Have you read the book Grant by Chernow?

I did, so it's been fun the past few days to be riding along some of the cities that were part of Grant's March. Here's a mural from Jacksonville, IL where we are staying for 2 nights, (I mistakenly said Springfield in last night's blog.)

We started out with me driving the car to the Mississippi River where we ended our ride yesterday. I drove the route we would be riding and was quite concerned about a narrow but long bridge over the Illinois River. I started obsessing about the bridge and the steel grates in the center of the bridge. As we started our riding there were some sprinkles which got me even more worried about crossing the steel grates on the bridge. I told Thom that I wanted to stop and have a discussion about the bridge when we were on the west side. 

As we approached the bridge the lights indicating that the drawbridge was up were flashing. I hadn't even worried about that. Fortunately the drawbridge was down before we actually had to ride on the bridge. I went first on the bridge in case I wanted to stop. It turned out there really was nothing to worry about. We met Claudia for lunch in Jacksonville at the square in the city of town. We rode through town near the college campus which was charming. 

While we had gotten a little moist from the sprinkles the crosswind was not as strong as prior days and we were making good time. Our goal was to reach 100 miles today. One of the more interesting sites was the construction of a wind farm between Jacksonville and Springfield. We were fairly near a tower base that was being transported down the road. It was huge.

Claudia texted us and asked us to give her a 1 hour warning before we needed to be picked up. We called at 80 miles while resting on a bike path around Springfield. We set our meeting spot as the intersection of Illinois 54 and West Lake Drive in Spaulding, IL Our route from the bike path to the meeting spot was a little circuitous and took us past the Illinois State Fair Grounds. We have been past the Missouri and Kansas Fair Grounds as well. We checked our phones about 3.5 miles from the meeting point just to make sure we were close. 

As we arrived at the meeting spot a little before Claudia, Thom took off his water backpack and said "I don't have my phone." Here's a handy thing we do when biking. We have a pouch or pocket on our phone for a credit card and driver's license so they are not loose in your pockets. That means Thom was missing his phone. credit card and drivers license. 

As we started walking the street where we had stopped 3.5 miles back, a police officer came over to help. Of course it was not just any police officer but the Chief of Police for Spaulding. We all had a good laugh when we told him what we did in our professional lives. Here's a picture of Thom and Chief Hillyer.

Let us know if you see a phone in the background because we had no luck in finding the phone. 

By the time we had finished looking for the phone and started heading back to Jacksonville, it was nearly 7:00 PM. We decided to just have subs for dinner and pulled into a Subway which was part of a Circle K gas station. As the server was finishing our subs and started to put them in a bag, we told him not to bother because we were going to eat them in the shop. He then informed us that he was closing in 5 minutes and that we would have to go outside. The three of us ended up eating our subs sitting on the curb of the gas station. It really is too bad we don't have a professional photographer recording a video of the trip.

Despite all of the drama, it was a good ride today and we made some good progress. Here is the ride on Strava:

PROGRESS

We have slightly over 1,200 miles to go. We have had 2 good riding days in a row for the first time in a while. Here's the table:

TOMORROW

We hope to make it to Danville Illinois. It will be a stretch but there is a forecast for winds from the west. This will be the first time we have had winds from the west since the New Mexico / Texas border.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA!