July 30, 2025
Day 24 - still at Fulton, IL
I woke up this morning at 7:00am, which seems kind of late, except last night I didn't get to bed until 12:05am. It had rained last night and was going to rain some more. I headed down to breakfast at 7:30am. Before eating, I went outside to see what the sunrise might look like. It wasn't much. However, I was able to help a motel worker, who had stepped outside without her key card, and couldn't get back in. There was something messed up with the main front door electronic lock, but we eventually got back in through a side door.
There was no one in the breakfast room when I was there, but I did get to watch, through the window I was sitting next to, the worst of the current storm pass by. Later I noticed when I went to refill my coffee cup, there were workers wearing safety vests returning to the motel, I'm guessing because their bosses decided it was raining too much for them to work today.
I had picture sorting to do today, and also decided to do laundry since they have machines here. I only have one of those laundry soap sheets I brought from home left. I hadn't figured correctly how many times I might be needing to do laundry. They have laundry detergent here for purchase. When the desk clerked asked me how many, I said, "Well I need one, but I might take some more, depending on their size." He said they're just little packets, so I purchased 3. It turns out these are those little laundry pods that they don't want kids to eat. You throw the whole thing still wrapped into the washing machine. They seemed to be leaking already. I was going to keep the two extras as spares, but they look like a mess waiting to happen. That's why I like those soap sheets - they don't leak.
I texted my wife at 9:45am to give me a call if she wasn't busy. She was busy until after 1:00pm, when she called. I didn't have anything I needed to talk about, I just wanted to hear more about what's she's been up to lately. Conversations with her are always fun, but they do make me kind of homesick for her company.
By 2:10pm I had my laundry done, including a clean sleeping bag and sheet. Back to picture sorting and uploading. I did take time to research restaurants in town. There's a highly-rated Mexican restaurant, which is what I decided on for supper. The next decision would be what to eat there. I pretty much had that figured out, thanks to an online menu. Now the only problem left was the scattered rain in the area. According to Google Maps, it would take me 25 minutes to walk there. I took off walking at 5:25pm. It started to rain as I went along, so I switched to my backup plan as I passed Sunrise Family Restaurant, a place I've been to before.
Another disappointment for not making it to the Mexican restaurant is it is a lot closer to the river, where I hoped to get a windmill picture. This is my third visit on bicycle to Fulton, so I'll just give you the link for the other time I was here. That should give you a feel for the place.
Back to supper at the Sunrise Family Restaurant. I had their country-fried steak dinner, decaf coffee, and Dutch apple pie for dessert. I kept checking the weather radar with hopes to still make it to the river, but finally gave up on that idea. What I did get done, was to decide where I want to be tomorrow night. The plan had me at Palace Campground just north of Galena - 51 miles from here. Blanding Landing Recreation Area is only 40 miles away, and would allow me to tackle the hills to Galena in the morning of the following day. That should work.
I got back to the motel without getting too wet. I just now remembered to put my battery block and radio on chargers. I always struggle to keep thinking forward on these trips. Of course there's a lot of thinking back also, when I write up the text and select the pictures for the previous days. It's all good.
There are different predictions on when the rain will finally be out of the area tomorrow morning: 2:00am, probably 7:00am, maybe 9:00am. But the big weather news for tomorrow is the high is predicted to be 77F. And I didn't pack a jacket!
Jeff
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