Day 16--Rantoul, IL, Rest Day

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

While there are two golf courses and a reindeer farm here in Rantoul, I do not play golf and the reindeer farm is closed at this time of year. So, because it is storming big time and I can find nothing more exciting to do, I will entertain myself by writing this rest day's blog. I am in a Super 8 at the junction of IL-57N and 136-E--typical junction fare--lot of fast food restaurants, a Walmart, Super 8, Day's Inn, and not much else.

Thank you Super 8 manager Tommie Sizemore for my complimentary room and my discounted second night! Thank you also for washing my clothes in the motel's laundry and returning them to me dry and folded. Am I spoiled or what?


Rantoul Super 8 on a sunny day. . .

. . .and from my window on this stormy rest day

Thank you also Macy Christ for your donation to the Judith Karman Hospice. Macy, my California sister Sarah's good friend, now lives in Hawaii, but the friendship continues despite the miles between the two. Also, I began the day with a donation from Liz Rickard, in memory of her husband Robert Rickard who received wonderful hospice care before his death. Liz is in Rantoul visiting her daughter but the daughter's house is filled to overflowing so Liz is across the hall from me in the Rantoul Super 8.

We met over breakfast where I found that Liz is from Canajoharie, NY, home of the Beech-Nut baby food and gum factory for the past zillion years (120 actually) . . . until in March of 2011 it  moved about 25 miles south to the small town of Florida, NY, on the south side of the Mohawk River. Liz told me that the company had come under new management and that this move left Canajoharie in the lurch with an expensive water system expanded just for the factory. Florida is now being asked to expand its water system in the same way. Hmmm . . .

Internet photo of the Beech-Nut Factory in Canajoharie, NY

As a kid in grade school in Scotia, NY, I well remember a class trip to the Beech-Nut factory. The smells were delicious and each of us got a pack of gum!

Liz and I talked mostly about Irene's terrible flooding of the Schoharie and Mohawk Rivers in late August last year and the damage it did. We Schuylers camped on the Schoharie for most of our childhood summers. Priddle Camp Road, where ours and our maternal grandparents' camps were located on the Schoharie River, was completely wiped out.



Schoharie before flood of 2011



Internet photo of a destroyed camp on the banks of the Schoharie River, Priddle Camp Road

I know that part of NY Bicycle Route 5, which I will ride through Amsterdam and into Schenectady, was swept away, that many historical buildings were ruined or damaged, and that the historical Stockade area of Schenectady was flooded. Liz says that Route 5 and the Mohawk-Erie Canal Bike path have been repaired. I hope my paternal grandparents' house on the Mohawk River in Pattersonville, near Rotterdam Junction, is still intact. I will check it out on May 20th when I ride into Schenectady.


Internet photo of the Mohawk River flooding near Lock 9 and Rotterdam Junction

Below is an Internet aerial view of the flooding at Fort Hunter where the Schoharie empties into the Mohawk. That's the NY State Thruway in the foreground, I think, though I read that portions of it were also under water.


Aerial view of the 2011 flooding at Fort Hunter where the Schoharie River empties into the Mohawk River.

After my chat with Liz, I walked about three blocks to Walmart to buy new socks (after riding in the rain one's socks turn from white to black, and I just pitch them), an umbrella, and a couple of my favorite tuna/cracker snack packs to see me through tomorrow's 78-mile day. It was really coming down when I exited Walmart, so I smugly put up my new umbrella, which just as smugly turned inside out. I got it turned right side out just as a woman in a SUV stopped and offered me a ride back to the Super 8. Thank you Pat! Another R.A.K. I can't keep track of them there have been so many.

Time to put up the umbrella and trek next door for another Arby's sandwich. . . What a life I'm living.

Tune in tomorrow  . . .

Susan