Day 5: 5/30/2022: Goreville to Chester, IL

Memorial Day 2022

Flags flying in Goreville, IL, this morning.

Flags flying and memorial at Murphysboro, IL, mid-day.

Flags flying and memorial at Chester, IL, this evening.

Total miles today: 75.88

Day 4: 5/29/2022: Cave-In-Rock State Park to Goreville, IL

I had a great night's sleep last night.  The campground was quiet after about 11:30 p.m.  The pavilion I was sleeping under was in the RV section and was a lot closer to the bathhouse than the tent section, so the campground host really did me a big favor letting me sleep there.  He told me the campground is not full this Memorial Day weekend because of high gas prices.  I rode through the tent section this morning and there were almost as many tent campers as RVers.

I got up and made it to the park restaurant a little before 7 a.m.  Their on-line information indicates they open at 7.  Workers at the restaurant were out smoking, and they told me the restaurant didn't open until 8.  I didn't want to waste an hour waiting for the restaurant to open, so I left and rode about 11 miles to Elizabethtown. It was during this 11-mile ride that I thought to myself that I should have asked the restaurant workers if there were any bananas in the kitchen that I could buy from them. Oh well, it was too late by then. I think I'm having banana withdrawal pains.

In Elizabethtown, I ate at the Town and Country Restaurant, which is in a building built in about 1900. I had a cheese omelet and a large pancake. After I finished eating, I was relaxing and drinking more water when I overheard a customer order a scrambled egg sandwich with Miracle Whip and a tomato on it.  That made my mouth water so I ordered an identical sandwich and ate it also. I decided I had better leave before someone else came in and placed an order that would make me order another meal. I asked the waitress if they had any bananas, and she said they no longer keep fruit because it rotted too fast.  Out of luck again.

Pic below of Elizabethtown in 1908. The Town and Country building to the left in the photo.

Pic of the same general area of the town today.

Some pics of the building's exterior and interior below.

I met Ralph (pic below) who is from San Francisco and is riding from San Francisco to Emerald Isle, NC. He has been riding about 5.5 weeks and has ridden about 2500 miles. This is his first bicycle tour and he told me it will probably be his last. My advice to him was not to sell his nice Co-motion Divide touring bike immediately. After he has been back home a few weeks and the daily struggles of bike touring are behind him, he will probably start remembering all the positives of touring and will want to go on another one.

The next cyclist I met was John (pic below). He is from Los Angeles and is biking from Phoenix, AZ, to Maine. He left Phoenix on April 18. He has biked across the country 3 times since he retired 5 years ago.

Both Ralph and John told me about a German couple cycling across the country from east to west that they had met earlier today. I made it to Goreville United Methodist Church where I will be staying tonight and sitting in front of the church were Anton and Ute (pic below) who are staying at the church tonight also. They are from Munich, Germany and are biking from New York City to San Francisco, CA. They are calling it the bridge to bridge tour, from Brooklyn Bridge to Golden Gate Bridge. They began on May 3. In 2012, they both completed the New York City marathon. They visited California on one other occasion with their 3 daughters, who live near them.

Some scenery pics from today's ride.

Pic below of my camping spot inside the church. The church opens it's doors and allows cyclists riding on U.S. Bike Route 76 to stay inside. They also have a shower and washer and dryer for cyclists to use. We all did our laundry at the church. What a perk!

Best of all (drumroll please), in Goreville I got...

I'm a happy man:)

Total miles today: 68.7

Day 3: 5/28/2022: Land Between the Lakes to Cave-in-Rock State Park

 It was a quiet, dark campsite last night.  I slept well, but was awakened in the middle of the night by a large tree limb breaking off and falling to the ground.  Thank goodness it was in the distance.  I quickly went back to sleep.

Due to most towns having little to no services, most of my meals today had peanut butter as the main ingredient.  I'm hoping I can eat a good breakfast tomorrow at the state park restaurant.

By the pic below, one might think I've already made it to Kansas, but it is actually at the Land Between the Lakes.

BISON!!!

Woohoo, another State....

Pic below of the marina at Grand Rivers, KY.  I didn't ride through the town's business district because I had done that before.  It is a touristy little town just north of Land Between the Lakes.

Then came Smithland, KY. It's a small community on the Ohio River.  A few pics below around the town.

The bridge pictured below crosses the Cumberland River just outside of Smithland.  They are in the process of building a new bridge to replace the current one.  Fortunately, the traffic was not bad when I went across the bridge.

A few pics of my scenery this afternoon.  The terrain went from flat to hilly (some very steep) several times today 

I went through a little...

...in Kentucky.  (Literally)

A few pics below of another little community located on the Ohio River I went through.

Most, if not all, of my route today was on a portion of Adventure Cycling Association's (ACA) Underground Railroad bicycle route. For about the last mile today, the Underground Railroad route overlapped ACA's U.S. Bicycle Route 76 which runs from Yorktown, VA, to Astoria, OR.

Below are pics of the ferry that transported me and several autos across the Ohio River to Cave-In-Rock, IL.

My 3rd state to ride in today (Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois).

Opry house in Cave-In-Rock.

I'm camping at the Cave-In-Rock State Park tonight.  Steve, the campground host, let me pitch my tent under a pavilion for free.  Tonight was the first shower I have had since this trip began and it sure was nice.

I had a lengthy conversation with a couple of young campers, Miles and Katrina, about my bicycle travels and life in general.  It's always good running across perfect strangers and getting to know a little about them.  Miles offered to share some "real food" with me when I told him a peanut butter sandwich was what I had for supper.  I thanked him, but declined his offer because I was actually full.

I do have a bit of a crisis.  I have somehow let myself run out of bananas.  Those of you that know me know that I'm a big, and I mean BIG, banana eater :) This whole banana predicament started last night.  I knew I was getting low on bananas (I always try to keep 4-6 bananas in my bags on a trip at all times).  I went into a Dollar General just south of Land Between the Lakes.  It happened to be the only store I went in that day that sold bananas.  They were 35 cents each.  I knew that was high, but in my situation, I was going to pay it.  On a bicycle trip, I usually buy the smallest bananas when I pay by the pound because they fit better in my bags.  However, this pay by the banana concept changed my plan and I picked out the largest bananas; best bang for the buck.  There was a line at the register to check out, so I decided to use the self checkout.  Things went fine scanning everything I had and then I got to my bananas.  There was no "Look Up Item" like the self checkouts at other stores have.  Not knowing what to do, I panicked and set my bananas aside and didn't buy them.  Okay... I know... the male pride thing about asking for help or directions got in my way :)

I ate my last banana this morning thinking I would restock in Smithland as I had already looked on line and saw Smithland Grocery there. I passed by a Dollar General about a half mile up a hill from Smithland Grocery, but didn't stop there for bananas because I wanted to give the local store my business.  When I got to Smithland Grocery, I discovered it was nothing but a convenience store.  They had bananas.  When I asked the price, I was told 69 cents per banana.  Nope, just couldn't pull the trigger at that price.  I decided not to backtrack up the hill to the Dollar General, hoping that one of the other towns along the route would have a grocery store with bananas.  Nope - so here I am banana-less getting seriously anxious about when I will be able to get another banana.  You got to understand the importance of bananas to me.  The list is like God, my wife, my kids, my grandkid, my granddog, my bananas...:)   If this drags on too long, I may be willing to pay $3/banana:). Y'all, this is serious.

Total miles today: 93.6

Day 2: 5/27/2022: Natchez Trace Parkway to Land Between the Lakes

Last night's campsite was located near a fairly busy road.  The traffic noise along with a hound dog barking in the distance and sporadic rainfall did not make for the most restful night's sleep, but that's all part of the adventure.

Pics below of some of the sights on my way to Centerville, TN, for breakfast.

Below are some pics of downtown Centerville. 

Minnie Pearl was born in Centerville and there is a statue of her at the courthouse (pic below).

I rode about 20 miles fueled by 2 bananas to get to Homestead Restaurant in Centerville.  I was surprised to find they have an $8.49 breakfast bar.  BONUS!!!  You can safely bet I left there full with some spare fuel in the tank. I knew it was going to be a long day so my breakfast consisted of 2 jelly biscuits, 3 pancakes, 4 helpings of scrambled eggs, 2 helpings of hashbrowns, and a helping of sliced fried potatoes (man, I love bicycle touring) :)

Due to all the hills, by the time I made it to Erin my tank was empty again. A stop at Subway for a footlong meal deal got some energy back in me. I only ate half of the footlong sub there, and carried the other half with me for supper.

A few more pics from my ride today.

I could tell it was Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend because the number of RVs on the road increased. I try to give those folks lots of room because I know most of them are not use to driving extended length vehicles.

For a couple of miles today, I rode on the red dirt road pictured below.

I disperse camped in a forest at the Land Between the Lakes with the snakes, ticks, and poison ivy. While in my tent I found a tiny little tick crawling on me.  Usually when there's one, there's more, but hopefully not.  Pic of my campsite below.

Total miles today: 104.0