7:15 start from Murphysboro with a finish in Golconda, IL at 5. Beautiful day weather wise but lots of hills, our first long day since we've gotten sick-a good sign we may be getting better.
A snap shot of our elevation profile. On the backroads the Trans America Trail has us on we found lots of steep grades, but most of them were short climbs.
Early breakfast in Carbondale of oatmeal and English muffins with peanut butter. We weren't sure we could make it to Golconda and had a camping spot lined up in Eddysville as a fall back. We knew we would need a good breakfast base to fuel our day.🍵
One of the beautiful and lightly trafficed roads we enjoyed today. This one runs by Little Grassy Lake just SE of Carbondale.
Besides primary roads we spent a good amount of time on secondary/county roads like this one showing the downs and ups we faced. I've got 27 speeds on my bike and Angela has 30 on hers and we used all of them today, many, many, many times before we finished.
At 11:30 after 38 miles we stopped in at this gas station/grill in Goreville, IL and Jackie whipped us up an excellent homestyle double bacon cheeseburger with crinkle fries. It was excellent. We've made good progress to this point but we're still suffering ebbing strength due to our colds. We feel, for the first time that we're starting to get better though!!
62 miles into our ride in Eddysville we planned to get a chocolate milk, split a Casey's sub sandwich we had bought yesterday and recharge for our last 12 miles into Golconda, but we had a delay and set back. It seems there had been a manhunt going on for the past week in/around Pope County and early this morning there had been a shoot out 3 miles south on the Eddysvile Rd. to Golconda. The AK47 wielding suspect who had shot a police officer a week ago was killed in a gun fight early this morning and one FBI agent was also killed. We know all of this because Mr. Ken Richards, 75 year old native of Eddysville, who ran the water district, told us all about it! Our route to Golconda had been road blocked as a crime scene 3 miles south and no one was being let through. Here Ken calls the local sheriff to confirm the crime scene was still active for us.
Angela is hanging out at the Shawnee Mart while I'm conferring with Ken. She had already tried to smooze the Illinois Dept. of Transportaion worker to let us through without success. 😩
This is the Post It note with Ken Richards re-route for us to Golconda. Just below the Post It is the Adventure Cycling map with it's route to Golconda. Ken was such a nice and helpful gentleman and of course, a character.
Our back-back roads detour added about 3 miles to our day, but Ken's intervention on our behalf saved us 6 miles of pointless riding to the road block.
At a couple of points we thought we heard banjos begin to play, a la "Deliverence" but in the end, no one told me "You got a perty mouth. "😱
Finally into Golconda for the night.
I have always wanted to do a cheesecake photo like this one, in our luxurious King Suite at the River View Mansion, right on the Ohio River in Golconda.
After a beautiful, challenging and interesting day I enjoy a cold local brew from Murphysboro while Ang and I wait for our dinner in the hotel restaurant. After 8 straight days of riding and still recovering from our colds, especially Angela who was a rock star today, we are ready to eat, drink and sleep. 🍺💤
Great update, thanks. Glad you're both on the mend.
ReplyDeleteI've loaded up my bike and took a 50 mile ride today (Monday)to try things out. I'll make some minor adjustment to my packing. I used dog spray on one particularly scary (to me at least) dog on my way out, so now I plan to have a spare can. On my return, he still wanted to chase me, but I was able to pass without another shot of the spray. Have you had many dog incidents? I hear Kentucky has lots of dogs that chase bicycles. I met a few people on my ride, as I was interested in the history of the town and old stone quarry (now a swimming and camping place)that was my destination. Now I wish I would have taken pictures of them. I'll try and take more pictures in the future.
Regards,
John
John,
ReplyDeleteWe haven't had to use our pepper spray yet and it's only been in the last few days that we started noticing dogs while we ride. We were chased down by a dachhund on a country road yesterday but I was more worried about him getting run over by a car then bothering us. In any case, I keep the spray handy just in case. Good luck getting ready to ride this week. We'll see you soon.
Scott