Day 27: 50 Miles

Carbondale, IL to Chester, IL

I slept in this morning because the bike shop and post office both did not open until 9:30. By the time I was getting up Charlie was already packed up and ready to leave. He went ahead and scouted out the places to stay in Chester while I ran my errands.

The first stop was at the post office where I unloaded 8 lbs of stuff. The heaviest items were a camp stove, cooking items and a bike lock. The camp stove worked great but it was a pain to clean things in camp after cooking. It’s much easier to just eat foods that don’t need to be heated. I haven’t used the bike lock yet, so that was an easy item to get rid of. The bike is so heavy I can’t imagine someone trying to walk off with it even if they wanted to. 8 lbs. may not seem like a lot, but that is almost 20% of the weight I was carrying. This should make a huge difference.

Stop number 2 was the bike shop. They were able to take my bike immediately for a tune up. As I waited for the bike to get tuned up I headed into town for some breakfast. I opted for the healthier breakfast place and got an all organic breakfast burrito with a peach and walnut smoothie. A nice change up for breakfast and definitely healthier than french toast and bacon.

The bike shop took a look at my tires and decided they were worn down and ready to be changed out. I had thought the same thing and was happy they suggested new ones. So now I’ve got my bike all tuned up with a new set of tires which should make riding smoother.

The riding today was a nice change of pace from the last few days. The first 10 miles were rolling hills but then I dropped into an area that was completely flat. The road followed a levee for the Mississippi River. Things had recently flooded so the roads were a bit questionable but it made for interesting scenery.

I got 25 miles into my day and got a text from Charlie saying that I should fill up on water because there were no stops going forward. It was a thoughtful message but I got it too late and was down to 1 water bottle. Then in the middle of a ghost town I saw a run down looking vending machine and was in luck. No one seemed to be around, but the machine was full of cold mountain dew. I got 2 cans for $1 each and chugged down my fuel for the afternoon. Right after that I got stuck behind a truck painting lines on the road. I basically huffed paint for 2 miles as the caffeine kicked in. This put me in an interesting mental state for the rest of the ride.

With 20 miles to go I got to a point in the road that was completely submerged. I couldn’t tell how deep the water was so I decided to walk my bike through the field that was on higher ground. Big mistake. My newly cleaned and tuned bike was now covered in mud and stuck. I got the bike out but now had mud stuck everywhere.

The riding was slow the rest of the way, but I made it to the town of Chester where I am staying at the Eagles “Bike Shack”. It’s basically a shack behind a VFW type of place, but we had showers and a bathroom so I can’t complain. I arrived at the shack and found Charlie along with Alan who is traveling east. I went to use a hose to wash all the mud off my bike and came back to find Matt, who I’d met a few days ago. The four of us grabbed dinner together and the three of us heading west will likely stay at the same place tomorrow night.