Traveling Down Illinois by Bicycle--600 Miles

With their daughter Leslie’s wedding behind them, Jeannie and Rick are now trekking from the Wisconsin border of Northern Illinois on down the Mississippi River Trail with the goal of reaching Cairo at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Jeannie is riding her bike, and Rick is in their van as her support team.

Rick is to go ahead of her and set up camp in their van, which has a mattress prepared for them. However, today she wrote on Facebook that he was pouring cold water over her to keep her cool, and then a swim was planned at wherever they had stopped before taking off to ride in the cool of the evening.

They left Wisconsin to ride to Savanna and on to Rock Island, and are heading to Keithsburg if I understood her last FB post. So far she is sounding enthusiastic, and she had to phone her daddy to say the scenery has been beautiful. I try not to think of her riding on the same highway as the big semi-trucks since much of the Mississippi River Trail uses the highways that follow the Mississippi River corridor. Of course, watching the outside temperature at 109 as we traveled in an air conditioned car today did not relieve my concern either.

A tentative schedule has her arriving from Chester to Wolf Lake towards the last part of next week. I imagine we might go there to wave as she goes by, and we will probably be going to Cairo to celebrate the conclusion of this dream of hers. We are all a little amazed by this venture, but we are following her FB posts with great interest.