The Thin Blue Ride - Part 2 Day 70 - Ava, IL to Tunnel Hill, IL

Saturday, August 17th, 2019

Ride Report:  60 Miles, 3,129 Total Miles, 15.9 Avg. mph, 3,176 Ft. Climbing, 4,986 Calories.  A pretty good day. Humidity was back up again today so I was soaked by the time I made it to breaks in The Rig with Susan, but the clouds were merciful and hung around for most of the ride - only departing for the last hour or so.  This, of course, had the heat index at 100 degrees by the time we made it to Tunnel Hill, IL.  But at least it was just the last hour of the ride.  I’ve got say tho, that I’m feeling pretty good and have energy enough to finish well each day.  This as opposed to dragging my butt into The Rig at the end of each day.  That’s a good feeling to have.  Well, not the butt dragging.  The other one.  Additionally, I’ve considered adding a road report given some of the oddities we’ve encountered, but they’re not frequent enough to merit a daily report.  So I guess I’ll stick with just complaining when the occasion arises.  Today is one of those days.  I’ll get to the complaining later in the post.

Strap in boys and girls, here we go...

Early in the day.  The previously mentioned merciful clouds are present in this pic.  And the road decided to cooperate as well.  The road you can see in the background is Ava Road.  Original, I know - it ran between Ava and Murphysboro.  But back to the road, it was freshly paved - always a good thing for a rider.  I was riding on the shoulder, which interestingly enough the reader can see over my shoulder in the pic, as I took this shot.  Note the cool white lines reflected in my glasses - they look like racing stripes to me... 

The route thru Murphysboro took us on a two block stretch of brick pavers.  For those who have never ridden a carbon fiber wonder bike (Delta is of this ilk) - you can run over a quarter on one of these things and tell if it was heads or tails.  Now imagine how brick pavers feel.  Delta is no bigger fan than I am.  I told him to imagine he was racing on the cobbles of Paris/Roubaix. (Google Paris Roubaix pics)  That was the ticket, or at least it stopped the whining.

This is our first look at Grassy Lake which lies just SE of Carbondale, IL.  It's a small lake and we traversed the North and East sides to get to Goreville, IL.  While the road looked good here, and it was, this only lasted till we made it to the spillway just around the corner, then things went South.

By the time we got to this bridge, it was obvious that the concrete was pretty long in the tooth.  The bridge had received some substantial repairs, and looked trustworthy, but hmmm...

It was at the other end of this bridge that I was stopped by some tourists from out of town.  They wanted to know where/how to get a day use permit for the lake.  I told 'em I was a Warden and to just mail a check for $27.50 to 2235 Alta Drive, Manhattan, KS.  They laughed, thanked me and left.  Out of town tourists are so gullible.  Well, if the check arrives they were gullible.  If not, they thought I was a loon.

But back to the road.  Susan bypassed this section of road since she couldn't get Google Maps to take her on that route and interpreted its refusal to do so as a sign of common sense.  This turned out to be a good thing because...

...this was a few miles down the road.  I gotta say, for about 5-6 miles I felt like I was truly on my own.  No cars, no sounds of civilization, trees lining both sides of the road, etc.  This didn't help.  I thought about dragging it out of the way, but it was getting hotter and stopping meant that sweat immediately started running into my eyes.  I elected to climb over, hoist Delta across and continue on.

I leaned him up against the tree on the other side and then walked off a ways and he asked where I was going.  This is me lecturing him and letting him know that if he's gonna be making snarky  comments for days, he can figure out on his own how to get back to The Rig.  He thought about it and we discussed it some more.  Eventually we decided that we both need each other and that we work better as a team than separately.  We both apologized, laughed about it, then hit the road again.  Ya can let 'em go on for a while, but eventually ya gotta have the difficult conversations or your relationship goes nowhere.  Free life advice from us here at The Thin Blue Ride.

Still on the same road and yet to re-contact Susan, who took a different route.  The reader should note the green "bike route" sign on the right.  This is a good thing as the State of Illinois used them to mark the T/A route - apparently quite some time ago given the weathering of this sign.  But at least I knew I wasn't lost.

But back to the road.  Eventually I met up with Susan and we both were back on the same road.  As usual she went on ahead and I though nothing of it, figuring to meet up again maybe 15 miles down the road.  This until I came over a hill and saw The Rig stopped in the middle of the road.  I assumed she was taking another in her continuing series of "narrow road" pics.  Turns out she had stopped to make sure I saw the washed out section of road.  This happened a total of three times in about five miles.  Like I said - not a very good road.

I'd been telling Delta that Unicorns were real.  Now he believes.

Saw a lotta this today.  But the reader should note how the hills have flattened out here in Illinois.

Crossed another Interstate today.  This one leads to some place called Paducah.  Sound like something that happens after one drinks too much.  We won't be going there.

The Teamsters apparently agree.  They're all outbound from Paducah.  This one honked at me and waved.  Apparently all Teamsters are very friendly - and here I though it was just mine.

And this was on the run-in to Tunnel Hill.  A red barn, a single large tree, blue sky, and clouds: classic.  Plus - it matches my jersey.

And at the SE end of Murphysboro, early in the ride, we completed T/A map section 9.  Three more sections to go and we will have successfully ridden the entire route.  It's starting to feel real now.

This is the route from Girard, KS to Murphysboro, IL.  That's Missouri in between those points.  Apparently Missouri is Latin for "No-Man's Land".

I'm not sure, precisely, how one goes about celebrating doing something like riding one's bike across the entire country.  But one thing is certain - I've got plenty of time to think about it each day.  A scary thought, I know.  We shall see what I can come up with.

Till next time.