Day 19 May 30th

Eddyville to Chester 100 miles

I got woken up by some horses but o well. Peanut butter for breakfast and on the road by 9. Same weather as yesterday with clouds in the morning and sun in the afternoon. There was another sun shower and as usual it was pretty nice. There were a few climbs but the majority of the morning was down hill. I rode past two lakes on the way to Carbondale that would have been really nice to camp at but I still had a long way to go to get to Chester. It took a while for me to get to Carbondale since my tire was so bent it was rubbing against the frame. But I got there by lunch time and had a hoagie while I waited for the guys at the bike shop to fix it. I was recommended to try a place called Jimmy John’s where they are supposed to have great sandwiches. But the place isn’t much better than subway and can’t hold a candle to A Cut Above back home in PA.

But I left Carbondale and found a short cut to Chester. The first 8 miles were pretty hilly with the wind in my face which made for slow going but my tire was fixed so that helped a lot. Once I got onto Rt 3 it was completely flat but I still had trouble doing 14 mph and did most of it around 12 because of the wind. It was really nice how the hills completely stop at the road and the perfectly flat farm land reaches to the Mississippi River. I actually ran into Danny on the trail. He didn’t take the shortcut so I was able to catch up to him. I left him pretty quickly when I got my second wind for the final few miles going into Chester.

When I got into town I found out they were having a carnival at the place I was staying. There were rides, food, a volleyball tournament, a band, and beer. I got a shower there and headed into the bar. A few of the people there started talking to me and asked what I was doing and after I told them they all felt compelled to buy me a round. So I got pretty buzzed by the end of the night and was able to fall asleep and stay asleep.