On the Road: Moving right along... Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee (just barely)

Somebody had a good since of humor...
this was definitely a bump in the road.

We have been making good progress over the last few days. The weather has been exceptionally mild for this time of year with the highs in the mid-80's, a nice breeze during the day and the humidity is very tolerable. We can only hope this continues for a few more days.

After spending the night in Murphysboro, IL yesterday, we put in a long day in the hills of southern Illinois to Cave In Rock. It was 100 miles and over 6400' of climbing which was a pretty challenging day. (here is the route)

We hit a little construction projection not long after we left the state park that had completely closed the road. It was only a quarter of a mile or so long and they let us walk the bike through. I told Beth to send a text to Nicholas to meet us in Anna, IL to avoid the closed road. The only problem was we weren't going to Anna... we were headed to Goreville. It is another long story why I thought we were going through Anna. And to be real honest, after 6 weeks and 30-some routes, we can hardly remember the starting and finishing towns on any given day.

We were riding on back roads and only occasionally saw road signs and the only route map we carry with us is on the Garmin 800 bike GPS which is very small and can be difficult to read. It is great as long as you don't have to deviate from your planned route. We finally saw the sign for Goreville and luckily we had cell service to download a better map. So another text to Nicholas to make the 16 mile drive to Goreville.

While waiting for Nicholas, we stopped for an early lunch in Goreville at Delaney's restaurant. They cater to the TranAmerica bike route crowd... Believe it not there are quite a few people that do ride across the USA. Delaney's provides free desert to cyclists doing the ride. While we were there we exchanged stories from the road with two guys from Nebraska doing it the hard way, packing all of their stuff on their bike and camping their way across unsupported, what is called "trekking". We have met quite a few people along the way trekking across the USA, mostly heading from east to west. We have only met one other group of cyclists who had RV support following them along the route. For the most part, it is the truly crazy trekkers with fully loaded down bikes that we meet on the road. I'll take the RV... I'm not much into camping, especially for the 2-3 months it takes. And Beth says there is absolutely NO WAY! It is hard enough just to ride the 4000 miles on a bike without 50 pounds of stuff hanging on it and then sleeping on the ground in a tent most nights.

Ferry from Cave In Rock, IL to Kentucky

We ended up in another really nice Illinois state park at Cave In Rock. We have to give Illinois two thumbs up on their state parks and they seem to be very well kept secrets. Both parks we stayed in were nearly empty. Cave In Rock is right on the Ohio river with free ferry service into Kentucky. I left early to take the ferry and then met up with Beth and Nicholas about 45 miles later. Then Beth and I rode the tandem for a while and then Nicholas finished up with me. It was an 89 mile day, but fewer big hills, so we made a little better time. And we crossed 2 state lines in one day... Kentucky and Tennessee! Here is the track for the day.

Our final stop for the day was Clarksville, TN where Beth's older brother, Jeff and his wife Yolie live. Although they kindly offered us a bed for the night, we needed a RV park to take care of some necessary chores (dumping and filling tanks). After checking into the Clarksville RV park, getting showers and doing some laundry, we had dinner with them. We enjoyed our visit with them and Mo, our beagle, really enjoyed exploring their backyard. Thanks for the venison steaks and sausage.

Tomorrow is a relatively short day (about 59 miles) to Franklin, KY. We still have more laundry to do, need to restock the food supply and do some bike maintenance. So having a short day will give us a chance to catch up on things. Then we'll take a rest day to go visit Mammoth Cave National Park about 40 miles north of Franklin and tour the cave.

Here are the current riding stats: