Day 18 : Free Dessert!!!

From Ferne Clyffe State Park (Goreville, IL) to Chester, IL - ~66 miles

we thoroughly enjoyed our night with our english friends. we were planning on getting up early and getting the miles knocked out, however, shortly before the alarm was supposed to go off, we woke up to a rather large thunderstorm. so...we when the alarm went off, we turned it off and kept sleeping for a bit while the storm passed. not too much after that, there was a second storm cell that came through, so we continued to wait things out.

we finally got things packed up inside the tent, got out of the tent, went through most of our "normal" morning routine and were about to take down the tent when another storm rolled through. so yet again, we got back in the tent and continued to wait. again, the storm passed, and we finally were able to get the tent down and finish packing up.

it was pushing 9 am before we were able to pull away from the park. we headed, along with our new friends, into town to find a place to grab breakfast. we were cycling down the main drag of town when we saw a nice looking local joint with a sign out front that said, "cyclists welcome". generally speaking, if something says cyclists welcome, it is a good thing. and this was certainly no exception. we went inside to find a very cute place, complete with pictures of cyclist underneath the plexiglass on the top of the tables. we ordered a pretty standard breakfast, ate it, and then the waiter came and asked us if we needed anything else. we said, "no, i think just a check will do it." to which he said, "well, you get a free dessert." mind you, this was 10 am. so just to clarify we asked him if it was because we were cyclists that we got this free dessert, and he said yes, it was because we were cyclists. well, we couldn't pass up the opportunity for free dessert, so we topped our breakfasts off with a piece of homemade pie! not sure if it was the best for cycling, but it sure was good!

it was now pushing 10:30 am and we were finally getting on the bikes. we got about 5 miles of riding in when some serious clouds began to blow in from our right. they were some of the craziest looking clouds i have ever seen. it was very obvious we were in for yet some more rain. luckily, we happen on to a gas station that had shut down. we rolled under their front porch awning and waited as the clouds moved closer. and sure enough, a few minutes later it began to rain and before long it was absolutely pouring. we were thankful...so thankful to have found a great piece of shelter.

we finally got out on the road for good at about 12:30 pm. after the last storm passed on through, the sun came out and it became a very nice day to be riding. we rode 30 or so miles into carbondale with our english friends. when we got to carbondale, they decided they would stay there for the rest of the day to do some interneting and whatnot. we decided that we wanted to push on to chester. so, we stopped at a grocery store in carbondale and picked up some fresh fruit that we had been craving and then got back on the road. we had noticed in the morning that the book we have been using as a secondary resource listed a shortcut to go from carbondale to chester...it said that it was shorter and would avoid some hills, which both sounded great. shortcut it was then.

and it was quite nice to say the least. the ground was fairly flat as we left carbondale. and then, about 25 miles outside of chester, we dropped down into the mississippi river valley and the ground became almost completely flat for as long as we could see. we were so excited about it that we rode along at 13-14 mph for the next two hours. however, as always seems to be the case, we had to climb to get into chester. it never fails, wherever we decide to stay, we always have to climb to get there.

when we finally got into chester, we stopped at this little park at the center of town where there were these really cool murals painted of popeye and the rest of the popeye characters, because chester is the home of the creator of popeye. we then cycled down the main drag a little bit to find the fraternal order of eagles which was listed on our maps as a place that houses cyclists.

we really had no idea what the fraternal order of eagles was or what we were getting ourselves into...and let me tell you, we were still not sure as we rolled up. there were some motorcycles and a bunch of big trucks, and a couple of people drinking and smoking outside. we parked our bikes and headed in the front door...and i was kind of hoping we would find a hostess or front desk or something of that sort. however, there was none of that...instead, we saw to our right an arcade and to our left a full out country bar with a guy with long hair singing live music off of a karaoke machine. we walked around the bar for a minute before a waitress finally came up to us and said, "you guys want to stay here tonight?" we were still thinking...i'm not sure if we really do want to stay here...but we replied to her saying, "yes". she told us to roll our bikes around to the back and she would meet us and show us around. as we rolled our bikes to the back, we discovered that there was more to the fraternal order of eagles. behind the building there were two sand volleyball courts with what looked like a league going on...and then next to those, there were people setting up for a rodeo that was going to be going on the next night...complete with a dozen or so bulls.

she pointed us to a little shack looking building, so we headed down there to discover that there were 9 bunks and air conditioning inside the building. it was nothing fancy, but a nice place to crash for sure. they also had a little shower room that was also nothing special, but a great place to get at least a little cleaner.

i don't know what all fraternal order of the eagles are like, but this one was certainly a great place to end a day of riding!

tomorrow we will cross into our home state...we will cross the mississippi river first thing in the morning and then ride to farmington, mo where our friend justin schroeder will meet us to ride through missouri.