I rode through Astoria this afternoon. Does that mean that I'm done? Oh, right - the Astoria at the end of the Transamerica trail is in Oregon, I'm not in the right state yet. It was a funny name day. The other sign that made me laugh was the sign for Vermont pointing 6 miles to the west. I thought I left Vermont behind weeks ago.
The bridge across the Illinois River this morning was a breeze. I usually hate bridges because they typically don't have shoulders or sidewalks, but surprise, surprise - the bridge this morning had both! It also had very little traffic, which was directly in conflict with what I was told yesterday. I guess I should have thought about what heavy traffic means where I am vs. where I live!
There are some 70+ mile rides that are easy, and some that are hard. Today's was hard because of the temperature. It was hot and humid again, with my bicycle computer showing temperatures in the low 100's again. Luckily the last hour was much better. The sun hid behind some building clouds and stayed there. That made it feel a lot cooler. It was one of those days where I had to make a decision early about how far to ride. My choices were to stop in Lewistown, which was too short of a day, or to continue on to Rushville. There wasn't any place to stay between the two towns, so Rushville it was!
The ride through the southern end of Peoria this morning took me through industrial areas. Except for the first couple of miles where the air quality seemed a little suspect, it was fine. US 24 was marked as 4-lane divided on the map for what looked to be about 20 miles out of Peoria, but it was actually shorter than that. There was construction for while with one lane closed. There wasn't actually much going on, so I was able to ride in the closed lane, not too bad. Once I got through the industrial area, I was back in farmland. This time there were some marshes (with accompanying bugs), and there were hills. Rolling farmland, and some longer hills, maybe to help my legs warm up for the Ozarks.
I saw a deer run across the road this afternoon, the first I've seen for quite a while. And I spent some time talking to horses and cows in fields along the road. It was one of those funny days where the animals seemed to be watching me. As I watched their heads turn in my direction of travel, I wondered what they were thinking...
The clouds were pretty amazing this afternoon. I kept thinking I was going to get caught in a wicked thunderstorm, but it didn't happen.
