July 14, 2020
meeting karen, giddy, warsaw, "campground"
Day One: Quincy to Warsaw
I got off work at noon, my bike already loaded in the rental van and ready to go, then drove the two hours to Quincy, Illinois. Loading up the van yesterday felt oddly final, like I couldn’t change anything after it was packed. I crossed the Mississippi river into Quincy, then drove four miles up Broadway, a loud road with a steep grade packed with bumper-to-bumper cars, to the rental car agency. There, I met Karen, a friend of mine from when I attended school in Galveston, who will make the third of our trio once Patrick joins us this evening. Although we’ll be carrying our bags, her daughter, Sarah, will be coming along to camp with us in the evenings since she and Karen live a thousand miles apart and they wanted to spend some time together.
I turned in the keys to the rental van and loaded up the bike, all of which took about an hour. I don’t remember specific numbers, but my bike plus all the gear weighed right around 100 lbs.
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We left at 4:00 just as the traffic was becoming heavy and crawled uphill for half a block. Picking our way around broken sections of sidewalk and large pieces of trash, we rode alongside the growling traffic and finally arrived at the side road we'd been instructed to take by the guy at the rental agency. Conversation was impossible because of the noise. In spite of what were probably adequate directions we promptly got lost, although we quickly realized that all we had to do was keep going downhill since the road we wanted to find paralleled the Mississippi river.
Once away from the traffic and onto Bonansinga Drive we connected with the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) route, and I realized how jangly my nerves had been. I can never relax if there’s any traffic, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
We bounced up and down a few small hills here and there as we made our way north, enjoying the scenery. After a hiatus of more than a decade, it felt good to be on a tour again. “Good” isn’t the right word… it was more than that. Heather, my wife, has been telling people I've been "giddy" when I talk about my tour. Of course, I vehemently denied it, but it's probably an accurate description. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning, and had a silly grin on my face the entire tour.
Although the temperature had warmed up it wasn’t hot, and we arrived in Warsaw (pop 1,510) a little after 7:00.
We glided past the “campground” noted on our ACA maps without ever seeing it. Sarah flagged us down to let us know that we had passed it and, after briefly considering continuing on to Hamilton, 6 miles down the road, we decided to turn around and find the “campground.”
I put “campground” in quotes because it wasn’t really a campground, just a place to pitch a tent near the river. There was a lot of goose poop and it smelled a little funky, but the odor wasn’t overpowering, and the breeze was favorable. On the plus side, there was drinkable water. After finding a level(ish) site, we pitched our tents just as it was getting dark, then prepared our meals.
Howard, a cyclist I met in 2007 and continue to correspond with, had given me the tip that if you’re going to cook a dehydrated meal you should let it stay in the container for several minutes beyond what it actually says. I found that to be good advice but, even so, on this occasion, my chicken pesto pasta still had some crunch in it.
Patrick arrived around 9:00 and after pitching his tent we all sat around talking until about 11:00. It was hot inside the tent, which prevented me from falling asleep right away, but I eventually dozed off around 12:30.
distance: 37.1 miles
max speed: 23.5 mph
average speed: 12.5 mph
moving time: 3:05:50
total time: 4:02:25
elevation gain: 665 feet
Today's ride: 37 miles (60 km)
Total: 37 miles (60 km)
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