Day 15 : A Stinky Kind of a Day...

From Utica, KY to Cave in Rock State Park, IL - ~82 miles

last night when we arrived in utica, we realized that we had crossed into the central time zone…we were glad to take in our extra hour of sleep. however, we did decide that being in a new time zone would give us light earlier in the day and so we would try to get out on the road even earlier to try to avoid some of the heat. so we were on the road by a little before 6 am, trying to beat the heat. we quickly knocked off 25 miles before the heat got up too high, and we decided we would stop at the sebree dairy bar for a quick breakfast. they had great biscuits and gravy…and interestingly, they were located on highway 41 which is the same highway that runs through kentland, where cailyn is from. we ate quick and tried to get back out on the road before it got any hotter.

we continued into dixon, where we stopped and got some powerade and filled our bottles up with ice, and then on into clay, where we stopped at a great little deli/diner and eat had a chicken salad sandwich and got our camelpacks willed with ice again, because it was going to be 22 miles from clay before we got to our next services. while we were in clay, cailyn had a great conversation with a cute, seemingly lonely, gentlemen who was leaving the restaurant as we were coming in. it is those types of interactions that really make this trip great!

we got back out on the road a little before two, and it was most definitely hot. as we began to ride, we noticed that there were clouds building out in front of us a little ways. often we are hoping to avoid any rain that we can, but today we were just hoping that we could get to the clouds and rain, because the thought of it raining on us sounded like a wonderful thing to say the least. we never really caught up with the rain, but we did catch up with the clouds and with a fair amount of wet pavement that indicated that it had rained just out ahead of us. and let me just say, those clouds were about the biggest help we could have gotten today. it helped to keep the temperatures down at least a little and they also gave us some shelter from the sun, which was much needed as we are both suffering from some sun poisoning.

as a side note, and in reference to the title for the day…today has been an incredibly smelly day. during the morning hours, we rode passed a bunch of huge chicken farms, which smelled awful to say the least. and if you have not had that experience before, just consider yourself lucky. and then in the afternoon, we went passed a number of large cattle operations where the cattle were just laying 6 inches deep in their own “stuff”…which as you can also imagine, made for quite the smell. all in all, a pretty stinky type of a day.

we made one final stop in marion to get a couple of power bars to give us the needed energy to make the final 12 mile push to get to the ohio river to take the ferry across to Cave in Rock State Park where we would be meeting mom and dad. we started in on our last 12 miles and watched as the miles counted up (we have noticed that in kentucky they seem to do some unique numbering of miles on their county roads. there doesn’t always seem to be a method to the madness…they appear to usually be counting either up or down from some intersection. and in this case, they were counting up from the intersection that we had been at in marion.). so, as the miles passed by, we got closer to the ferry and to our first rest day of the trip. we quickly reached the ferry and rolled right on to a mostly loaded boat. we parked our bikes on the side of the ferry and watched as a massive barge of coal passed in front of us. before long, we were off across the river, and then it was back on the bikes to roll off the other side (and surprisingly, it was free to cross over on the ferry, which I couldn’t believe).

we had just another ½ mile or so to get into the state park, with one last big hill to get us up to the lodge. we arrived at the lodge and called mom and dad to discover that they were still about 30 minutes away, so we were able to check in, get the bikes settled in, and get showered up before they arrived. the place that we are staying here is super nice, much nicer than any of us expected, and certainly the nicest accommodations of our trip. thanks mom and dad!

we headed up to the lodge for dinner and about half way through our meal, there were some other people that walked in and sat a couple of tables down from us that looked like cyclists. then when we saw that they had a map out on the table and a drysack along side it, we were pretty positive they were cyclists as well. so as we finished our meal, i walked over and asked them if they were cyclists as well, and sure enough they were. it turns out they are riding from memphis to maine, using two of the other adventure cycling association routes, and this is the one location on our two routes where our paths intersect. just so happens we were both at the right place at the right time. they had been living in memphis this past year, but are originally from maine and have a home in maine, and so they are cycling back home. they both had great, what I would assume are, maine accents. they seemed like a really great couple. i was telling mom as we walked back to our room, there is something really cool about meeting people that are also doing such a unique thing. no matter how different we may typically be from them, we can now almost always be great friends, simply because of the uniqueness of what we are doing. i think there is something there to be learned about loving others and about being friends with people as Christ would have been with others. i guess it is really about seeing the uniquenesses instead of the differences.

well, it is nice to know that we will not be cycling tomorrow. that we will just get to relax, hang out with the family, and let the legs and skin rest. it is much needed to say the least! it will be nice!