi River and promised a more scenic route. Kathie and I decided to push on to the next town of Rockwood, Il.
Kathie’s GPS sent her directly to Rockwood. Rockwood ended up being a very small town with a lot of truck and train traffic. The park there had No Parking signs posted all around. Kathie found a pull-out across the street from the city park and started preparing dinner. I left Chester using my GPS thinking I was going another 15 miles. I did take my lights, just in case. About dark, I noticed that my GPS had defaulted to the other route to Murphysboro. I didn’t want to back track and had no alternate roads on my GPS. I stopped at a house for some directions of another way to get to Rockwood. Just then the dog noticed me on his property. I thought I was a goner! The lady of the house came running out, saved me from her dog and we discussed a different route to Rockwood. It was a simple route but it took me much further. Since it was dark and there were some mean hills along the way, she offered to drive me to Rockwood. I thanked her but told her my goal was to ride my bike across the country – not get rides in cars across the country. Her husband had just had a stroke, but came outside to make sure I understood the new route. I found a place where my phone worked and called Kathie to tell her not to worry. My new route was interesting in the dark. I got chased by four dogs. That increased my average speed. The fire-flies were spectacular and I saw 12 deer. I didn’t get to Rockwood until about 9:30. We had fresh corn-on-the-cob for the first time this year and ate by candlelight. (These were both from the vendors on the bridge earlier in the day.)
ThruUSA2 