Day Thirty-eight: Litchfield, Illinois to Lebanon, Illinois

July 17, 2019

I was up very early again. My plan was to do a short day and ride to Lebanon, where Joy and I lived for six years, stay with friends there, and get the laptop fixed at the reliable repair place I'd used in the past

I came down to the lobby and attempted to use the computer there, but it didn't have Chrome installed, which foiled my plans to spend an hour or so working on this journal, which I was now way, way behind on.

Instead I killed time waiting for the breakfast to be prepared, and for the sun to come up.

I finally left at dawn, and immediately went a half mile the wrong way, before discovering that the GPS on my phone wasn't working. Restarting it fixed that, and I was on my way, quickly leaving the interstate motel zone and getting on country roads. It was already warm and humid.

By the time I reached Mount Olive, population 2,150, I was in very familiar territory. I'd ridden these roads many, many times.

I stopped at the bakery in Mount Olive. The grocery next door had closed in the year since Joy and I had moved from Illinois to Kentucky. I remember that the lady who owned the store had wanted to retire, and there'd been a "For Sale" sign outside for years. I guess she couldn't find anyone who wanted to take it over.

I headed to Alhambra, another familiar town. Six or seven miles was on an unpaved bike trail, which I'd hoped had been paved in the year since I'd left Illinois, but if anything, the surface was even softer than before. I should have just ridden on the empty chip-seal roads.

I stopped at the convenience store in Alhambra, where nothing had changed since we moved. It felt odd doing a bike tour in an area that I knew so well.

After Alhambra I stopped at the convenience store in Marine, where I'd spent many hours during the time I lived in Illinois. The store had been at the halfway mark of several of my favorite bike routes, so it was a frequent hangout back then. I felt a little sad stopping there now - I think the last time I'd been there was with my friend and riding partner, Colleen, who died in December.

I arrived at 11:00 in Lebanon, where I was staying at the home of our friends Amy and Michael. Amy generously let me borrow her car so I could take the laptop to the computer repair place in O'Fallon, and they quickly diagnosed and fixed the problem, which was the same loose cable that Best Buy in Des Moines had identified as the problem, but had not actually corrected.

I did a few chores, revisited a few old haunts, and avoided going out into the heat, instead staying inside and observing the three cute kittens that lived with Amy and Michael.

Today's ride: 53 miles (85 km)
Total: 3,046 miles (4,902 km)

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