I ate a hearty breakfast of eggs over easy, toast, sausage & o.j. this morning, prepared by Richard and served at the kitchen table as I was consulting an Illinois state map (provided by Mac and Barbara last night) and lining up the day’s route. Then I loaded up B.O.B. while Richard, the perfect host, pumped up my bike and B.O.B. tires. All tires were low on air because I find it so difficult to muscle 100 psi out of my little bike pump. Richard offered to give me one of his floor pumps to carry on B.O.B., but I declined. I mean, really! I don’t want to look too much like a Pfred—a derogatory term for a bicycle tourist. (Yes, there is a cyclist caste system, with touring cyclists--particularly hippy-looking male cycle tourists--near the bottom of the barrel; sleek, young racing road cyclists near the top . . . and the snobbiest).
The Young’s daughter arrived about midnight last night so that she and Kathy Jo could attend a mother/daughter dinner this evening at which all the husbands/fathers cook them dinner. Richard’s in for it. First breakfast and now dinner. The women in his life may get as pampered as I whose husband loves to cook and prepares most of our meals.
Thank you Young family for all of your hospitality and a wonderful Warm Showers stay! When I get a chance, I will recommend you highly on the Warm Showers website.
I cannot remember what time I got off, but the headwind was not as strong as yesterday. The ride was enjoyable until I turned due east on 103 toward Beardstown, IL. The beginning of 103 has a couple of steep hills, but I sacrificed my first downhill to stop on the way down and get a photo of the road sign. I was at Mile 1 of Hwy 103 in Schuyler county (see below). Schuyler (pronounced Sky-ler) is my maiden name. Sterling is my middle name, and I was just leaving Mount Sterling. There had to be some alignment of the stars or something, no?
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| I'm in Schuyler County, IL |
As I approached Beardstown, I could see the bridge I had to cross across the Illinois River (see below). Remembering the bridge into Quincy, I was nervous. This bridge was longer but much less steep and had a small shoulder. Nonetheless, I breathed a sigh of relief when I was safely across and pedaling on Sixth Street into town. I made a pit stop at a small convenience store and then jogged down to Fourth Street and out of town toward Chandlerville. As I rode I was thinking of the fact that I had now crossed the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Illinois rivers
On the two-lane Beardstown-Chandlerville Blacktop as it is known, the headwind picked up and it looked black to the south, but I got no rain until north of Chandlerville. This road was lovely and twisted and turned enough to protect me from the headwind at times. Also for a good portion of it, I had a hill to the right and vast flat fields to the left. The hill also protected me from the south crosswind. I stopped often to take pix of the old farmhouses, vast fields, cemeteries, and flowers along this route.
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| Is this a school? Looks like it but I've never seen a country school this large.\ |
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| This small cemetery looked like it had just been found and cleared. The headstones were so erroded as to be illegible, though one I could read was for John Richardson who had died in 1852, at 12 years old. |
When I reached Chandlerville, I called Nan Strandburg. She was bicycling to meet me, despite having had gall bladder surgery the Friday before. I met her about 4 miles north of Chandlersville on IL-78 on a section of road that had been stripped and grooved. We were fortunate, however, in that it had an intact blacktop shoulder. Nan was riding a Bike Friday the exact color of Redbud, my Bike Friday that I sold last year. Her BF was named Razz. There were other Nan/Susan connections: I learned that Nan drives a Prius, though hers is red and mine is white, and that she had ridden with America by Bicycle, the bike touring company I staffed for four years. She had crossed country with ABB in 2010.
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| Nancy Strandburg with her Bike Friday, Razz, before a farm with an odd name on the way to her house |
The wind was out of the southeast, so the turn north was very welcome, though shortly after meeting Nan we turned east again and then stair-stepped our way to her house which is 5 miles southeast of Havana. She is a nurse and her husband, Dan, is an X-ray technician.
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| These flowers have been all along my route; I think they are wild phlox. |
It’s a good thing that Nan cycled out to meet me because we had 18 miles to go on very little-used back roads. We turned several times and I never would have found the way. It was a cold windy day with some rain midway to Nan’s house. I finally got to try out my O2 raincoat which is about six sizes too large but does keep one dry . . . also warm. At one point Richard Young called when I was just finished taking pix of a 2-story playhouse (see below). He wanted to know how my ride was going and also to lament that he had not started out and ridden a few miles with me. I, too, lamented the lost possibility. It would have been fun.
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| This is not a house; this is a two-story playhouse. Wish I could have gotten the real house in, too, for perspective. |
We arrived at the Strandburg house at about 4 p.m., shortly after passing a large llama farm. We had seen fields of turkeys and pheasants and had ridden through Sand Prairie Scrub Oak Nature Area on a beautiful non-traveled road that reminded me of the Natchez Trace (see pic below that Nan took).
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| Me cycling in the beautiful Sand Prairie Scrub Oak Nature Area |
When I told Nan that Wendy Martin, a reporter for the Mason County Democrat, wanted to get a photo of me when I arrived in Havana, to go with the Judith Karman Hospice press release that Valerie had sent, Nan told me that this would add 10 miles to our ride. I was not up for that. Nan knew Wendy, so called her, and Wendy and her husband, Bob, came the five miles south of town to the Strandburg farm. They arrived shortly after we did, and as I sat and ate brownies and sipped sweet tea on the side porch, they interviewed me and took pix to go with the article. Thank you Wendy for coming out to the farm and for your unexpected donation to the Judith Karman Hospice!
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| Daisy, the Strandburg's easy-going beagle, checking out B.O.B. and me on arrival |
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