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Today we left “Rustic Acres” campground in New Douglas which was about 5 miles off our Rte 66 route and headed for St Louis.

Granite City is just across the river from St Louis this is where we are staying – at the local KOA campground. It’s pretty nice. The good news is that it was a relatively short ride – 38 miles – and it didn’t rain!!  The bad news is that at the trailer park/ campground we stayed at last night someone had a party complete with DJ in a pavilion right next to where we were camping. They broke up about 11 but 6am rolled around really early. I am riding pretty much with the same group every day just because we all ride about the same pace and all get along well.

There is Kate, a broadcast journalist from the UK; John,a personal trainer from New Zealand; Krista, a vegan from Ohio; and Cathy, a retired teacher and wife of the tour leader.  Today we stopped in Edwardsville for our “second breakfast” at a little local place, North Main Diner.

We just took our time and enjoyed the sun since it was a short day.  Tomorrow is a day off so we’re all looking forward to a down day. Some of us may ride the 4 miles to a nearby Lewis and Clark  State Park that is supposed to be nice. Other than that I think it’s minimal riding. We need to get rested up for the hills in Missouri!!!

I’m certainly finding that everyday has its own adventure!! I’m also getting used to life in my little tent. We were afraid we were going to get rained on this

morning but that turned out to not be true. It was cool and cloudy but no rain. That said, since it rained during the night we had to pack up wet tents!! (But it did keep me dry during the night). Today I was on cooking rotation with two other riders. Normally the “cooks” try to get to camp by three or four, get set up, offload their gear, ride to a nearby store, shop, bring all of the food back for that nights dinner, the next day’s breakfast and lunch!  However, some days, like today, require a little different approach. Today our campground is 5 miles off the

route and there is no grocery store in the nearest little town. So, the entire crew (almost) met at a supermarket 17 miles short of our destination. We shopped and then everyone has to split the load to camp. That means you have your gear, your share of the group gear, and your share of groceries. It’s a pretty heavy load!!  In any case we managed. Got everyone fed and will be up at 6 tomorrow to get the water boiling for coffee. I won’t have to do this for another 5 days or so. Tomorrow is a relatively short 35 miles to St Louis and then we have a day off!  We’re all ready.

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Today was a long day – not only was it another 65 mile day – but it rained part of the time. In fact, it’s raining now as I sit in my tent doing this.  We are expecting  more rain tomorrow and it will my first cooking rotation!!  More about that the next time I have a wifi connection! Today, at one point we had to cross through

some road construction that wasn’t on the map!  It was less than a mile but one of our bikers got stuck because of all of the mud build up. That was the

“Adventure”part of Adventure Cycling Association, the company who put together this trip. Another time the rain was coming down so hard we pulled

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into a large truck garage for shelter. The folks there didn’t mind. Overall, the toughest day yet. Not sure about an update tomorrow. Might have to wait until the day after when we layover in St Louis!

Today was our longest day to date – about 65 miles.  It got pretty hot in the afternoon so we all felt like we’d had a workout

by the time we got here.  It’s quite humid so it makes it a bit tougher. It’s tough to stay hydrated. I consumed 3 bottles of Gatorade yesterday and refilled my water bottles several times.

Calories are the other issue. My bike computer says I burned over 5,000 calories yesterday. We are eating virtually every time we stop.

The camp site is about 5 miles from town and the nearby town is very small so we all met at a grocery store in a town about 25 miles back and split up the groceries for tonight’s meal, tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch amongst all of the riders. So in addition to carrying out own gear and our share of the group gear we all had extra groceries. We were all pretty weighted down that last25 miles.

There is a forecast for possible rain tomorrow and we have another 60 mile day. We’ll see.

Today was a pretty short day – just 23 miles over to our campground in Pontiac. It threatened to rain but held off and it turned out to be a nice day.  Lots of memorabilia along the way – several really cool gas stations.  Pontiac has a lot of Route 66 memorabilia. There are several museums including a “War Museum” where they have collected uniforms

from various members of the community who have served over the years. It was  quite nice. We ( the group I was riding with – not the whole gang) first rode to camp, set up our tents, and then headed into town to grab some lunch.

When we were stopped at an intersection kind of looking around, a car pulled up and the gentleman in the passenger seat asked us where we were going and what we were looking for. We told him and he said, “Hi, I’m Bob, I’m the mayor of Pontiac – welcome!”  He then recommended a local restaurant. That probably wouldn’t happen if you were driving a car through town!  I’m trying to do this update on my phone in my tent so forgive me if its a little rough  We have no wifi at this

campground and we want to get to bed early as we have a long 63 mile day tomorrow.  Hopefully another update from Atlanta, Illinois tomorrow

 

Pretty nice ride today although it did get a bit hot and windy this afternoon. Yesterday was all about getting out of Chicago but today we actually intersected Historic Rte 66 for the first time.  Rode with a nice group today. We had a lot of laughs.  Kate, a young lady from the UK, kept having trouble with one of her panniers so we performed a little repair in the middle of a new bike path.

After that we finally intersected Rte 66 at the little town of Elwood.  We decided to stop for our ‘second breakfast’ at a local restaurant and ran into a local bike club out for a ride.  At one point there must have been two dozen bicyclists eating at this place.  A little further along we came across one of the famous Rte 66 icons – a giant statue of a guy holding a rocket. It was at The Launching Pad

which was once a famous drive in. It is now shuttered.  However, in the next little town we came across The Polka Dot Drivein – a classic diner that is famous for their malts and chili cheese fries.  They have some neat statues hanging around and we just had to stop.  I had a Turtle Sundae ( for Zippy).  From there we figured we had been dawdling enough and so we just started riding for our stopping point for the day – the Super 8 Motel in Dwight, Illinois. It’s an OK place and it’s nice to be

indoors since they are forecasting thundershowers tonight.  We may have our first rain tomorrow!!  Hopefully the storm will pass by tonight. All in all a good day – another 45 miles down and a whole bunch left to go!! Tomorrow it’s a short ride to Pontiac ( I won’t say easy because who knows what the weather will do!)

We started today at Buckingham Fountain in downtown Chicago.

We took the obligatory group photo ( which I don’t have yet) and then set off as a pack.

We normally won’t be doing that but we had to ride through a couple of sketchy neighborhoods on Chicago’s Southside and the leader wanted us to ride together.    All in all a good day. Great weather. Lots of bike paths.

My first of many ” 2nd breakfasts ” ( a meal after about 20 to 30 miles of riding). Mine was a piece of French Apple Cheese Cake and a large OJ!!  Arrived at the campground in Joliet about 3:30. Now just hanging around waiting for dinner. 56 miles down. Only 2,444 left to go!!

Today is ‘day 1’ of a 55 day trip back to LA.  Even though we aren’t officially riding today, it is the first day we gather as a group and go over things with the tour leader.  Linda drove me from our friends house to the bike shop in Evanston where my bike was before she headed for the airport.

I was to meet one of the shop owners who is also going on the ride and we planned to ride from Evanston to downtown Chicago to the hostel together.  It was a nice 12 mile ride down the edge of Lake Michigan

The weather was beautiful.     We got to the hostel, got checked in, met the rest of the crew, and spent several hours reviewing all of the trip details, logistics, cooking duties, etc  Tomorrow is Day 2 and is our first official ride day. We start just a little ways from the hostel

at Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park and head south.  We will ride about 55 miles and end up in Joliet. Route 66 actually takes a different route out of Chicago but it’s not a route that is safe for bicycles. We will actually join up with Route 66 outside of Chicago on our way to Joliet.  Weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow!  Here we go!

It’s now Saturday in Chicago and I meet up with the whole group tomorrow afternoon at 3pm.  Linda and I have been staying with friends in a Chicago suburb since we arrived Wednesday. They have a beautiful house and we’ve had a great time. The first day we drove directly to the bike shop, Everyday Cycles and Motion, in the suburb of Evanston to retrieve my gear. I’m happy to report that everything arrived intact.  They assembled my bike and I’m just making a few last minute tweaks. In the mean time we were able to visit the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry where they had a nice exhibit on bicycles amongst all of the other cool stuff. We also managed to stop by “Super Dawg” for one of their famous hotdogs – delicious!  But tomorrow everything changes. Linda will drop me by the bike shop about 10:30/11:00 am on her way to the airport .  There I will load up my bike and ride with one of the bike shop owners (Also one of the ride group) the twelve miles to downtown Chicago where will will meet up with the rest of the crew. Sunday night we are staying at a hostel in downtown Chicago and Monday morning we start pedaling the 2,500 miles down Route 66 to Santa Monica pier.  California – here we come!

OK, I didn’t really buy it – but I did walk over it.  Jordan was busy today so Linda and I headed to Brooklyn this morning on ‘the A train’ (for real!) with the objective of walking over it back to Manhattan.  It was a nice walk with a great view of the Manhattan skyline including the Freedom Tower.

Once across the bridge, we walked up to Chinatown where we paused for a steamed pork bun.  Then we strolled up through Little Italy where we saw a great sign for a job opening in the window!!

The walk continued right past Jordan’s dorm and up to Union Square where we caught the subway to Grand Central Station. From there we hoofed it back to the condo we are staying in – a bit over 6 miles of walking this morning. Now it’s time to just chill!! Tomorrow is our last day in New York and we will spend the day with Jordan celebrating my birthday. Wednesday is on to Chicago where I will be starting to switch into ‘biking mode’.