R&R to recharge

Saturday, June 30. Alton, IL to St. Charles, MO. 31 miles of riding in 2:17 hrs of riding.

Sorry, no pictures again. I'll get it going tomorrow.

This was a total R&R day – for both mind and body.

Gameplan was to get up at a casual hr this morning due to a light day or riding, but I still had the body push the ON button at 5:00 AM. So I quietly worked for a bit while Judy slept. Did the complementary breakfast with 2.5 cheese omelets smothered in sausage gravy and biscuits. Yum. We got rolling at about 7 AM for the short trip to St. Charles in MO.

         The humidity is even higher today than yesterday. Couple that with some dead legs and numb mind and it made for a slow day of riding on some extremely flat terrain. Took Rt 94 West once we crossed the bridge, and it’s just flat as a cue ball. Nonetheless, the previous several days efforts have really put my legs in the hurt locker so I was just not in a groove and not feeling very comfortable much of the time. Butt’s also starting to get on the sore side with those long saddle days in a row.

Jude waited for me at like 5-8 mile increments for water stops. And I was guzzling just as much as yesterday. But wow, the temp was at 91 degrees at around 9 AM – with choking humidity. Heck, my jersey top was just about soaked in just 1.5 hrs of riding at a slow to moderate pace. Towards the end of the ride this super cut, super tanned tri-chick passed me while dug deep on her aero bars, with her doting boyfriend about 200 yrds behind her. And like she clicked down just as she passed me – you to kind of put that exclamation point at the end of the sentence! And that pissed me off, not the passing but the clicking down a gear. You do that to kind of show dominance over another rider. So there I am with all this crap going through my head: “drop down, jump and get right up on her ass! No dude, you’re feeling like shit, just suck it up and finish the ride today nice and easy….but she clicked down on me, that’s BS, TT it for a couple miles.” Yea, it was the proverbial devil on one shoulder and the angle on the other arguing back and forth about chasing this chick down or just chilling.

And it was about the time when I clicked down 2 gears and just gradually picked up the pace, still debating in my head if I really want to put myself into the Z5 locker, that her doting boyfriend with hairy and ghostly white legs goes by me. Now he did NOT click down, just kind of went around to the left chasing his diva up the road. And I was like: “the hell with it…get a life Pete!” So I just sat up and continued to ride with just a slightly bigger gear. Now I do have to say that the diva on the tri bike backed off a good deal within a couple of miles so that I was pretty much maintaining the gap she’d put on me. I guess I’ll take that as some sort of consolation today. But it was funny to me when I thought about it - my reaction to being passed like that. Pretty goofy stuff in the grand scheme of things.

Made it into St. Charles, loaded my bike in the van and the ride was over in a matter two hrs. And that felt good to get the hell out of the heat and humidity in such short work. So we had to take care of some busy work today: get the oil changed in the van and I had to buy some spokes at a bike shop, one to replace a spoke I’d broken on yesterday’s ride, and some spares for the future. So we did the local bike shop first, where he only had two spokes my size. Then to the oil change. The young guys there were really a nice group, cuz while they were doing the oil change I got my bike out and was doing the spoke change in their waiting room. They were just jawing away with us about me riding across the US. I managed to get all my bike repair done as the oil was changed. Then to the hotel…er motel. This is definitely not the Hilton here at the Quality Inn St. Charles, but when the temp is in the 100’s every bloody day and we’re doing hotel/motels darned near out of necessity, we have to cut corners on the lodging - as the money is flying out the door quite fast lately – so enter the cheapie today – Quality Inn.

We took a spin to the downtown’s history district to have some lunch and maybe, just maybe to walk around. But the temp is between 102 and 104 with the dew point in the upper 60’s, so the leisurely walk around the district was gone. God, you just want to get the hell out of the sun down here. I mean Judy and I are definitely the “dine on the patio in the sun” people, but today – not a soul was out on the patios at all these eateries down here. And neither were we! It was like a ghost town outdoors. Inside, different story, as the places were pretty packed. Few people are walking and riding on the Katy Trail at around 3 PM today, on a Saturday. I drove around the block 2x just to find a place to park the van in the shade. And I wasn’t the only one doing the driving thing for shade. It’s like a dog-fight for shade spaces.

Hit a little pub for a late lunch and drinks, the place called Loyd and Larry’s. Great price on 99-cent burgers and dogs – that they more than made up for on the wine and beer prices. But hey, that’s what you get in tourist towns. Anyway, had a good time there and then back into the inferno outside to the van to get back asap to the sanctity of the AC in the motel room. Just no desire from either of us to walk around town or ride around town - it’s really that damned hot.  So we’re here, almost prisoners of the motel room with the AC and the Cable TV.

Well, that’s about it for now. I’m going to try to be somewhat recreational with the next several days so Judy can ride in the morning with me. That’s about THE only time of the day when it’s somewhat enjoyable to be on a bike. Anytime past 10 AM and you’re into some uncomfortable temps and humidity. So we’ll back down to round about 40-50 miles/day till the heat wave breaks. Good news is I’m back on soft surfaces and away from the “concrete jungle” I’d been putting myself through for the past several days in IL.

Have to say that this heat wave for the second time in a row on a cross-country cycling trip, this is really doing a number on me mentally. Just getting the gumption to get up and ride a full 5-7 hrs each day, that’s tough to stomach at 4:30 every morning. But I’ll keep the chin up and try to sojourn on with this thing. Late……….Pete

Not having fun

Friday, June 29. Chester, IL to Alton, IL. 88 miles of riding in 6:02 hrs of riding – ending in 103-degree heat.

Sorry, I just had no ambition to take pictures today - of friggin cornfields and asphalt and trucks!

Another scorcher, though not quite as crazy as yesterday’s temp.

Did the early morning thing and got up at 4:30, made coffee, scarfed down a bowl of granola and put the kit on. Now I have to admit that today was one of those days where the “joy of riding” was just not in my picture. Matter of fact I was just dreading today’s ride. This for two reasons: I just cannot do well with heat, especially in the multi-hr stuff; and second, I had decided to bite the bullet and do the exact route that I’d done last year and ride to Alton – via a bunch of paved state routes with plenty of traffic.

The American Dirt mindset was just totally gone today. I just wanted to get miles in, get them in fast, get the hrs in, and get the hell off the bike once the thermometer hit 100. This kind of riding may be challenging, at least from a physiological standpoint, but to ride in a bloody oven all day – be it dirt, gravel, pavement or friggin leaf litter – it’s just miserable for me. Anyway, that’s my rant. Can’t be chocolate chips and pretty flowers every day, every ride. There’s always a little bit of poop on long trips like this, and today was my elephant sized pile of it!! So I got rolling at 6 AM sharp. Judy hung at the hotel and did the fitness room for a bit and was to meet me somewhere along the line, with just 3 road changes the whole day.

         A part of my reasoning for today is the fact that we have to cross the Mississippi River in one of three places: in Chester, where we were staying, but that puts us way south of the Katy Trail and almost forces you to go through St. Louis; or you can cross in E. St. Louis – a hellhole of a place that I AIN’T riding a bike through; or up in Alton, IL, where you bypass all the city hell. That was my choice, to put in one big ugly day and get it done by riding up to Alton. So as soon as I got going on Rt 150, it was just the steady line of truck traffic zooming by. Turns out that there’s all these mines in S. IL and the truck traffic is off the charts on all these state routes. And so it was on 150, with this miniscule berm and 60-mph trucks cranking through.

         And I figured that maybe it would get better when I got on Rt 4. NOPE. Same &^^#%@@ as on 150, though I did have a better berm. God, I’ll tell you I’m just burned out on these main roads. It’s just such a chore to ride them anymore – not to mention dangerous. But I kept telling myself that “it’s just one day, it’s just one day, and then we will be back to the backroads.” The morning was a bit hotter than yesterday, and much more humid. Heck, I had beads of sweat rolling of my forehead and nose just about an hour into the ride – at 7 AM where the temp was 86 degrees. Rt 4 is pretty flat and it’s just a frying pan of a road with almost no shade, amidst an infinity of cornfields. I was able to maintain a good rhythm and pace though due to the lack of any considerable climbing.

         Judy met up with me just north of Sparta, IL. I knocked down 2 iced water bottles and a coke and jammed on. Next stop on 4 was Mascoutah. Made that in really good time. Again, downed 2 iced water bottles and had a bologna sandwich. Off again, this time to the I-70 overpass. Now by then, the temps was easily over 100, maybe like 101-102, and the humidity was pretty intense – no, it was getting stifling. The coolish breaze from the morning was replaced by a warm wind as I was riding, so the evaporation-cooling effect was definitely not there as it was yesterday. Made that meeting spot at I-70 where Judy had no choice but to park in the blazing sun cuz there was virtually nothing around to provide shade – for miles! Two more iced water bottles and I was on the road again, this time to the jcn with Rt 140. Ok, so at that point I’d gone through 6 iced water bottles, and I still wanted to make it to Alton, probably around 35 miles away at that point.

         I think through drinking water like crazy, I mean like crazy, I was able to keep the pedal down and keep my pace fairly moderate for so long in such heat and humidity. Made it to the jcn with 140, where Judy had indeed found a shade tree to park under. You know the drill – 2 more iced water bottles, and add an ice cold coke to that. This was the spot where I was hoping to get to, round about 70 miles in. but I still felt as though I could crank out another 10 miles, so Judy went like 5 miles down the road west on 140 just to be safe. Made it there and waved her on for another 5. Well, that turned out to be about 8 miles due to the “where to park the van in the shade” issue. And that was fine with me, because I just wanted to get this thing in the books and get the hell off the bike for the day.

         Made it to the outskirts of Alton, where the traffic was just horrible, and the suburbs were crushing in on me. THAT was the endpoint, just about 3 miles from the stripmalls and the chaos. I loaded the bike with 88 miles in for the day, making it to the outskirts of Alton. Went to the hotel and did this glorious shower. By then the temp outside was crazy hot, like a blast furnace when you open the hotel doors. Heck, we have the van parked next to our room window, and just as we did yesterday, we have all the windows down, and all the vent windows up to allow air to circulate in the van. Went out to the pool, and sat in the cold water after the shower. As soon as you get out you can feel the crushing heat.

         Did the Golden Coral Buffet and damn did I eat. Relaxing now with a few iced beers from our ice chest. Ok how about a little TMI?  So I went through a 2-liter bottle of water, which we re-bottled in waterbottles in the ice chest during my ride. I drank another half gallon of water since I quite riding - and I’ve only pee’d once!! All that water and just one little ole pee. That’s how much water I bloody lost today.

         Tomorrow we’ll cross the Mississippi River and do a short day to St. Charles and the beginning of the 265-mile Katy Trail. This is a real winner of a Rail Trail. I want Judy to be able to ride for a change and have some fun rather than do the support crap all day, so I’m going to back it off on the mileage and just try to make it such that we can both enjoy for several days on this trail. The heat is still to be here, but not in the mid 100’s – no, prediction is for high 90’s to 102. At least on the Katy you’re shaded for miles of riding. That’s a plus. So, from the frying pan here in Alton, IL I hope you guys are cool. All the best…Pete

Heat....Groundhog day revisited

Thursday, June 28. Harrisburg, IL to Chester, IL. 82 miles of riding in 6:08 hrs of riding – ending in 108-degree heat.

Wow. This is just the most incredible weather you can imagine to ride in. It’s a carbon-copy of last year’s trip, but this year the hot weather has come 2 weeks earlier and it’s even freaking hotter.

         Got up at 5 AM and jammed asap to get ready to ride. With the forecast for 104-108 today, I just didn’t want dilly-dally too long and loose precious “cool weather” ride time. With temps like this you’re in the 100’s by 11 AM. Jude microwaved some water for coffee and made me some granola with Almond milk. I loaded the van and we were gone within 40 min of waking up. Got on the bike and got rolling at 5:50 AM in pretty reasonable cool temps in the low 70’s. Now last night I decided to ditch the ADT route for today so I didn’t have to deal with the bloody truck traffic that I had dealt with yesterday. The ADT route was to take me down SR 145 and 147, and by the looks of it, that spelled trucks, trucks, and more trucks. So I’d gotten my IL gazetteer out and my digitized maps out and planned a route of my own, hoping to hit gravel along the way based on the roads being tiny county and township routes. But really the big question was going to how long could I ride in the heat before pulling the plug.

         Got on a nice little chip-seal back road and headed west towards the city of Marion, IL. Now have to say from the get-go that none of my roads proved to be gravel. But on the up side, they were just great little back farm roads with dag gone near zero traffic. I did a good bit of zigging and zagging to keep a parallel with Rt 13 into Marion. But wow, I had damn near everyone’s farm dogs chasing me as I rode by. They sometimes came out in 2’s and 3’s. Reminded me that some days ago – and I forgot to blog about it – I was being chased every 15 min by a dog or two. So this one dog just wasn’t listening to my shouting out NO, NO, and it kept coming at my right ankle. So I let the bastard get right about next to my ankle and I quickly unclipped pulling my leg backwards and up-kicked the sucker with a giant thud resonating off his chops. The dude kind of stopped dead in his tracks and shook his head a few times like a boxer shaking off a good punch. Loved that one. But today the NO, NO did the trick – no kicks needed. Heck got to say that it’s somewhat of a game for me now with all the chasers out there. It’s like, “which one of you guys are going to have the nads to really come at me? Because I will give you my best kick!”

         Anyway, my roads were just so relaxing and mellow. Unfortunately I had to re-enter Rt 13 W because there’s a giant complex of lakes right in the middle of my route and you have to use 13 to skirt them. All the roads just deadend at the lakes, and you’d have to ride some 20-30 miles due south just to ride around them and then ride that same distance back north to get on the same parallel again. So met Judy in Marion for the first stop, got a coke and bologna sandwich down and kept rolling. The stop was almost like a pit-stop, with us trying to save time to keep me going. Next meeting area was to be Carbondale, about 16-18 miles to the west. Did my own routes again, and again, go gravel. But they were nice little farms roads way off the busy Rt 13 that’s really a super straight shot from Harrisburg to Carbondale.

         And once again, I had to re-enter Rt 13 due to the lakes to get the last 4-5 miles into Carbondale. So by the time I pulled into Carbondale the temp was 90-some degrees and it was only 10 AM. Problem was …no Judy! I rode all around our meeting place – the jcn of Rt 13 and 51. Nothing. Now there were these kind of derelict looking dudes kind of sitting around in the park scoping me out. This is pretty much the same thing you’d see in Grace Park in Akron. Rode around for a second time to see if maybe she was freaked by the place and parked a bit further from the park. Nothing. So I finally pulling into a shady spot away from the dudes and fired a few phone calls to her. No answer. Must have called like 5x with no answer. So I immediately began to kind of freak a bit, drawing up all these nightmare scenarios in my head of what could have happened. I mean she should have beaten me there by a good hr, but nothing. So the sweat is beginning to just flow due to the temp and the fact that I was beginning to stress a bit.

         About 10 min later here comes the van driving towards me. No nightmare, no disaster. She had just stopped at a place to pick up some groceries. Whew! Ok, next step was one of two things: look for backroads on a northerly route off of Rt 151; or just shuck it and get the damn day done and get out of the sun by hooking up with Rt 3 northwest and stay with quickness and big paved roads. I opted for second choice, deciding to take Rt 13 to 149 to 3 to Chester – the very route I’d done last year. I knew what to expect and I knew I could do the ride in this heat + get some miles in for the day. So that was the plan – FLY. Went 13 to Mursphysboro, 149 to jcn Rt 3, and Rt 3 to Chester.

         The first stage was just fine. The second stage, 149, oh yea, that brought back some fond memories – of all the bloody hill climbing on the bluffs of the Mississippi River. At least this time I wasn’t lugging 75 lbs of gear up and down those pups. I passed a guy fully loaded with gear on his bike just before the first big climb, and I shouted out some encouragement to him. But by this time the heat was really beginning to get to the blast furnace range. Made it to the jcn with Rt 3 to meet Jude and got an ice cold coke and some fresh strawberries. That hit the spot for sure. At that point I knew that the last stretch, the 25 miles to Chester, that was going to be a toughie. We decided that it might be nice for Jude to wait for the biker I passed and give him coke and strawberries. So I got it rolling.

         Put it in the big ring and just hunkered down and began riding at a tempo pace, just to get the hell out of the heat. The road was fairly flat due to it being on the Mississippi River floodplain, and right up against the eastern bluff. Jude passed me at about 8 miles into the 25 and shouted that she’d meet me in 10 more miles, so I just kept chugging away at the big gear. As the miles rolled on the heat just became insufferable. The wind earlier from riding kind of kept me cooled off, but by this point the wind was beginning to feel hot. Reached Jude with 8 miles to go and I could have bagged it right then and there but for the fact that I was just a eyelash away from doing the total ride so I could start in my stop place the next day. I hit a iced coke and got several big shots of water, and then ushered her onward so I could get it done.

         Now I’d seemed to remember this climb going into Chester, so the first one, with like 3 miles to go, that wasn’t a surprise. It was long and steep, and I was just dripping wet at the top, with the sweat just trickling like a small waterfall off of my handlebars from my arms and hands. But I got up this one and then there was another, albeit smaller, but then another after that, and another. It was just this long set of false summits, one after the next, and my legs were starting to quiver with small muscle spasms when I’d get out of the saddle. Finally, and I mean FINALLY, I topped out and was in the downtown. There waiting for me was Judy, with all the van doors open but her driver’s door. She was equally as exhausted as I was having to sit there in the freaking sun stop after stop. The time and temp sign in the city read 108 degrees. I was at my end on this one. I could not have pedaled another mile. I just had to sit down in this doorway and guzzle a coke. Didn’t talk much, didn’t think much. I just sat there staring into a void. Odometer read 82 miles in just over 6 hrs of riding.

         Way back in Carbondale we had called a hotel and got a reservation for the evening in Chester. NO camping in this heat. No way for her, no way for me. Maybe it’s the age thing, but I’d suffered enough for the day, no way we were going to sit around a campground in 108 degree heat for the rest of the day and into the night. Got to the room and I just got down on my hands and knees in the hotel room and sipped ice water for 10 min. Showered and drank more ice water and then ate a bologna sandwich. Felt much better once the water, the food, and the shower were done.

         Judy, she’s the champ of the day, trying to get in a run in the morning while I was riding, doing some food shopping while I was riding, and running all over hell’s half acre for me doing the support. Kudos to her. I couldn’t have done today without her help.

         This could be the MO in the next several days of riding: starting early, ending early, and motor pacing the route to beat the heat. And of course we’ll motel it until this heat spell dissipates a bit. Hope you’re all staying cool………..Pete

Back into the frying pan

Wednesday, June 27. Mt Vernon, IN to Harrisburg, IL. 65 miles of riding in 4:47 hrs.

Had to cut it a bit short due to the heat today – 94 degrees right now at 3 PM. Just got to be a blast furnace out there.

         Did the early bird thing again this morn, and then while I was working I got some water boiling on the burner for Jude. Ate breakfast and slammed some coffee and we were out of the campground at 7 AM and I was riding at 7:30 – still too late and we have to work on this because of the heat forecast for the next week. Got rolling on the ADT route through Mt. Vernon, which was kind of nice because I hit some nice stretches of gravel road. This gravel out Southern IN is like really thick, so I have to choose my line wisely or else I could be on my rump by washing a wheel. I’ve been choosing the extreme sides of these gravel roads because the gravel is either not there and it’s just earthen, or it’s pretty thin. So I’m kind of crossing from side to side of the road on this stuff as it thickens and thins. So I was cruising along quite nicely at like 14 mph on this gravel stuff what with another nice SW tailwind, and a bit into the ride I came to this gate across the gravel road. On the gate was the now familiar  “No Trespassing” sign, the addendum; “violators will be prosecuted.”

         Yea, I’m getting really used to this crap. It’s happened so many times now that I’m just pretty much immune to it. So I re-rode my route back to another gravel cross road and took that. I had to get back on pavement at the next jcn because I had no other choice here. So I ended up doing Rt 62 across the Wabash River and into IL. So it took me about 5 full days to cross IN on paved and gravel backroads. A normal crossing of IN for a cross country trip with be 3 days, maybe, just maybe 4 days max. So this route definitely adds some mileage to the crossing.

         Met Judy at this little place called New Haven. My stomach was just not feeling too good this morning so I just had one coke and nothing else. Gee, I wonder if 6 eggs mixed with bacon and diced hotdog in combination with full-force java was my undoing this morning? The next stretch was a big question mark. I just cannot delineate between gravel road and paved road on map, GPS, Google Earth, Gazetteer, or anything else. So I suggested that just in case it’s gnarly gravel that Judy to the LOOOOONG way around to meet me. Like my route was 16 miles and I sent her 38 miles to stay on good paved roads. Well, surprise, my route was like on pristine pavement – a total disappointment for sure, not only for my ride but for sending Judy all over hell’s half acre to meet me when she could have driven the very same road. This road was just in the middle of a blast furnace, flat, with corn on all sides of me, just winding to the south into a cross-headwind.

         Limped into the second meeting spot in Shawneetown with my stomach still on the fritz. Just did ice water at this break and then took off for the biggest question mark of the day, a section through Shawnee National Forest. My hope was that this would be rugged, wild and gravel. Well, I got that for half the section. Started on pavement but within a few miles of leaving Shawneetown the road went to gravel. When I was nearing the change of road surfaces I could see this big plume of lime dust in the distance that a Jeep 4WD was kicking up as it passed me. Suddenly I was out of the cornfields and into this spectacular hilly, wooded terrain with rock outcrops and nothing but the smell of fresh pine permeating the air – I think Scotch and White Pine. And the road did this slight change from gravel to beat to hell pavement every so often. In some places it was just a thin, 6-foot wide strip of pavement in the middle with nothing but gravel on the sides.

         After that I was back on pavement, but the surroundings were just so great that I wasn’t too disheartened about it. What I was riding through here was just so unlike what I’d ridden through in IL last year. This area, the Shawnee National Forest, is more reminiscent of a foothills area in a western state. And yea, there was climbing all right, but it wasn’t the steep, power climbing stuff I rode through in Southern IN. No, this was much gentler climbing that was about 10-15 min long, and definitely not little cookie stuff. So the road just rolled up these long, mellow climbs and then descended, over and over. Really enjoyed riding this section, and would love to come back here to hike and backpack the River To River trail, which snakes all through this area for 129 miles. It’s just so NOT Illinois down here. This is a true wilderness area.

         So my final stretch of the day was off the wonderful backroads with much solitude and so little traffic…to this absolute cluster&%^&$#^@ of a road – IL Rt. 34. I now know why I’m trying to stay all backroad on this trip and Rt 34 is my reason why. There was little to no berm, heavy traffic, and worst of all was the fact that this is some kind of truck route – in a massive way. Just convoys of these gravel-hauling trucks passing me at like 60 mph. It was pure hell. I was thinking about all the cross country riding I’d done on roads like that and how now I’m just totally fried on these state routes. And the problem was that this thing just kept going and going and going. I mean there was just no end to it. I’d figured on like 2-4 miles. Nope, more like 6-7 miles. At one point I’m like, “did I take a wrong turn here, cuz this is just way too long compared to what I had seen on the maps.” Finally, after hoping and praying that that friggin thing would link with Rt 145, where I was to meet Judy, I saw the jcn. Glory, glory, glory…free at last!

         I was just smoked from putting the hammer down on that Rt 34 section, so when I pulled in to where Judy was parked, I pretty much knew that the fight was out of me for the rest of the day. It was only 1 PM, but the heat and traffic was just crazy. And so as we sat there at this parking area at the jcn of 145 and 34, with me in the van knocking down an ice cold coke and some ice water, we watched the line of trucks going up and down Rt 34. Sometimes there was like 5 of these long bed gravel haulers in a row making the turn onto or off of 34. Got to be mining trucks or the like with such a stead flow of truck traffic.

         It was motel thirty! We needed AC and R&R. So rather than search out the campground I had looked up in the morning, we drove straight into Harrisburg and got a 50-buck motel. No passing go, no collecting $200. It was done. Now the next 10 days in this neck of the woods is just insane: 99 to 109 degrees each and every day. God, this is like Groundhog Day all over again. Absolutely have to start early and end early + do more moteling along the way than we had hoped for. I can’t fathom hanging at a campsite in 100+ degree heat each and every day. Ok, until tomorrow I’m out………Pete 

You are now about to enter the Twilight Zone

Tuesday, June 26. St. Meinrad, IN to Mt Vernon, IN. 84 miles of riding in 6:42 hrs of riding.

Feeling in the groove today, and got to enjoy some dirt (er…gravel) too!

I woke up at what I though was like 6 AM – according to my watch – but then when I checked my phone for emails I noticed that the time was 5 AM. Ahhhhh…the time change in Indiana. My phone automatically accounted for that. So I had a great jump on the day. Worked on my computer for a bit so as to not wake Judy, and then when she did roust, we jammed on the packing, left friggin Wally World for good, hit a Subway for coffee and breakfast subs, and I was able to get on the bike at just after 7 AM. That’s our new MO here, what with our bodies used to getting up at 6, now it’s 5, so with the hot weather I can start and end earlier in the day.

Now this Wally World place, wow, I mean there was a parade of golf carts last night, and it seemed that everyone was packed so tightly together that you could just smell you’re neighbor’s dirty socks for God’s sake. And the golf cart thing…whole families would rent these deplorable things and then just drive everywhere. Never walking anywhere mind you – everyone was driving a golf cart…and checking their cell phones on the golf carts!! No bloody wonder this country is experiencing an obesity crisis. Some of the carts were packed with like 5-6 people. I mean there were three seaters with sun roofs. Anyway, It was quiet as a funeral there in the morning, with us being the only people up. So good to get the hell out of there.

Got rolling and had some nice cool weather for a change to start. Felt awesome after just being a pile of protoplasm by the end of yesterday. Has to be all the great foods that I’m ingesting: like last night’s  6 hot dogs, salad, chinese eggplant with hot chili sauce, blue corn chips, fig newtons and probably a few other things that I forgot. Met Judy in Boonville for the first segment, and still felt really good with the Subway breakfast footlong in the tank. Then got going for the second section and was pleased to find I was on gravel for a good bit. Only trouble was that it’s been so dry that the dust from a car got kicked up and it was like a blaster for several hundred yards. Then the dude turned around and came back and passed me creating another dust storm of lime dust. One of my buds, Pete Baughman suggested earlier that I may want to wear those portable breather masks on the lime gravel sections, and I’m inclined to agree after today.

So that was fun in the dirt down around this lowland area – the Pigeon Creek wetlands. Then back to asphalt and down to the down of Newburg on the Ohio. This was a beautiful little city on the river with an awesome bikeway along the river. Put down a salad, coke, cheese sandwich, and then prepared for the section of the day that I dreaded – going through, or around Evansville. I just hate riding through cities. So I was curious how this ADT was going to do it. Well, it started off pretty good, on this nice little chip-seal along the Ohio River that eventually turned to gravel. I mean it was kind of doing the end around if Evansville, bypassing the whole Eastern Suburbs. But then I came to a bunch of No Trespassing signs – written on old tires in red paint. That to me is a sure sign of: “you come in here and we’ll shoot your ass off.” So again, there’s a road all right, but now it’s private property. So I stopped and got my phone and GPS’ed the area to look for alternative routes, and just about that time some guy from the phone company pulled up in his truck. Guy told me he was just about to call the cops when he saw me, because people had been coming in there and stealing copper line. So he gave me directions to bypass the privatized area.

Rode on, through this sketchy neighborhood, and then thankfully back to the south and back to the river road I was previously on - Shawnee. It turned back to pavement and then went right up into the center of town. Jumped on a Greenway bike trail for a short stretch and then along the CSX main rail-yard just to the west of downtown Evansville. And that was it, I was through Evansville with the most minimal of issues. Quite a contrast to my debacle in Cincinnati. Got on a few more backcountry paved roads and made it to Judy for our third stop of the day. Just drank a coke and I wanted to get in like 10-15 more miles for the day to give me 80+. So we set the final meeting site for just on the outskirts of Mt Vernon. Got it rolling and hit gravel after a mile or so. Despite the fact that it was like riding on ball bearings, I was still able to clip along at 11-14 mph – that due to the great tailwind I’ve had all day long coming out of the east – crazy weather.

For the first time in the day I was feeling the heat, which by that time was in the mid to upper 80’s. It was like the sun was reflecting off of the lime gravel. About 5-6 miles in felt the old hypoglycemia thing coming on – energy drop, feeling kind of out of sorts, and just craving fig newtons or something sweet.  Rode it out for the rest of the way and I was damn glad to see Judy there cuz I just wanted something sweet in a huge way. She handed me this half a vanilla milk shake and I just inhaled it, then snagged the rest of a bag of fig newtons and munched those down. We even went back to Dairy Queen and got me a chocolate shake – they’re half price from 2-4 PM each day. Ok, satiated for the time being.

Next up was getting a place to camp. Now I’d called this little campground and got directions to it. The lady was nice and said they had plenty of electric site available. So we get there, and I go in to register and this grubby dude who looks like he was an actor in the movie “Deliverance” opens up this top half door in a dilapidated office with like hand written crap all over the walls – the rules and regs I suppose. I greeted the dude and asked for a campsite. “What do you want,” he said. “I’d like a site,” I responded. “What” he said. I reiterated that I wanted an electric campsite. “We don’t have any electric, just primitive,” he said. And I looked out the window and saw that there was like 8-10 electric sites. And I pointed to the sites out the window and the dude, reiterated that they had no electric sites. Again, I pointed out the window. So the guy tells me to camp up at Burdette Park, a place about 5-6 miles away. And at this point I felt as though I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. So I look back at him and he just shuts the half door on me. So I kind of loudly said, “you’re a friggin nut job dude.” And I hear him say something behind the door.

So I went out and looked at Judy and told her, “I can’t believe what just happened. Dude kicked me out!” She thinks it was my lycra riding kit that kind of made the guy spaz out. Anyway, we went down the road to Burdette Park, and the place is awesome. Not only is it much nicer, but it’s only 23 bucks as opposed to the Nut Job Place being 30 bucks. So here we be camping again. Nice place, great dinner on the way. Another day done. Tomorrow we should make IL by mid-morning. Going to post this and ride with Judy for a bit in the park here. Late…………pete

Welcome to Wally World

Monday, June 25. Corydon, IN to St. Meinrad, IN. 69 miles of riding in 5:38 hrs of riding and bike-a-hike.

Flaming torched today – the three H’s …heat, headwinds, hills. Did my recon on the computer again this morning at like 5:20 AM, confirming all the twists and turns in the route, and then writing it all out on this long cue sheet for myself. Looked pretty hard between what I saw on the gazetteer and what I saw on Google Earth. Matter of fact Jude saw the cue sheet and was like, “what’s all that?” And I told her it’s the bloody route for just a portion of the day. The other half was on a paper picnic plate! So she drove me back down to where I left off yesterday. I gave her directions to meet me in Bristow in like 3.5 hrs and she took off to go back to the hotel to do a workout in the gym.

         Got going on a bunch of little chip seal paved roads out into Harrison-Crawford State Forest. The scenery was just fantastic. It was pretty much like riding around in the Cuyahoga Valley with zero traffic – but a ton of climbing. I did see ONE solitary ADT placard today, and it was so weathered and faint that it just looked like an old piece of plastic on a telephone pole. Other than that – nothing. And tell ya what, like I’d said yesterday, if you don’t check this stuff out road by road on something like Google Earth or the like, then you’re just going into the great unknown. Heck, some of the locals haven’t even heard of some of these roads when I stop to ask directions. And that’s my mainstay as far as not getting hoplessly lost – ask. I did use my GPS 2x today – and it saved me from doing a boat load of extra mileage. But it’s just so much easier to ask some one than to dig in the pack, boot up the GPS, and then wait to see the maps pop up. But the good thing is that when I’m just out in the middle of nowhere, the GPS will do the trick – most of the time!!

         So I was cruising along pretty good on this Old Forest Rd, made the turn onto 462 and came into a state park where the road supposedly ended. Well, it didn’t end on Google Earth this morning, and it didn’t end on my GPS, but the park map said it ended. And I’m like, “ok, I can go way back and do a detour that will add like 30 min to the ride, or just ride this damned thing down to where it’s supposed to stop, and then jump on trail to bridge to Rt 62.” So that’s just what I did, riding this long descent down to a horse stable area where the road did indeed end. And just before I was getting on one of the trails I saw some kids working over  by a stable area. So I asked them the best way to get to Rt 62, and the kid points back up this long descent I’d just done.

         “You have to go around,” he said. And I’m like, “you’re kidding, there’s no way to get over to 62 on a trail down here?” “Nope,” he answered, there’s a creek you’d have to cross and it’s pretty deep and wide.” Then I pressed again about trails. And he said I’d still have to go back up that big assed climb and then turn into the campground area and then get on the Iron Bridge trail. “But you still have to cross the creek on the old bridge,” he said, “and there’s no decking on it. It just has RR rails that connect to I-beams. People do walk across it, but I wouldn’t advise it.” Ok, I’ve done a hell of a lot worse I told him, I’m going to give it a try. So I rode back up the climb, up and up and up to the campground and then got on this gravel Iron Bridge Trail and descend like hell for about 25-30 min down this horse trail. No bikes allowed! Hey, I’m just trying to get the heck out of here, so as early as it was, with no rangers and no horse traffic, I just blasted on through and keep it rolling.

         Got to the bottom of the trail and the main trail went off to the left and there in front of me was the infamous iron bridge, a rickety old iron bridge that spanned a creek for a good 50 yrds. And true to it, the thing had no planking on it, just to big abutments on each side and then these dbl and single rails running perpendicular to the stream, and then very thin beams joining the rails that ran parallel to the stream. Have to admit my heart did indeed crank up 20 or more bpm when I saw the traverse I had to do. Now I did not have my big backpack with the trail shoes so I had a choice of doing this trek with mt biking shoes on, or in my stocking feet – shoes!! Took my sunglasses off, came up with a strategy and got situated on the RR tracks, the dbl rails. I held the bike by the top tube with my right hand, making sure the left pedal was at the very back of the stroke so as not to bump into my right leg. Then I just started to slowly shuffle, one foot on each RR rail, across the bridge.

         Now the first 40-50 feet were ok because there were big I-beam abutments every so often to kind of rest on, but the main span, the one 40 or so feet above the creek that went for another 200 feet or so, that had nothing but the rails dangling above the water. There were these rotted out side rails on each side, but I didn’t want to lean so far over with the bike in one hand that trying to grab a rail would set me off center from the rails – all the more chance of a cycling shoe skidding off a rail. So I just did the shuffle. Got across the first span, and then the sketchy main span above the water. But when I can to the span on the other side past the water, the two rails went down to one! And I had like another 50+ feet to get to the other side. Now this was really getting interesting. So what I ended up doing was what I didn’t want to do – hold the bike with the left hand, and leant to the right to kind of hold the side rail and shimmy my feet along the single rail.

         Got it. Honestly, that one was a bit heart-pounding, and I was pretty relieved when I got over the barricade and back on my bike. So I began riding and went to put my sunglasses on…and guess what? Yup, stupid, idiotic, moronic, *%&^%$^# that I am  - I’d left the sunglasses on the other side of the bridge when I was scoping out how I was going to cross. SHIT!!!!!!!!! Now I’d cycled across the country like 3 times with those glasses – sentimental value!! Had to go back across the bridge and get them. Just no debating it. And I did, but I didn’t take the bike!! Did the there and back and got back to the bike still shaking my head at what a dumb ass I was. Took it into Leavenworth and then back on more small township and county roads.

         This is the stretch that just kicked my behind. Nothing but steep rollers for mile after mile through Hoosier Nation Forest. The terrain was just tough as hell, but the scenery was spectacular. There were times when I was cycling up on a bluff hundreds of feet above the Ohio River. You could see out along the river for what seemed to be tens of miles on each side. Used the GPS and asked for directions a couple of time just to not waste more time, as the double bridge traverse had taken my at least a half hour to get done. At that point I was at the time I had told Judy that I’d meet her – and I still had a LOT more riding to do to get to Bristow. So I had to make a decision at that point, continue on the route I had mapped, or adjust so I could get to our meeting spot late, but not crazy late. So instead of doing the two roads I really wanted to hit for the day, these grave/single track sections right through this wilderness section of Hoosier NF, I’d have to do a quicker route to get to Judy within 5 hrs of starting the ride. I’d told her 3.5 would probably do it, and I’d grossly underestimated the time and terrain. Didn’t want her to get all wigged out with me pulling in at 6 hrs if I were to do the backcountry section.

         So I rolled down 66 to 70 to 37 to get up to French Ridge Rd that I needed to ride west to Bristow. By the time I got to French Ridge I was just flaming. I had stopped in Derby for a bottle refills, and by the time I got to French Ridge I was just about on E again with water. Man was it hot. And French Ridge Rd was just a motha with it’s rollers and steep power climbs. Finally crawled into Bristow with Judy parked in this abandoned auto repair place that had a sliver of shade from a long overhanging roof. She was pretty worried, and I apologized for not getting the time down with respect to the route. Ate two bologna sandwiches and had an ice cold coke and then decided to just ride to St. Meinrad to make it a day.

         She took the long route cuz we need to gas up back up on I-64 (Bristow was like a small hamlet with zero services). And I did my last leg, about 10 miles to St. Meinrad. I was slow as a turtle, and just really feeling the heat today. Probably went way too long before a rest/nutrition/hydration stop. Stopped at an American Legion in St. Meinrad to get icewater while I waited for Judy. Must have had like 3 bottles of icewater down in there. Talked with an old gent about cycling in the heat and he thought I was nuts. Yea, me too! Met Judy, loaded the bike in the van and off to…get this…to Santa Claus, IN to camp at some place called Lake Rudolph. So we got to Santa Claus and it had this freaking “Wally World” park there. It’s really called Holiday World. I mean it was just a total cluster*^*&#^^#. Right then and there I knew what to expect. So we waited in a line to register – 37 bucks for an electric site - with ten gazillion people. The campground is like part of the park, with shuttles, buses, guides. I mean it’s insanity to the tenth power. From our campsite here we can hear the roller coaster off to the distance, watch shuttles packing them in and packing them out, see all these lazy folks riding around in rental golf carts. Oh, it’s just Shangri-La for real. Beer-thirty is staring VERY early tonight!!

         So that’s the scoop from here in lovely Santa Claus, IN. Time for a shower, a beer, a nap, a beer, a snack….and a beer. Yup. Late……..Pete

Blasting away at Southern IN

Sunday, June 24. Madison, IN to Corydon, IN. 82 miles of riding in 6:08 hrs of riding.

(I added pics from yesterday to the Saturday blog: wifi was too slow)

Good and bad on this day. More on that later. Stayed in this little 35-dollar-a-night place last night, and considering the price, it was just fine. Turns out all our neighbors there were residents, not overnights, so this place sees few “there and gone” folks like us. Grilled out on their picnic table in 90-degree heat last evening, then hit the hay at about 10 PM

Got up at 5:30 AM to figure out this God forsaken ADT route on my computer. Now the bad part of it is the fact that it’s just so tough to stay with the ADT what with all the twists and turns. There really are zero markings along the way here, as I saw none today and almost none yesterday, so forget that. What I did is purchase the text directions download for the portion of the route that pretty much paralleled my tentative route up to the Katy Trail in MO. I had decided to use this route as a back-up to what I’d come up with on my mapping. And as I’d said well before the trip, finding dirt roads is just brutally tough to do, even with all the software and maps I’ve purchased for this. So in the end it is what it is.

Anyway, I used good old Google Earth to go over each and every twist and turn in today’s ADT route just to double check their info.. And I did indeed come up with two questionable areas that I kind of corrected as I rewrote the directions down on a piece of scrap paper. My backup was a couple of sets of RR tracks that darn near paralleled the route for today – this I had done months ago on my own. So I spent a good 2 hrs today doing this route recon on the computer out to like 80+ miles. Then I put together three meeting spots for Jude and directions to get to each. I just don’t’ want her driving on some of these little roads, especially when you can’t get vehicles down some of them due to unsafe conditions and or road closures.

So we got all that done and loaded up and got me dropped going at 8 AM. Rode to Hanover and then did some jibbing and jagging and was suddenly on this road that just kind of ended at a sign that said: “Road closed, travel at your own risk.” Ok, onward and upward. So I kept it rolling. The road deteriorated into a little gravel road, and then into a highly rutted gravel road, and then into a 4-wheel drive gravel road. There were sections where the dry stream beds were actually switchbacks in the road. I was super happy to be on what I had wanted to do so much of, and to make it even nicer was the fact that this little track was right along the Ohio River. Rode for a bit and then had to do a climb up this unmarked road called “Ten Cent Rd.” The only way I knew to take this turn was because of the recon I’d done on the computer this morning. No way would I have known other than with the coordinates on a GPS.

Now Ten Cent road was just a total witch. I mean it just hammered me right from the start up this massively steep bluff on the side of the river. The pup was like one very thin lane wide, and just crazily pitched up. Got to the top and eventually back on asphalt. The rest of the ride was on pavement over rollers on roads that are so small that some of them don’t even show up on my DeLorme IN Gazetteer. Only when you use Google maps and zoom down to about 2000 feet = 1 inch can you even see the names of these roads. Many of them are on my digitized 7.5 min usgs quads, but again, no designation as to paved or unpaved. So it’s a surprise every time you make a turn onto another road. Well, that turned out to be my only stretch of gravel today, unfortunately. The rest of the first stretch to Henryville was on the township and county roads that were rolling to flat. Met Jude with zero problems and got a chicken salad, bologna sandwich and an ice cold coke in, and I was off for the second stretch to New Albany.

Did a nasty stretch down IN 31 with tons of traffic. And there was my RR line I had mapped months ago right next to the road. So I did a little jog over to the easy to check it out for ridability. But I was pretty bummed to find that this thing was rarely used so there were big gaps with no gravel between most all of the ties. And couple that with the fact that the tracks were raised up on the giant crown of ballast, so that I’d have to ride on the gravel at like a 30-degree angle. There was no little access track alongside it like you find on many RR lines – this for the maintenance vehicles to use for track repair. So that was just a total no-go. Back to IN 31 for traffic hell. Got off that in about 3 miles and back to small chip-seal township routes meandered on the outskirts of Clark State Forest to the west. This was pretty nice, and traffic was down to about one vehicle every 10 min or so. Then back to a state route – IN 111. More traffic hell all the way to New Albany where I was to meet Jude.

This is a river town nearly right across from Louisville, KY on the Ohio River. So it was pretty urban. Met Jude downtown after we did a few phone conversations to nail down where she was parked and where I was at. This time I gobbled down two bologna sandwiches and an ice cold coke. Looked at my directions for the last section of the day – New Albany to Corydon – and got it rolling again. Had to endure another 4-5 miles along the Ohio on this freaking busy Rt 111 south. Seemed like I was on that thing forever. Finally I began to wonder if I’d screwed up and missed a turn, so I flaged down this chick and asked her about the whereabouts of Doolittle Hill Rd. Thankfully I hadn’t passed it. Kept rolling down past this cheesy Horseshoe Casino on the river and there it was, like the proverbial “Stairway To Heaven.” It was that bloody steep, like Oak Hill X 30 lengths long steep.

By this time the temp was in the 90’s, and as soon as I got on that sucker, I was just like a leaking bag of water, sweat just dripping off of all appendages, down the nose, off the handlebars, down my back. I was just soaked at the top of this thing. Got out the sweat rag to dry off my face and continued. Have to say that this last section was about the toughest of the day, with nothing but power climbing all the way, mile after mile of shifting big ring to middle ring to little ring, over and over. But I’ll tell you what, doing those lunch breaks as we did today, I really felt full of energy. Gee…imagine that, eating and drinking properly to feel better when I’m riding long on hard terrain in hot weather. What a novel concept!! No cramping and no bonking. Felt really good.

Made it to Corydon with my longest day of the trip – 82 miles. Now that’s totally because of all the pavement of the day. Those 8-10 miles of gravel today was just a taster, but great to have nonetheless. Can’t really do anything about it. So I’m just going with the flow here, one day at a time. Now I will say, with pavement or without, Southern IN is just one hilly place. Reminds me of Southern OH – same terrain, same geology, same long, steep climbing down along the Ohio River. Nice to check out somewhere totally different that the routes I’ve done in the past. So we’ll keep it rolling in S. IN.

Got a hotel in Corydon – Comfort Inn. Jude’s been working her butt off for me, so this is the very least I can do. They have a pool and workout room here, and she’s down there right now as I finish this up and then get rolling with my usual computer work. Well, until tomorrow - Pete

A little bit of Friendship during a trying day

Saturday, June 23. Aurora, IN to Madison, IN 51 miles of riding in 4:07 hrs of riding.

This was one of those days where nothing seemed to go right – except landing in a little place called Friendship. Got rolling around 8 AM from my stop yesterday. I wanted to get in a solid 60-80 miler, if I could reconnoiter the ADT (American Discovery Trail) directions and trail markers. Now I’m not only using the ADT trail directions, but I’m also using my own two sense – for what that’s worth – to get through IN, IL, and part of MO. So I got yesterday’s gaff fixed by pulling out the IN Gazetteer last night to confirm the directions. Proceeded west for a bit on Rt 56 and then got on some small township roads that were paved. Judy hung back in Aurora to walk on the town’s rail trail.

         Now what I’ve found in just a day’s riding on the ADT is that it is: poorly marked! Period. The only time you’ll see a trail insignia, this little plastic rounded triangle thing with a icon of the map of the US on it, is at any change of roads. And that’s if you’re damn lucky. I’ve done enough of this trail today to see that even with your written directions, it’s still awfully hard to navigate. The BT was like grade A, Class 5 compared to this cross-country trail. I mean you get going like 2-3 miles down a road and pass 2-3 cross-roads and you’re thinking: “damn, did I go by the next turn, or am I ok?” I mean if you’re going on just written directions, and the township and county road signs are totally missing, just not there, then you’re SOL. Guaranteed that you’ll go by cross-roads that have no signs. And as I said, I’ve gone by jcn’s on the trail that do have road signs, but no trail insignias at the change of road. So it’s really hit and miss, and miss and miss when you come to a jcn that is not marked and has no signage. I ended up riding tentatively just hoping and looking and anticipating the next change of road.

         I did a pretty good job of getting through the first 15 miles of riding, only because I was trying to keep the sun behind me and ride west, and then was pleasantly surprised when I got on a gravel road that was pretty primitive, where I had to do a 25 ft creek crossing through about a foot or so of water. Then I was back on pavement, at a Y jcn with no signage and no trail insignias. Had to flag down a driver and ask where the hell I was. I was luckily on the right road, and continued in a westerly direction. Did 2 pretty solid climbs out of these creek valleys. They were a good 15-20 min climbs of a gentle to moderate pitch where I could use the middle cookie in and out of the saddle.

         Next up was a stint on IN-62, which is a moderately busy state route. This was part of the ADT route and would take me into a town called Friendship where Judy and I were to meet. Now things were going ok until I saw that the road was closed about 6 miles ahead. So when we started I’d given Judy the gazetteer and directions to get to Friendship, and Rt 62 was the road she’d use. I was feeling pretty good about me getting through it, but I knew that Judy would have to come up with an alternate route, likely one suggested with a series of detour signs. Hell, I could get through about any detour, barring like a bridge out with the major river or stream to ford. But I knew that Judy would be a bit late with more miles to cover.

         Kept rolling and finally came to the detour, on this long descent down into the town of Friendship. What had happened was that the ground slumped on this steep section of road, and the road was washed out. It was a cakewalk to just dismount and walk across the  slump and then remount and cruise down into Friendship. Got into this tiny little town and heard just this barrage of gunfire, like a massive shooting range thing going on. Turns out Friendship is like the muzzle loader capital of the US – hell of the world from what the locals told me. And there’s this shooting range there specifically for this type of gun. The world champs are held there in this little town of a hundred of so people.

         So I rode through town to look for Jude. Takes like 2 min to ride from one Friendship sign on one end of town to the other Friendship sign on the other end. No Judy. I pulled up to the Post Office, next to a bench in the shade and just made myself at home sitting on the bench. 1, 2, 3, 4 and more people passed me by going into the PO and each and every one said hello. Nice little place. So a half hr went by, then an hr, then 1.5 hrs. That’s about the time I was starting to really worry rather than assume that she’s running late. I’d tried to contact her on my phone, but it was useless down there in that little creek valley. Asked a guy at the local garage if that was a place in town that had good reception. The dude told me I’d have to climb one of the 3 climbs out of town to get reception. So I just continued to wait. Two hrs went by and I was really beginning to get concerned. Got on the bike a couple of times just to do something and rode to both ends of town just expecting her to drive in. But no go each and every time. So back to the bench by the PO. Ok, got to nearly 3 hrs of waiting and I was pretty much beside myself. So I had seen two people sitting out on their porch on one side, and three people sitting out on their porch on the other side.

         So I ambled over to the three people on the porch and asked them if they would flag Judy down if she came into town while I rode up a climb to see if I could get cell service. The one lady, Marge, offered me her landline phone to call. I took her up on it with glee. Got a hold of Judy and she was just kind of at whit’s end. She’d gotten all botched up with the detour, and then figured that I couldn’t get through and then re-drove the whole 25-mile detour a second time. So Marge’s husband Larry got on the phone and tried to guide Judy from where she was down into Friendship. That done the third person, Dotti offered me some of her homemade zucchini bread and some ice water. Marge took me into the kitchen and gave me some of Dotti’s bread and a big glass of ice water.

         So we all just sat out on this big beautiful porch in the shade and waited for Judy. No luck. So a second call to Judy. But this time she had no service on her cell, so I left a message. And at the same Larry got in his car and drove out to find her. I mean this was turning into a recon mission: FIND JUDY! I hung back with Marge and Dotti while Larry drove around the hills and dales of SW IN looking for Judy. Finally, after 3.5 hrs after I’d pulled into Friendship Judy came rolling down  Friendship road with Larry in the lead. Have to say that being 3 and a half hrs behind for the day was a far sight better than all the worst case scenarios that had gone through my head earlier.

         Judy joined us on the porch with some of Dotti’s zucchini bread. I stayed on another 20 min and then took off for the town of Madison. Judy stayed on for about 40 min and talked with Marge, Larry and Dotti. My next 30 miles was on the long and winding Rt 62. I decided to make the best for the day and try to get in as much as possible due to the long delay, so instead of going back to some of the ADT backroads, I just stayed on 62 all the way into Madison. Did 3 more long, low grade climbs out of creek valleys through some great terrain and scenery. Met Judy in Madison and then we decide to just bag it for the day. She was very tired and frustrated having driven all bloody day long in circles, and I was just of the mindset where I wanted to bag it and call it just one of those days. We drove a few miles to the west to Cliffty Falls SP – where it was just totally filled for the night on the electric sites. So got out the phone and looked for a cheap motel or another campground. Found the perfect fit – a 35 dollar motel that wasn’t a Roach Coach joint. Sometimes it’s just this: it is what it is. And we’ll reset and try for a good day tomorrow.

         Want to give out a very special thanks to Dotti, Marge and Larry. You guys personify the town of Friendship. Thanks so much. And Dotti, a special thanks to you for that loaf of zucchini bread that you sent along with Judy. All the best you the three of you………Judy and Pete

Sick of Cinci

Friday, June 22. Cincinnati, OH to Aurora, IN, 57 miles of riding in 4:47 hrs of riding and bike-a-hike.

Had to battle the critters last night, most likely raccoons who were getting into the utensils bins. I had the food well covered, but these things were into everything – dishes, rags, pots, coffee cups. I heard rattling 2x last night, put on my headlamp and chased them away. In the woods I could see all these sets of eyes glaring back at me. Finally picked up some old pieces of firewood and lobbed them into the woods to try to shake them a bit.

That may account for the very late start today. We didn’t get up until 6:30 AM. Got the coffee going for Jude and then I worked for a bit and started getting my route together. Did a day-old salad and a bologna sandwich for breakfast and then broke camp for Milford. We had a bit of a drive to get back there, probably like 20+ miles, but for a camping fee of 12 bucks it was well worth it. Had to take care of some of the housekeeping stuff this morning, so in Milford we shopped for groceries, got gas, and purchased more ice for the coolers. So by the time we got to the trailhead it was nearly 10 AM and about 87 degrees. I re-rode the section of the BT into downtown Cincinnati with Judy that we did yesterday. I broke off and followed the last of the blue blazes while Judy turned around and rode for another 1.5 hrs in the northeasterly directlon.

I was just dreading this ride today – through the center of downtown Cincinnati. I just do NOT enjoy riding in cities. It’s total sensory overload for me. And today’s ride only accentuated that feeling. It was pure hell. The blue blazes were really tough to follow, and to make matters just 3x worse, the blazes were on the “against traffic” side of the road. Now what Einstein came up with that novel idea. And the blazes were so few and far between that I was forced to ride on bloody sidewalks on the against traffic side just to see the blazes – when they were available. This had to be one of the most frustrating parts of this trail for me. I mean riding on sidewalks against traffic, crossing driveways, intersections and ped. crossings all against traffic – it was just plain stupid. Now for folks following the trail in the opposite direction, ok, I’m cool, but come on – good one way and unsafe the other??? There were uncountable times where I just did not see a blaze for way too long, and then there were of course the several times where I went off course due to the above!

I hated this and wouldn’t recommend this section to anyone. It’s just a mess in my opinion. And hey – I paid for the freaking maps, so I think I have a voice to bitch about this. Anyway, got through this intercity hell to the overlook and the end to the BT in downtown Cincinnati at Eden Park. Great overlook of the Ohio River and the city in general, but what it took to get there… judgment call for sure. So that was my first session of pain and deprivation. My second came by trying to work my way through the center of the city and ride to the west to meet Judy at North Bend, up along the IN border. So I descended down from Eden Park into the center of town, rode down one of the main streets in an east to west direction, and was hoping to hook up with Rt 50 and then continue west out of the city. WRONG! Rt 50 in the downtown was an interstate with no bikes allowed. And then there was the stadium, the bridges across the Ohio, the other interstates, it was all just a big tangle of concrete – everything I wanted American Dirt NOT to be.

Asked this one dude for directions to any road that would take me in a parallel with Rt 50 and along the river. The guy gives me these directions: “just go L, then R, then just weave in and out of the buildings to get on River Rd.” Ok, I did that and ended up in a deadend on the RR tracks. It was American Dirt time!! Got on the access gravel road on the RR tracks and just started pedaling with my heart pounding like crazy. I’d bike-a-hike over sets of tracks, over RR bridges and over streams, keeping the Ohio River on my left. Then I sighted the Rt 50 interstate section way the hell up in the tangle of interstates, and followed that on various RR lines. I’m totally amazed that I wasn’t busted on this one, in a major city riding down below the city on RR tracks. Made it all the way out of the city and I just stayed on this access gravel road along the tracks. Then that ran out and I just put my bike in the middle of the best set of tracks and rode in the middle of the RR line – looking back often!!

Hell, I could have crossed the Ohio to Covington KY if I’d have wanted to. So anyway, I followed Rt 50 way out of town to where it just went back to regular road. Pulled my bike up an embankment to my right and got on 50 and began riding on this massive sidewalk area. Just then Judy went by and honked at me, as she was driving west to our meeting spot in North Bend. Ended up riding on Rt 50 the rest of the way to North Bend. Met Judy after a 3 hr ordeal of getting through Cincinnati. Hammered 2 cokes, a bologna sandwich, and cranked it out again to Lawrenceburg, IN.

Got a motel for the night so I could work and send out all my client workouts for the week. The criterion is great wifi. I cannot have crap wifi when I have to send out a gazillion workouts in a row. So I go to great lengths to make sure a Friday or Saturday is motel/internet night. Judy is very cool with this to, so that was a no-brainer getting this little place in Lawrenceburg tonight. So I got Judy unpacked and then headed out for another 1.5 hrs, trying out the ADT (American Discovery Trail) directions I’ll be kind of using as an outline for crossing IN, IL, and part of MO. I’ll use parts and dismiss parts, it it’s at least a good start for locating off-the-beaten-track gravel and paved roads. Anyway, got the directions I’d copied down this morning, put on a fanny pack and headed out for more progress. It shuttled me onto a very nice – but paved – rails trails into the town of Aurora, and then back on pavement. But I got to a section where for the life of me, I just could not locate the route out of Aurora. I even asked some locals and they didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. “OK, day done,” and I headed back to the motel what with the temp at 94 degrees by then.

This will be interesting doing this ADT stuff. I have downloaded the route from my Mac into my Kindle for Judy to use in the van, but I couldn’t get it to download into my Thunderbolt phone due to my phone being an android and my computer being a Mac. Any of you techies out there know what I can do to get the phone to take docs from the mac??? Would love to get this done so I don’t have to do this by hand every day. The computer doesn’t even recognize the phone as a jump drive when I hook them up to one another.

Anyway, this should be interesting indeed. Ok, onward we go down into Southern IN looking for great dirt and gravel. Hope I can deliver…Pete