Day 17
Taz: Here we are in Chester, IL at the Mississippi River. The last day with our S.A.G. man, Jim. It's 7 AM central time. Dustin and Jimmy are fast asleep in their tents enjoying a day off after two very long mileage days in very hot, humid conditions. Jim has taken two east-bound Aussies (Australians) to the nearest bike shop, which is about 30 miles away. They are in their 60s and are having mechanical problems. They need new parts. Jim will be back, I'm sure, before the boys wake to fix breakfast as he has the whole trip thus far. Those fresh cooked egg sandwiches and pancakes will be sorely missed!

Today, we must put new chains and tires on the bikes, lube wheel bearings, and look for any other potential problems the bikes could have. We've also got to divide and pack our spare parts and tools, decide which camera to take, which lights (for camp use), and fine tune our packs, etc.

A whole new ride begins tomorrow. The SAGless ride. Missouri is different terrain too. East-bound riders tell us it is very rolly with steep but short climbs. With this in mind, we plan to do only 50 miles our first day with bags in tow. Morale is good with hitting so many milestones this week and we want to try to keep it that way as our ride becomes more challenging. What were the milestones you say? In the past couple of days, we got out of Kentucky and got into Illinois and to the Mississippi River, which puts us in Missouri as soon we cross the bridge (We set our sights on getting to the Mississippi River about a week and half ago. We wanted to do it for Jim as much as for ourselves.) We hit 1,000 total miles and did two different 100 mile days and we crossed into the next time zone. That's big stuff for me and even bigger for Dusty and Jimmy! Plus, there are cute lifeguards at this park's pool. They stayed open late yesterday evening for us to get showers as we pulled into town. The guys are looking forward to seeing them again today!