Date: 2007-04-29
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Miles today: 0.0

4-26-07Chester, IlIt felt great to ride again today after taking a zero yesterday. Mrs Gorp and I both said we should have rode yesterday after getting the bikes back from the bike shop.We were packed and left about 7am and headed back into Carbondale and ate at Mary Lou's. That's a great place to eat in Carbondale. The waitresses are very friendly and make you feel like a regular.I ordered three pancakes and couldn't finish them. I can only guess it was because we didn't ride yesterday, so I didn't work up an appetite. :-))We said our goodbyes and headed west. We were riding mostly back roads to Murphysboro, then headed on to Ava and the black skies we had been watching decided to make us wet.It rained pretty good for about 30 minutes. It was fun riding in the rain and watching the rooster tail from my bike get Mrs Gorp even wetter. ;-))By the time we got to Ava, the rain had stopped and it was nice out, but windy.We went into a small convenience store mainly just to sit down, but they had some pretty good looking fried chicken, so I got a 2 piece dinner. :-))We rode a little busier road to Campbell Hill, then got back on farm roads.This is the flattest riding we've done since the first two days out of Yorktown, Va, way back at the beginning of this ride. We ended up only climbing 1770 feet.I really enjoyed the changing terrain and all the different kinds of birds out right now. I even showed Mrs Gorp a loggerhead shrike She thought I was making the name up. :-)) I've seen those little buggers stick lizards on barbed wire to dry out in the sun.We saw a couple deer running away on one farm we passed.I left the pepper spray put away today. I feel very fortunate to have gotten away with spraying Mrs Gorp the other day. She was good today. :-))We rode through Wine Hill, then on to Chester, Il and got a room for the night.Chester is right on the Mississippi River and we will cross over that in the morning and that will put us into Missouri.We were told about a very good family buffet, so we went to see and it turns out it was a very good family buffet. I had some fried chicken. :-))It was 3/4 of a mile from our room and it rained lightly on the ride back.We have been riding through the Shawnee area for the last couple of days. My aunt told me that my great grandmother was a Shawnee. I've got a neat picture of her when my grandfather was about 3 years old.When we got back to the room, I oiled the chains and the moving parts on the bikes because of the rain we rode through today.4-27-07Pilot Knob, Mo1243 miles totalWe're in Missouri!! :-))We left Chester, Il fairly early because we knew we had a long day.We rode through Chester, then down by the Mississippi River. There was a statue of Popeye The Sailor Man at a small park just before we crossed from the eastern USA to the western USA. I think this is where Popeye was born. ;-))We took a few pictures, then rode across the narrow bridge. Luckily only one semi came and had to follow us across. We pulled off to take a picture of the "Welcome To Missouri" sign.There was about 5 miles of pancake flat river valley before we got back into rolling hills. The hard part of today was that we were riding right into 20mph winds again.I understood from some of the journals I read before this trip that the west bounders rode into headwinds about 25% of the time. We have rode into strong headwinds about 80% of the time, so maybe we will get a break before long and get some favorable winds.We stopped in St Mary and I got a chocolate milk and sat down for a rest.When we headed on, Mrs Gorp said to look at our maps....there was a shorter route to the south, so we decided to take that.When we got to Minnith, we saw two ladies gardening at a church, so we stopped to ask and see if we were taking the right road.They were very nice ladies, but they were talking about 3 different routes. I saw one road that looked like we would only have 2 miles of gravel roads to ride and we took that.The 2 miles of gravel turned into 8 miles. Some of the back country roads aren't shown on our maps...now we know. :-))It was still a favorite part of the day...making our way, knowing where we were, but not how to get anywhere we wanted to go. :-))The bikes did surprisingly well on the gravel roads. We had to go slow, but the tires did well.When we finally hit pavement again, we stopped and I made us a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.The sun was out and it was a warm day.We headed on and passed by a beautiful vineyard. It was perfectly cared for and probably over 1000 acres.When we got to Farmington, we found a small place and got a hamburger and a couple hotdogs and a huge lemonade, then went across the street to a small park with a gazebo and ate.I took advantage and stretched out my back. It was tight from working so hard pedaling into the wind.We still had another 18 miles to go to where we are staying tonight. It was an 18 mile stretch with lots of bad drivers. They wouldn't slow down and would move into the lane of oncoming traffic to get by. We had a truck pulling an RV that didn't slow down and almost caused a head on crash.I finally got tired of the cars whizzing past us so fast when there were oncoming cars, so I moved out into the lane more so they had no choice but to slow down and wait or run me over. It worked because I'm here writing this journal tonight. :-))I got another nasty little dog today too. Mrs Gorp was ahead of me and the little bugger came running right out in front of oncoming cars. There was one or two cars that had to avoid the dog. He wouldn't leave Mrs Gorp alone until she was way past his yard. I saw him eyeing me up, then come running after me. I had my pepper spray ready and got him good. Sometimes it really makes me feel good to spray a pain in the neck dog...and this was a satisfying time.That pepper spray stops them cold and they forget that they wanted to rip at your ankle just a second before.That's only 3 dogs now that I've sprayed out of probably 200 or so that have come out after us.We got to Pilot Knob, checked into the motel and found out the best restaurant was half a mile away.We walked there. It was called Baylee Jo's and it was a BBQ place.I had half a smoked chicken and it was one of the best I've ever had. Mrs Gorp had ayce grilled shrimp.I'm glad to be laying here in this motel room. Today's ride seemed hard to me. I think I was just having one of those rare low energy days.It was still another great day on the Trans Am Bike Trail. :-))4-28-07Eminence, Mo72 miles today1315 miles totalIt felt nice out when we left Pilot Knob this morning. It was about 50 degrees and a bright, blue sky.We rode half a mile and stopped at McDonald's for a breakfast sandwich and coffee to get us going.We are definitely in the Ozark Mountains. The ride all day was up one hill, then down another, then up....We decided to ride 28 miles to Centerville and stop for our real breakfast.We rode by Johnson's Shut-ins State Park. It was closed due to a levy that failed. I have no idea what the Shut-ins part of the name means.It was beautiful riding with very little traffic, especially early in the day.One of the things I really like about this area is the clear water in all the streams. The water in Kentucky and Illinois was mostly muddy, but this water looks like good drinking water.I also pick up a real estate magazine whenever I'm in a new place, just to see what things are going for and this is a very inexpensive place to buy property compared to most places I've been.We got to Centerville by 9:25am and went in and had another small breakfast and two large cokes. It was just getting warm enough that coffee didn't sound good to me.We had another 15 miles to our next stop in Ellington. We just rolled along enjoying the day and next thing we knew, we were already there.I had a hotdog and a hamburger and two cokes and two big glasses of water.I find I really need to drink lots of fluids out here riding my bike. I was even carrying three 24 ounce bottles of water and those were gone by the end of the day.We are starting to see more guys wearing cowboy hats and it seems like everyone with a truck was towing a trailer of some sort. Not RV type trailers, but open flatbed trailers. Some had lawnmowers, some had atv's, but most were just hauling empty trailers. I'm not sure what that's all about. :-))We had a 27 mile section to do into Eminence and there were no conveniences in between. It was very hilly and we were expecting a 5 mile downhill at some point according to what someone wrote on our map, but that never materialized. It was just more of the same...up, down, up, down...We got to Eminence and got a room. Mrs Gorp heard there was a shrimp and crableg ayce tonight. :-))We got cleaned up and headed to town for that dinner. Mrs Gorp just had a chicken salad, but I got the shrimp and crablegs. It was dungenous crabs...my favorite!!What a great way to end one of the easiest days I've had out here. I really enjoyed the ride today. I have been working on hand positions on the handlebars, so my hands don't hurt so much from having them in the same position most of the day.I finally found some good positions for my hands and they feel great tonight.This is also the best my butt has felt after being in the saddle all day. It hasn't been too bad, but by the end of a long day, I would be ready to get out of the saddle.Today I could have easily rode more and we did over 70 miles.Oh yeah, I'm tanning nicely on the arms and legs. Mrs Gorp is turning brighter red everyday, kinda like a lobster...and she's even using sunscreen.We only had 6 dogs run out into the roads after us today and even though they were mostly large dogs, they were bad to deal with. Maybe we're finally getting away from the worst of the dog areas. :-))Another great day on the Trans Am Bicycle Trail. :-))