Day 19 : A Justin Kind of a Day...(he wanted me to call it that)

From Chester, IL to Johnson Shut-ins State Park - ~80 miles

we awoke early, excited to make it to our fourth state of the trip. we took a few pictures of the bulls and then hoped on the bikes, ready to ride. we quickly got to the mississippi river and crossed into missouri. (honestly, i am not sure that i really ever thought we would make it this far) we had a nice, easy 10 miles to start the day as we continued through the valley.

and then things changed...the next 35 miles as we rode to where we were going to meet justin and tracy were brutal to say the least. looking back on it, i am not exactly sure what made them so tough. we were climbing some really serious inclines again for the first time in a number of days, it started to get pretty hot, the winds were up, we started to run short on water, and we probably hadn't eaten as much as we should have. some combination of all of that made it a rough morning.

nevertheless, though a little later than scheduled, we made it to farmington to meet our friends. we enjoyed a excellent pizza at the heart of town at a place called bob-a-rino's pizza. after a couple of hours of eating, drinking, resting and having some great conversations, we got back on the bikes, along with justin, to ride another 35 miles for the day.

we rode about an hour or so, and the clouds started to roll in again...and as the rain started to spit we ducked into the closest driveway to find a house with a good sized porch on the front. we put our bikes on the porch and knocked on the door to see if we could wait the storm out there. however, no one answered the door, so we just waited on the porch and fortunately it only took 20-30 minutes for the storm to pass and we were back out on the road again.

we rode another 25 miles or so to finish up the day, and they were about as opposite from the morning miles as they possibly could have been. they felt largely downhill and seemed to go by easily. maybe it was the freshness and newness of having justin with us. it was really fun to have him along with us kind of trying to figure out the ropes as he began his adventure with us.

we arrived at johnson shut-ins state park to find some very nice rangers who gave us a very discounted price ($6 - cheapest state park on our trip thus far) and as we got into the campground, we found it to be by far the nicest campground that we have stayed in to date! turns out, they used to pump water up to the top of this mountain by the park during the night, and then during the day the water would run down producing energy. and a few years back, in the middle of the night, the levee at the top broke and there was a huge rush of water that basically wiped a bunch of the park out, and i guess that much of the park just opened back up earlier this year.

regardless, they get the award thus far for the nicest state park to camp in for sure! i hope that they are able to continue to maintain it and take pride in it...because it was nice enough that they should!