Day 31- ending at Morris, IL

August 6, 2025

I got up at 6:22am this morning. Even though I have a nearby cafe lined up for breakfast, I went ahead and enjoyed my canned coffee. There was a young couple camping in site #4 next to me last night. I could tell from what I was overhearing that the guy was encouraging the girl about camping. I know there's no encouragement I could give that will ever get my wife to tent camp again! Later I heard from the guy that this is their first time at this campground. He said we're first time camping buddies at this place.

My bicycle auxiliary battery is at 12.2 volts this morning. That's after 2 days without a wall outlet charge. I haven't been charging the phone from that battery, I'm just using it to power the GPS units. I think with the bottle generators on some today, I can go another day or two. I've been using that battery block given to me 2 years ago in North Dakota for charging the phone. I think I can get three or four phone charges from that.

My destination today is Gebhard Woods State Park in Morris, just 32 miles away. I was packed and ready to go, but took time in the shade of my campsite to upload text for a couple day's entries. Then I rode up close to the check-in shack to use their wifi to upload pictures. That went really fast. On my way out of the park at 9:12am.

I arrived at Sugar Grove Cafe in Sugar Grove at 9:31am. The town has some trails that I was able to ride to get part-way there. For breakfast I had the cafe's Two Eggs breakfast. I liked that it came with so many choices for sides. Instead of hash browns I was able to get fruit. And I got French toast instead of pancakes. This breakfast was just right. And I was able to charge my phone from a nearby outlet and get ice for my thermos while I ate. When I got back on US-30, I noticed a GPS waypoint for a point of interest behind me. It was for Air Classics, Inc. Museum of Aviation. They weren't opened but I got a few pictures.

I followed my at-home planned routing today. [That planning is all done using Google Earth.] Mostly I was heading south. I wasn't able to locate on my bicycle map where I was until after noon. Was I riding on IL-47? That didn't seem right. I see it now, I was mostly on Eldamain Road. I know my GPS maps are out of date. I think my bicycling map is also. This seems like mostly a new road, with a very wide shoulder. Easy riding with traffic noise. At 11:30am I came to a sign saying I was in Plano. I don't remember planning to go through here. I crossed the Fox River (I know that thanks to the sign) at 11:45am.

Noon arrived and I stopped near a farm to write down the mileage: 13.7.

At 12:32pm I crossed IL-71. This nice new Eldamain Road ended there, which put me on Lisbon Road. Now I knew where I was - back on country roads. I turned on my radio. Most all the stations I was receiving were religious. I settled on one that was playing hymns - WJCH, 91.9 MHz, "Family Radio" out of Joliet.

Now that I knew where I was on the map, it was no surprise that I'd be riding a mile on US-52. That wasn't a problem at all. I rode through Lisbon at 1:43pm. It's a small town. At 2:09pm I angled to the left to stay on Lisbon Road to get to Morris. I was next to one of Morris's water towers at 2:48pm. In-town traffic was getting heavy. The state park is on the southwest side of town. I finally took to riding on sidewalks. I passed a Jimmy John's restaurant, and decided to get a sandwich to eat at the park. The worker there suggested I get a combo, which includes a drink, so I switched to eating there. I was past the worst of the traffic now, and made it to the park at 4:02pm. Only primitive tent camping is allowed here. I found the camping area and decided on a site by 4:17pm. Had the tent up and loaded by 4:45pm.

I started work on picture selection for today, but was falling asleep. So I took a nap on the shaded picnic table until 5:30pm. That's better. I finished up picture selection near sunset. Moved into the tent to write today's evening report. I'm hoping I can find wifi tomorrow to get this all uploaded. I see I had this place scheduled as a day off to do laundry in town. Since I don't need to do laundry, I'll continue on tomorrow, which happens to be another short day! I'm not sure why I made short days for this easy flat road riding. Must have something to do with where I could find campgrounds. But it is giving me time to get some work done for the journal, so that's a good thing.

Jeff

Today's ride: 33 miles (53 km)
Total: 1,223 miles (1,968 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	5
Comment on this entry	Comment	0