The Land of Lincoln

We are in Illinois! A state that is not Kentucky! I can not even begin to describe how happy this makes me. We’ve gotten really good at bike touring (meaning, we now have a plan for the day AND follow the map). (The later is veeerrrrry important in bike touring.)

Many years ago, my dad attempted to teach me how to read a map. In my infinite child-wisdom, all I can remember is sitting in the passenger seat sighing, “I just don’t understand.” I’m sure I quickly followed that up by, “This is stupid.”

Whelp, getting lost on the bike tour has been my come-upins. I am now following the old proverb, Measure twice, cut once. So now the actions of our day could be written out like an old telegraph:

Turn right onto US 27 STOP
(check map)
Turn left onto SR 753 STOP
(check map)
Turn left onto SR 152 STOP
(check map and then recheck map)

Reading, and I mean actually reading the map, is going fairly well. If the route heads north, we head north. Amazing.

So Dad, I’m sorry that I had that teenager attitude in the front seat of the old Cadillac. I promise that you have my full attention for the next life lesson you choose to teach.

Also, as I write this, Melissa and I are eating at a real live restaurant. This is a monumental occasion. Well . . . not really. The guys we met a few nights back at Rough River Falls told us of an amazing meal. Noodles, cream of mushroom soup and tuna. Brilliant. We bought the supplies for this meal yesterday and our mouths have been watering over it ever since.

We got to the camp site. We boiled the noodles. We dropped all the noodles on the forest floor.

“Save the ones on the top!” I yelled.

Seriously.

We.ate.noddles.off.the.forest.dirt.floor. But we were only able to save so many. So we were still hungry. So we had to go to the nearest restaurant.

Brooke