Pat and Sari's Honeymoon Bike Ride

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Casey, IL to Belgium, IL
66 miles (8251 total miles)

The wind gave us a break today. It was another bright, sunny day, a little warmer than it's been, and still with a headwind but only about half as strong as the last 2 days. It's amazing how much of a difference it made - we started about the same time (7:30) and went 5 fewer miles but ended at our destination 2-1/2 hours earlier (about 3:30). We had a little trouble at the motel, however - they put us down for the wrong day and didn't have any rooms left tonight - so we had to go another 3 miles to the next motel besides wasting time at the first motel and finding the next one. We got settled in by 4:30, having gone 66 miles in under 6-1/4 bike hours, almost a full hour less than yesterday's time. The whole day went very well (except for the little problem at the end) and was quite enjoyable.

We had expected to see only one town today, Paris, at about midday, but in fact there were several little towns along the way, which was a nice treat. Paris was definitely the largest at 9100 and it's where we had lunch, but there were plenty of places with at least a gas station where we could have a cold soda and top up the ice in our camelbaks. Even the little towns were quite picturesque and most of our pictures today are of homes and other town buildings. Other than that, it was corn and soybeans all day long. We were on 3 roads today, north on SR 49 from Casey, turning east on SR 16 in the little town of Kansas, and then going north again on US 150/SR 1 for the rest of the day. All 3 roads were in good condition and 150 even had a shoulder. We started out perfectly flat but soon came to some hills and it stayed mildly hilly the rest of the day. The traffic was busy at times but never a problem. The people we meet are always very friendly and curious about our trip. It's funny how different it seems now that we're closer to home. People ask us where we're heading and are impressed that we're going as far as Philadelphia, then when we tell them about the rest of the trip, they fall over in a faint! It's very amusing.

Tomorrow we hit Indiana and will spend the night and a rest day with Pat's childhood friend, David, and his wife, Janet. The rest of the route will change as we're going to head a little farther north through Ohio. We'll start working that out in the next couple of days.