Chicago! (the story of Monday)

We made it to Chicago yesterday! We had an interesting time getting here, as always.

In Muscatine, Iowa on Monday morning, we heard there were canal paths into Chicago that might work for us, so we spontaneously departed from the Northern Tier route and headed northeast toward Colona, Illinois to pick up the Hennepin Canal Trail. 25 miles into the trip, Sarah discovered a broken spoke. While she was duck taping it, Cate and I were bungeeing her panniers to our bikes. Two cyclists suddenly appeared. One of them, Tom, offered to take us to his bike shop in Rock Island, so we followed. He left us at a grocery store and went to get his truck. He came back and took Sarah to the bike shop.

Meanwhile Cate and I headed to the library where we met Larry. We were pretty despondent at that point. We had heard that the canal path might not be doable for our bikes, and we didn't know how we were going to get there or how Sarah's bike issue would work out. Larry rescued us by calling Dean Mathias, "Mathias Bareback," Illinois's famous seatless bike rider. He came over to the library, put us in touch with someone who assured us the paths would be rideable even if they weren't paved, and offered to ride with us to Geneseo, a town along the canal path with a campground. We were saved! Sarah's bike was fixed and cleaned by the kind mechanics of Bike n' Hike and Tom dropped her back at the library. Chaos had forgotten her helmet at the shop, but Tom was nice enough to go get it and meet us in a town further along. Then we were off with Dean! It was so fun to talk to him and watch him ride without a seat (sort of like run-biking) and to have some new energy on the road.

When we arrived in Geneseo, we went to a restaurant, where the Albanian owner from Kosovo sat down with us and talked with us and ended up giving us a free huge dinner! Also, Deb, Dean's wife arrived and so we had a big fun group. Dean and Deb took us to the campsite and waited until we got settled and then we had to say goodbye. It was an amazing day of meeting people and getting so much help just when we needed it. We were so fortunate.

The next days along the canal paths and on the roads toward Chicago were pretty challenging, and we did not have the best night in a state park Tuesday night, but I will let another Panda tell that story.

Right now, we are just so happy to be in Chicago with Ta, Steve and Sarah! Another cyclist we met, Hilary, was in an accident yesterday, and she is pretty beat up. She is on a train into Chicago now to get a new fork and she will be staying with us in Hyde Park tonight and we will all leave the city together tomorrow morning. I regret putting up the whiney post I made last time because things can always be worse, and we have been very lucky so far not to have any big crashes. As I said when we were under attack by raccoons and Sarah asked that we all think of something good to say, "Even this is better than real life." We are having the best time.

- Liz