Aug 4 flat tire with brush hog at our tail
https://ridewithgps.com/trips/98723933
Rock Falls to Kewanee, IL via towpath.
This morning we got back on the towpath along the Hennepin feeder canal for our route. We had originally not planned to take it as some sections were described as quite rough. We had asked at the bike shop and they said the first part was old rough asphalt but the gravel was doable. We had our paved-road route as backup to jump to if we hit a bad section. It was quiet and pleasant to ride along.
However, after a number of miles it became much more challenging with lots of hunks of wood and bark from old downed branches, and vegetation growing in from the side. After crossing a road, there was a guy on a tractor with a brush hog mowing the brush along the edge of the path who let us pass. After a mile or so, Kay had a flat tire.
We were nervous while fixing the tire as we could hear him getting closer and closer and there was very little room for him to get around us, but suddenly the equipment thankfully went quiet. Kay could just see him crossing the path on foot behind us, but not the tractor. Since it was a little after noon we wondered if he was taking a lunch break (or maybe he had some sort of breakdown as well!) Kay was thinking about leaving the path but we crossed the next road and the change in the surface was amazing, a night and day difference--very smooth and hard-packed that was easy to ride on. We came to where the feeder emptied into the main canal and went along that for a little bit and saw an old lock and lift bridge.
We crossed I-80 shortly after leaving the towpath. Farther south, our road became loose gravel so we turned the corner onto some beautiful pavement to go a mile over to the west. However, we soon found some more gravel alternating with pavement over some short steep hills that continued even after we were back on pavement. We got to Kewanee and even though we were only a couple of miles from where the motels were, we decided to stop for chocolate milk. A fellow bicyclist also pulled into the parking lot of the convenience store from the opposite direction when he saw us. He was confused about how to find highway 34 and had asked many different people and it had just gotten him more confused. He had started northwest of Chicago and was headed to a town on the Mississippi, on a used thrift store bicycle pulling a trailer. He claimed it was 200 lb (Jim had to be curious and picked it up, thinks it was more like 75 to 80 pounds, not including his bike). He was incredulous when we told him we were bicycling across the USA, and had to take our pictures and video us telling how far we had gone.
We all had some gatorade and we told him we were planning to stay in a hotel on highway 34, so we would get him pointed in the right direction. He decided to call it a day and also stay in a hotel even though originally he had planned to go farther while there were several hours of daylight. We get to the hotel and find there is a concert about 30 miles away that has filled up all the motel rooms in the area. (Aaron Lewis at the Psycho Silo Saloon in Sheffield, IL--we two have not heard of him but the other bicyclist had gone by where they were setting up for the concert). The other bicyclist decides to continue on down the road and leaves. We got on our cell phones looking for camping in the area (none except miles back the way we had come from) and rechecked with a Warm Showers host who hadn't gotten back to us; our next option was checking with the police department. But we had to walk back in the hotel to refill empty water bottles and the clerk sees Jim and tells him they had someone call and cancel! So we got a room after all and even on the first floor. RELIEF! Boy did the shower and pool feel good after a hot and sticky day!
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