Day 16: Weekdays in Western Illinois

Nauvoo, IL to Burlington, IA

Stats!
Miles biked today: 44.6
Total miles biked: 552.6
Max speed: 26
# of dollars spent at bike shop: hundreds
# of yawns on the road: 22

Today was kind of a slow day. Dean and I woke up to rain in our tent at the Nauvoo Dairy Sweet. The weather predicted scattered thunderstorms all day. We tried to wait it out a bit in the morning, but it never really stopped. So we packed up our wet tent in the rain. Yuk!

Right as we were ready to set off, we heard terrible thunder, so we decided to bike into Nauvoo "downtown" to go to a used bookstore. It turned out to be all Mormon books (Nauvoo has a large Mormon community), so we didn't stay long. We figured we'd have to get on the road at some point, so we just got going.

Every day on the road, the first 10 minutes are the hardest (all things being equal). Your butt is really sore, and your quads are exhausted, and everything in your body is just begging you not to do this to it again. The first 10 minutes today, we had all that, plus rain.

But after those first few miles, you feel much better, and once we got going a bit, it was cloudy but mostly dry. We saw some AMAZING lightning bolts way off in the distance. When it's flat, you can see just about forever. It wasn't even raining where we were, but those lightning bolts were pretty impressive.

Much of what we saw today looked like just what I imagined the midwest looked like. Flat and farms forever. We were biking on a huge grid most of the day, just like a city would have, except there was only a road every mile. Farmland in each block. It was pretty, though, and the changing color sky and clouds accented it.

We stopped for lunch in Lomax, IL, in a place called "The Pink." This was the first ever place we felt unwelcome on the trip so far. Mostly everyone has been very interested in our trip, and very friendly. On the way out I spotted an unusual license plate. If you got a vanity plate, what would yours say? ;)


We knew we wanted to stop in Burlington, Iowa today because they have a bike shop, and we were in dire need of all kinds of supplies. But we had started out so late because of the rain, and we were both pretty tired (from sleeping in the tent, maybe?), so we decided to just stay in Burlington tonight.

The bike shop trip was a major success, and we also went to Target and got some books for Dean. He finished his book a few nights ago, and has been hurting for one ever since.

Tonight we are staying at the Motel Lincolnville, or as it's known in lights, the El 'Nville. It's one of Burlington's least fine establishments, but right in our price range!

Tomorrow we hope to make it to Muscatine, IA. I hope you're all still enjoying the blog!