July 13, 2025
Day 7 - ending at Fairfield, IL
Up at 5:45am. Got a motel lobby coffee, then posted Day 5 report. Had the bike outside ready to go at 7:48am, then went back in to eat my motel breakfast. When I was ready to leave, the Magellan MAP330 GPS locked up. So I got out the spare, which fortunately powered up fine. Left the motel at 8:23am.
I'd made a reservation last night to stay at Briarwood Inn in Fairfield this evening. So that's my destination for today. I took country roads The first half of the way there. They were more "country" than I should have chosen - several miles of only fair gravel. I listened to 90.3 MHz, WSIU (NPR) this morning. The interviews were so interesting, that I had to finally turn it off, because it was distracting me from bicycling my best.
I was almost to a county line at noon (my map is showing county lines, but not county names). Noon mileage: 22.1 miles.
I figured I needed to get off these back roads about a mile east of Clay City, then go west until I got to Big Four Road going south. After a mile on Big Four Road, I stopped for a break at its intersection with Bluebell Road. After looking north, I checked the weather radar. There was rain to the west, but maybe I could make it to Fairfield before the rain.
At 2:27pm l pulled off the road at what looked like a campground to put plastic over the gear. I decided to not wear the rubber boots. I didn't need the raincoat quite yet. There was a major storm developing northwest of me, but I only got a few sprinkles. Thunderstorm warnings were being issued for Clay City behind me. It still looked rather stormy straight west of me, however.
At 3:38pm, just in time, I put my raincoat on. It was a "normal" rain for the while, then it got heavier. I finally decided it was too heavy to ride in, so pulled up underneath the branches of a tree that hung over the highway, and stood for 20 minutes. It was raining hard enough that cars passing had their flashers on. I was able to gauge how hard it was raining by checking if I could see the flashing lights of the intersection a mile ahead. For a long time I couldn't see them. It finally lightened up enough that I rode on. I had my own flashers on. What surprised me is the rain only lightened up for about 5 minutes, then it was back again. All the way to Fairfield.
I was entering Fairfield on its northeast side, and came upon a shelter in a park. Finally a break out of the rain! That was at 5:35pm. I took the opportunity to take off one of my now wet boots, to see if water would pour out. There wasn't that much water in them, but they sure were wet. It started raining harder while I sat at the picnic table at this shelter. When is this going to end! I wanted to get to a place to eat supper, and finally just left at 6:00pm to get to Classic Pizza and Pasta. Had lasagna, their salad bar, and Dr Pepper. It was very good.
The rain had finally quit, for now. It was easy riding on the shoulder of the main highway through town to get to the west side where the motel is. They don't have guest laundry here, but I could certainly use it - my sleeping bag is wet! I hadn't wrapped it in plastic, like I used to do on days when it was predicted to rain. Lesson learned (I hope). They do have a hair dryer here, which worked pretty well for drying my boots. I've got everything spread out the best I can. Now time for a shower.
Jeff
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Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 312 miles (502 km)
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