Missouri

Missouri was one of the hottest, strangest, most challenging state that we’d come to deal with. I had never heard about the Ozark mountains before we hit MO and just recently having come out of the Appalachians I wasn’t the most excited to deal with more mountains. The Ozarks turned out to be one of the most beautiful and funnest (this should be a word) places we’d gone to.

We left Chester and entered MO and the first thing I saw was huge fireworks retailers. All of these places shroomed up right after the state line. These first couple days on MO also turned out to be some of the hottest so far. I also ended up getting a bunch of flats towards the beginning.

Changing flats - not as fun as it sounds

The first day in MO had us go into Farmingtown, where we got to stay at a sweet bike hostel that looked like an apartment as well as go to a waterpark in town which turned out to be a big hit – we lounged in the lazy river for hours, sometime clogging the flow of people with all of us linking our tubes together along the river.

The day after we made our way to Eminence. On the route we ended up spending some time in the Current river. After that day we got into another river and ended up climbing this cliff and jumping into the water from like 30 feet above – you can see people jumping off in Episode 5.

A few of us had to deal with random and weird MO people: some kid threw fruit punch at one of us, changed BUSMS signs around on us, and even had a disgruntled logging trucker chase a touring friend of ours while yelling and waving around an axe – you can’t make this kinda stuff up.

Pictured: MO style

Aside from the strange people, we got to see a lot of pretty rolling hillsides and mountains in the Ozark mountain range. The route leaders had been saying that by that point, after having gone through VA, we would be ready for the Ozarks. They turned out to be much more challenging than I imagined. There were lots of rolling hills and steep climbs that we had to get through. This also meant there were some nice downhills – I think it was at this point that people in the group hit highs over 50mph. I don’t go too crazy on the downhills so I’m sure I was nowhere near that.

Another nice thing that came out of MO was one of the most delicious breakfasts I’ve had in my entire life. I forgot what it was called, but I’ll always remember it.

BEHOLD. Delicious french toast goodness:

This guy had two slices of french toast with cream cheese stuffed in between. The bread was covered in eggs and corn flakes and fried to artery clogging perfection. This was topped off with whip cream, strawberries, and a side of sausage. This is the kinda stuff we eat on this trip – so horrible for the average person but delicious to us calorie burning, biking machines.

Well, that’s it for MO. Kansas coming up next!

Episode 5 – Carbondale, IL to Larned, KS

Kentucky and Illinois

Whew! It’s certainly been a while since I last blogged; I guess I’ve been getting caught up on the trip too much ;)

Before we get into the nitty gritty, here’s the 4th episode showing the ride from Hindman, KY to Carbondale, IL.

After my last post, we made it over to the Rough River Dam, where we stayed at a nice camping area by the dam. They had a really nice lodge with a buffet that left many of the cyclists paralyzed with food babies.

After that we made our way to Sebree, KY where we stayed at a church that had an awesome area for youth groups complete with a large TV, entertainment area..the works. The people at the church were also so generous that they made us a feast. It really hit me that day how generous people can be to cyclists and to our cause. At one point during the dinner they came out and explained more about their history of hosting cyclists (pictured).

There we met a few fellow TransAmers - a young couple, and one guy that was biking the TransAm on a mountain bike with a HUGE backpack on his back. I have no idea at this point how he's doing, but that kind of setup would make it really hard to ride day to day, I would think.

Soon after Sebree we were making our way into Illinois, one of the states that I had the best times in. In order to go to IL we had to get on a boat that would ferry us from KY into IL across the Ohio River. I was expecting it to be this really large river that would take us a while to cross but it ended up being way narrower and shorter than that. Still, it was a great experience to take your bike on a boat and ferry across. We were all pretty excited to be going into IL since we would have a rest day coming up ahead in Carbondale. Several of the cyclists are from Carbondale so we knew we would have a great time there.

After crossing the river into Cave in Rock, IL we were greeted by one of the cyclist’s family members with delicious fruits and drinks. We hung out there for a while – eating watermelons, having plenty of laughs, and letting the reality of being in a new state sink in. Later that night we had dinner at a local restaurant and explored the caves by the river shore.

After Cave in Rock we rode over to Carbondale, where we would stay a couple days and enjoy a poolside party and do some volunteer work during our rest day. The first thing we did during our rest day was volunteer yardwork for a local lady that had MS. I ended up washing her car and pulling some weeds mostly, while other people mowed the lawn, cleared ivy from the house walls, etc. Afterwards a few of us went to another house that had a ramp built on the front yard for another lady that had MS. Part of our fundraising money went to make this ramp. After taking pictures we headed back to where we were staying during our rest day – one of the cyclists parents house. There we caught up with much needed rest time, mostly spent watching the world cup, playing frisbee in the front lawn, splashing around in the pool (and starting an awesome whirlpool of over 30 people), and checking out the family’s farm animals (an awesome donkey named Bella and a couple curious goats). I had such a great time that day and in Carbondale in general.

The next day we got some yummy breakfast in town and were featured in a local radio station. We all said our names and where we were from and then a few of us took over and explained more about our organization and how the ride was going.

We then set out to make our way to Chester, IL – the home of Popeye the Sailor! The town is very proud of this fact, and have statues and images of Popeye in pretty much anything you can imagine. In the picture you can see how proud they are – as soon as you get into Illinois from Missouri you can see the welcome to IL sign as well as the welcome to Chester sign with a big ‘ole Popeye on it. It was pretty funny in an endearing way.

And that was actually the last time we would be in IL – sadly we only had a couple days in the state before moving onto Missouri. A bridge over the Mississippi River would take us into MO..where I’m going to be picking up on the next blog post. :)