June 7, 2023
Day 26: Carbondale to Chester
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I wanted to do about 130km today to make it into Farmington and the nice hostel there. I was making good pace in the morning, self routing myself down nice roads into Murphysboro but as soon as I got there and changed map sections the rain started a little.
I checked the forecast and saw a downpour would hit me in the afternoon. Hopefully it would be okay but I had Chester as a bail out point. There were no flood warnings out so I figured taking the low Mississippi Levee alternate route would be okay, it's only 5 miles shorter but it's much more flat.
I headed out of Murphysboro and descended to the flood plain. Boy was it nice to finally be on flat ground. Made me feel like I was back home in Canterbury. I noticed that the corn was a lot taller here than the last time I'd seen crops. Maybe it was because we're kicking into summer or maybe they plant earlier in the west. Either way, it's an interesting way to track my progress across the continent.
The first part of the flood plain was on a main road but the shoulder was huge and pretty soon I was off on roads only used my the local farming communities.
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I rode through farmland for much of the morning, until coming up and riding along the Missippi levee stopbanks. Along them I came across a giant coal depot, with coal trucks coming in and out and gigantic trains loading up. They must send coal down the river on barges and Chester is one of the only towns with a road bridge for about a hundred miles in either direction.
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I was about to rejoin a main road that had lots of truck traffic so I stopped quickly to eat something and put on sunscreen. Unfortunately I stopped on the wrong side of the train tracks, and a freight train had to park on the crossing to allow a coal train to go past. If I had kept riding it would have been fine but I stopped at just the wrong side of the tracks. Of course, after a bit of a wait at the tracks it started to rain. I put on my jacket and waited until the trains went past and carried on to the main road.
There weren't many places to fully pull over without going into the grass here so I let all of the traffic from the train go on front of me before heading along the road into Chester. Cars were courteous here but it wasn't a nice road to ride along. No shoulder and so many trucks, so I'd pull into ditches if I had to just to get a break and allow traffic to pass safely. It wasn't entirely backing up but I still don't want to have a big truck behind me for more than about 30 seconds at a time.
I got off the main road and into a back road into Chester, and then the rain really set in. The roads were streaming with water and I was soaked. Instead of going across the rickety old Chester bridge and into Missouri, I decided to grab lunch in town and wait for the skies to clear.
They did clear, but at that point I had decided I wanted to dry out in a hostel. I headed into the hostel at the Fraternity of Eagles bar and had a nice warm shower and a bourbon to warm myself up. My clothes managed to get dry fairly quickly which is nice.
I grabbed a bit too much dinner from the bar and ended up with some of the worst heartburn of my life after lying down in the bunk. Not really the best for my plan to push through a big day past Farmington tomorrow.
I was joined later in the evening by Bruce, the older guy I had met after my buffet a few days earlier. He went into the main bar to a warm welcome, it turns out that he's going for the Guiness World Record for oldest person to bike across America. He's about 78 and has Parkinson's so if he's making it across then that's pushing me to do the same.
I settled in early for the night so I could get a headstart on the hot day ahead.
Today's ride: 81 km (50 miles)
Total: 1,507 km (936 miles)
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