Day 16

Mileage: 93
Total mileage: 1276

Oh, irony has struck like a bolt of lightning.

Most of the day went pretty smoothly, starting out with some easy miles in the morning. I left Carbondale around 7am and everything was still completely shut down. Literally not a single place to grab breakfast, so I went ahead and rode the 13 miles to Murphysboro.

At Murphysboro I finished my third map and got to start Map 9 with a choice: the main road or the Mississippi Levee alternate. I was looking at the mileages yesterday and they're identical, so I opted to choose the Levee road, since it seemed really beautiful. It literally routes you up onto the levee and you get to ride about 15 miles right next to the Mississippi river. Yep, that's right, I'm next to the big river and getting ready to leave Illinois already. It's been a pretty easy state so far.

The Levee road (roughly 38 miles) was incredibly gorgeous, but more noticeable than anything it was ridiculously flat!! I got my first taste of the great plains today, which is a little premature because I still need to conquer the Ozarks. It sure did whet my appetite. 

A funny thing about flat country. I missed an unsigned turn onto an unsigned road today (silly me) and ended up putting about 2 miles on before I saw another road sign and realized I was off course. I stopped under a tree outside a farmhouse to decide how I was getting back on route and a nice old farmer came off his porch to come meet me. He quickly set me straight, giving me turn by turn directions to the levee road. The funny part is, we were still 5 miles away from the levee, just standing out among fields of corn and he finishes his instructions by pointing out on the horizon. 

"You see that white thing?" He asked. 

"Yep"

"That's the road on top of the levee, just ride over to it. It's over 30 feet tall, you can't miss it"

It didn't even occur to me that it's so flat out here, I might be able to just look for my destination, even though it was 5 miles away. Also the fact that a 30 foot hill is a noticeable landmark around here is just hilarious, but I was definitely able to find it.

After my detour, I pushed another 15 or so miles into Chester. In addition to having a bridge over the Mississippi, the town is also apparently famous for being the "Popeye" capital of the world. There's a whole park dedicated to the cartoon with statues and memorials and informational plaques. I snapped a photo with my favorite, "Wimpy" who's known for his insatiable appetite for hamburgers. It seemed appropriate given how much I'm eating this trip.

Thinking about my lunch stop today gets me thinking about the hilarious process of getting directions from locals. The way I see it, there are three types of direction givers.

The bloke I met at the farmhouse was the perfect kind of direction giver. He knew where I was trying to go, respected the route I was trying to take to get there, and gave me turn by turn instructions with notable landmarks to look for. Heaven.

The second type is hilarious, but gets old after a while. They're the local who prides themselves on knowing the road networks like the back of their hand, perhaps because they drove a truck for a while or maybe just because they have nothing else to do here in the Midwest. Either way, these folks will start to give you directions, even when you know exactly where you're going and don't need any at all. It's futile to show them your maps and explain that you have a very specific course you'll be following. They want to route you from big city to big city, following the major interstates and highways, sending you 15 miles out of the way here or 150 miles out of the way there to check out what they think are cool landmarks. At the end of the day, all you can do is smile and nod. You tell them that you'll definitely be taking a 20 mile detour to see the local waterfalls and then you get on your bike and go right back to following the actual trail. These people are everywhere!

Today at lunch, I met the third kind. This is the local who knows generally where things are, but has no idea how distances work. I suppose being in a car acts to shorten the miles artificially. I inquired at a gas station if there were any good places to eat in Chester. A lady gave me instructions on how to get to this awesome place called Reids Harvest house. She informed me it was only a quarter of a mile away, just past the Walmart and across from the Casey's General Store. With good landmarks in mind, I rolled out. For context, Chester is built on top of a large hill, with fairly decent climbs to approach from either side. So as I headed off course, I figured I could handle a quarter mile of extra climbing to get back on my route, all in the name of buffet. I kept rolling and rolling, passing the Walmart at about a mile and keeping going until I finally arrived at the buffet, at the bottom of the hill, a little over 2 miles away. Fortunately the food was good and the ice cream plentiful, so I didn't have that hard of a time getting back on course afterwards.

Once I rerouted back through Chester, I came down to the Mississippi (such a fun word to type!) and crossed the river via bridge. I think this is my last big river crossing for a while.

Once I got to the other side, I was in Missouri!! (Notice how flat it started out)

About the weather today: it was hot but not humid, which is apparently very comfortable. Objectively speaking it must have been very hot, because when I stopped once to consult my map, my biking cleats sunk into the melted blacktop. Regardless, it was a nice day to be riding.

Missouri served up a nice 10 miles of flat farmland before I got to start the Ozarks this evening, which are surprisingly a lot like a smaller version of the Appalachians. I was dreading one big climb on my map today, but after about 25 miles of alternating climbs and descents I saw a big open descent ahead of me. Apparently I had tackled it without even realizing.

I can't scoff too hard at the Ozarks though, because they got back at me this evening. I was standing to climb a hill to give my butt a break when I heard a loud crack come from my drivetrain. I managed to unclip and get a foot on the ground without wiping, but the damage was done. My little chainring had snapped on me, which is something we call a "major mechanical." I went from being 6 miles away from Farmington to being stranded with an unrideable bike in about 30 seconds.

I hitchhiked into town with a kid in his pickup truck and walked to the bike hostel where I'm staying tonight. This place is like a USBR 76 themed paradise, but the thrill of staying here is tempered a bit by the knowledge that I have to go back before I can go forward again.

Fortunately there's a bike shop here in town. They open at 10am tomorrow morning so my plan is to sleep in and stop by as soon as they open to see if they have the parts in stock to do my repair. If not, it looks like I'm hitchiking 100 miles back to Carbondale where Bike Surgeon can undoubtedly put me back together today. If I get fixed in town, I'll head back to the spot where I broke down and pick up the trail from there, trying to get a solid half day. The irony is that I had a major mechanical the day following my zero day. If  I had saved that day, I could have just taken a zero here in Farmington while my bike got fixed and not lost any real scheduled time. Oh well, there are some variables you can't control out here and that's one of them.

Tonight, although I'm sleeping in a paradise with bunk beds and couches, I think I'm taking the floor. I tried laying down on the couch and couldn't get comfortable, but the cool wood floors were just right. And yes, even I realize that it's weird. G'night!