Day 19 - May 22 - Lieber SRA, IN to Casey, IL - Two Old Guys Take On A Continent

May 22, 2023

Day 19 - May 22 - Lieber SRA, IN to Casey, IL

Construction Woes

Ed’s Story

This was the longest day yet, 86 miles 2200 feet of climbing. It was warm. The good thing about the ride was we had a tail wind most of the way.

The road started out cool but we warmed up pretty quickly. We were soon shedding our outer layers and just going to shorts and a jersey (or at least I was, John kept his tights on until lunch).

I know yesterday John talked about making it to Alaska. Somehow we must’ve taken a wrong turn at the Bering Straits and ended up in Poland.

I told John we shouldn’t have taken that short cut.

This was a nice little town on the route. We stopped at a little café called Retta Jeans for coffee. It used to be called the Cooks Corner Café, but the daughter took over, redid the restaurant and named after her mother. Isn’t that touching?

We continued riding; the weather was beautiful.

John trying to cross the bridge over troubled waters.

Luckily, the waters were calm, and we had smooth riding.

When I was a kid I played with Lincoln Logs. You know where you could build houses out of wood with the green roofs. Houses look like those that the early settlers built. What do you imagine I felt when I came across the following?

Prior to reaching Terre Haute, we rode on the bicycle trail for about 8 miles.

You learn something new every day. I just wonder what type of bottles the cola was in before Terre Haute came along.

Thinking of Terre Haute makes me wonder if Sissy, Jody, and Buffy (with Mrs Beasley) ever moved out of Uncle Bills.

John went to a local bike shop to have his wheel trued and I bought a couple more tools….you can never have enough tools.

Following our lunch sandwich at the Roly Poly restaurant, we hit the road. We missed the turn and almost ended up on the shoulder of interstate 70. Whoops! We turned around and returned to the right road.

We came across a Road Closed sign. We rode a little further and found a worker sitting in a truck. He checked the maintenance in progress and told us we could pass through carefully. But what was really interesting is that they were Department of Illinois highways workers; somehow we ended up in Illinois and didn’t know it.

We continue riding taking breaks as needed. Then we came across another Road Closed sign. This time we were not so lucky; they were pouring concrete for a new bridge and would not let us pass. We ended up taking a 6 mile detour and added half an hour to our trip.

While riding on the detour we found that road was blocked. Luckily the trucks working there moved out of the way quickly and we could pass.

We were soon in reach of Casey; however, first we had to pass through Cumberland, again.

I hope there’s no 20 mile 3% grade leaving out of this town like there was leaving Cumberland Maryland.

Casey, Illinois is famous for being the home of the worlds largest of many items. Here are just a few samples of what we saw.

We had dinner and some beers at a little Mexican restaurant. It was very good. I must’ve been really tired as we were leaving. I just couldn’t figure out how to get out. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing and nothing worked.

Well, we’re at the Casey KOA for the night. We can hear the interstate in the distance so we have some great white noise in the background. I hope I can sleep.

Lo and behold I finally met a fellow submariner. Terry was on 3 different submarines, was commissioned, and went into surface navy.

Tomorrow’s ride is 65 miles and 850 feet of climbing….piece of cake🤣🤣🤣🤣

Until tomorrow, happy biking!

John’s Story

The nights and days are getting warmer. I’m going to miss crawling into a warm sleeping bag when the time comes that sleeping on top of it is too warm. It was probably mid 80s today, and the low tonight will be near 60. I dread when the time comes, and I’m sure it will, that it will be 100 during the day and warm all night.

I think someone is trying to organize the rabbits by asking them to text this number for more information. It may be the rabbits themselves, as they are known to be poor spellers and grammarians.

When we visited the coffee shop in Poland, I asked if being Polish qualified us for a parade, a commemorative plaque or possibly a discount. No such luck. The owner did offer to do a happy dance if it would make us feel better.

Today’s hills were for the most part ankle biters. They gave up 20 or 30 feet at a time. There was the occasional hill that slowed us down to a crawl. Things are flattening out as we approach the Mississippi River still probably 150 miles ahead.

We rode almost completely across Indiana before we found a sign like this for the first time. I like the signs in South Dakota much better, because the law there requires that motor vehicles give bicycles 6 feet of clearance.

Occasionally when we choose the day's route on our Wahoos, the response is that the route is too long to provide turn by turn directions (cues). Repeatedly turning the Wahoo off and on again can sometimes bring it to its senses. This morning I noticed for the first time that the route still loads it just doesn’t give written directions. It still shows the little “breadcrumbs“ on the map to show the way, and that for the most part is sufficient. It’s actually sort of nice not to know how many miles it is to the next turn or the next highway intersection. A couple years ago after I killed my third Garmin and before I bought the Wahoo I just used Ride With GPS on my phone to record my rides, with the phone kept in my bike bag, so I didn’t see any of the information that it normally displays. I actually enjoyed being clueless, I mean cueless.

When I saw the signs on opposite sides of the trail today it reminded me of that song (I think in the play Oklahoma) about how the farmers and the cowboys could be friends. Here are the walkers and the bikers could be friends.

I was really impressed when we walked into CrossRoads Cyclery today in Terre Haute and told Jim that we were on a cross country trip and I needed my rear wheel trued, that he dropped everything, put my bike on the stand, removed the wheel, and trued it for me right on the spot. Basically the same thing happened in Franklin, Indiana, a couple days ago when Larry at the Gray Goat Bike Shop solved our shifting problems.

This evening in camp we met our next-door neighbor, Terry. When he heard that Ed had lost his line for doing a bear hang last week by leaving it tied to a tree for drying clothes, rummaged around in his pack and gave us line that Ed could use. He also gave me a large carabiner because the small ones that I brought aren’t big enough to really attached to my rat sack. When I talked about how difficult it was to haul heavy sacks up into a tree using such thin line Terry showed me a trick with a clove hitch and a carabiner that allows you to hoist the bag up a bit at a time by using the carabiner as sort of an ascender as you would use in rock climbing. Did I mention that Terry is a rock climber, and that he teaches Air Force personnel wilderness skills? He also leads snowshoe trips and many other outdoor activities, not for profit but for fun, since he is retired.

For their support Jim at Cross Roads Cyclery and Terry next door share today’s Road Angel Award.

This is Jim. I don’t have a picture of Terry, but Ed does, so perhaps he’ll post it tomorrow.

Speaking of road angels, we met our first road demon today. We were cycling slowly up a long hill on a fairly busy highway without a rideable shoulder. For the most part drivers just moved over into the other lane and passed us without even slowing down. Occasionally a driver had to slow down and follow us a short distance before oncoming traffic allowed them to move around us. Along came a big semi that tailed us for what must’ve been several minutes, without taking any of the many opportunities he had to pass us. This allowed quite a few cars to stack up behind the semi. When finally the semi passed us, allowing the train of cars behind it to pass, one of those drivers in a large white pick up screamed obscenities at us as he went by. Several minutes later the same pickup came from the opposite direction at high speed, this time with the driver half out of his window, one hand on the steering wheel, and the other arm gesticulating rude gestures at us while at the same time he was screaming more obscenities. Very shortly afterwards our route took us onto another road. I full well expect that this fellow is still driving up and down the other highway like a lunatic in a Stephen King novel looking for us. He is hereby designated as our first Road Demon.

This road work blocked our passage while we were detouring around road closure number two. Things seemed to be just piling up in front of us.

When we came back to the highway after our detour around road closure number two, we were barely half a mile beyond where we had started the detour.

Johnny, this one’s for you. No tractors, but I thought you’d like to see all the wheels.

We arrived at the KOA here in Casey and for the first time in 2 1/2 weeks on the road, I had some ice cream. Happiness can be a Klondike bar.

We entered the central time zone today when we entered Illinois. Here I am sitting in the dark working on this journal at almost 10:30 PM central time, or 11:30 PM in the time zone we just left. But there is a beautiful night sky to keep me company.

I’d better get in on the worlds largest act here.

Is this where the Road Demon returns to his lair?

There’s actually a barber shop right next to the pole.

Today's ride: 86 miles (138 km)
Total: 3,123 miles (5,026 km)

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Dorothy ShinstockSounded like great day, minus the "demon." Loved all biggest items. No ice cream for Edward?
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11 months ago

Nancy GrahamI don’t really know where Casey Illinois is, but I am so very impressed with all the biggest things in the world, and your photos of them.
Well I guess one road demon in the mix of so many road angels will simply have to be tolerated. I am a great believer that there are more nice/good people in the world than there are bad/not nice people. Your Road Angel count proves my belief.
I continue to enjoy the trip with you. Stay safe…
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11 months ago

Ed ChimahuskyTo Dorothy ShinstockHaven’t found soy or coconut milk ice cream yet!
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11 months ago