August 26, 2024. Watseka to Chenoa, Illinois

    Today was supposed to be hot--up in the mid-90s so we made sure we had plenty of water and left shortly after. Thankfully the sky was somewhat overcast in the morning and we appreciated not having the sun blazing down on us. As we rode along at first, the sun's rays shone through cracks in the clouds behind us, and we hoped that they weren't breaking up.

    Then about midday it cleared off as predicted. We had about 56 miles to travel to Chenoa, and it was a very straight route. It was amazing how few trees we saw today, just beans and corn and then occasionally some trees by a house, which were few and far between. So we took one rest stop in the shade of a grain bin.

     Near the end of the ride we came to an intersection with a "road closed" sign straight ahead. We went straight ahead anyway, rode about a mile and came to the construction. New concrete had just been laid through the next intersection. A person was down on his hands and knees working in the intersection, so we asked if bicycles could go through. It was fine for us to ride on the concrete and go left, which is what we wanted to do, but it wouldn't have been okay to go straight as that concrete had just been freshly laid. We found out that the man was working on the expansion joints, that he was 25 and that he had five kids and was working hard to support them.

     We got into Chenoa just a little bit after 2:00 and it was 93 degrees. We ate at the Brown Jug and had some good bar food and then headed to our hotel. At dinner time, we walked over to the Chenoa Family Restaurant. Chatting with our waitress, we found out that her husband was sitting across the room and she called him over, and we ended up praying for the two of them. After she was back to work, he shared with us about his work and the challenges of working cleaning out grain bins in the extreme heat and some other challenges in his life.