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Monday, June 15: Well, got to tell you it’s turning into the same old song and dance my friend. Got up, began working and be darned if it didn’t start raining again first thing in the morning. That’s after rain for half of last night. Nonetheless, I tried to get done working early, get everything packed up and ready to go for an early start. Yea, right. That’s when it the morning rain got even more intense, like knocking out the motel’s cable in a complete deluge of rain, thunder, lightening and wind. So we just sat there in the motel dining area killing time for a bit. When the rain did stop we hustled into the van and drove back towards Hennepin State Park where I left off yesterday. And of course the rain began yet again as we were driving back on I-80. Got so intense we had to stop at a roadside rest to sit it out. And….the rain stopped, off we went to the park, and of course the rain began again. I mean it was just maddening. 


So we sat in the park for a good 30 min more and I finally just decided to take my chances and go for it. Got going as the rain sputtered down to a light mist. We had decided, what with the weather to do the remainder of the Hennepin canal trail in 3 smaller chunks, so if I did get caught in a nasty thunder boomer, I wouldn’t have a ton of ground to ride to get my butt out of the storm. So first stop would be in Annawan, about 12 miles west. Of course the trail was just a soaking, soggy, sodden, and just about every other descriptive adjective to describe an aqueous mess. The trail surface changed between the Precambrian asphalt (geologic age that denotes extreme age) that’s very deteriorated, to a fine sand/lime. When I rode on the Precam. I just rode on the very periphery where the deteriorated gravel had collected on the grassy berm. And of course when on the sand/lime surface I could ride anywhere, but this stuff was a bit soft from all the rain, so my pace was slow. 


The whole time I was just watching that sky, waining for the drops to fall and the big rains to come, but as usual the sky just stayed steely grey amidst an oppressive humidity. Made Annawan in just over an hour, and motioned Judy on to the next support stop in Geneseo, another 13 miles west. I just didn’t want to let a minute escape due to the 100% chance of rain today. On this segment went  by this area that just stunk like dead fish, and wouldn’t you know it but all of a sudden I started to see hundreds of dead fish floating in the canal. It was a very putrid stink. Couldn’t figure out what in the heck caused the kill, but it was confined to this 2-3 mile section of canal. Made this segment in just over an hour. Grabbed a sandwich, Powerade, coke, water and got it rolling for the final section to Colona. 


Now this 11-mile section was basically a closed trail, and I’d remembered back when I did recon here a year ago, that it was closed then to. Turns out absolutely NOTHING had been done to rectify the issues: washouts and deadfall mainly. Now there was nothing near as bad as what I went through on the I & M, but it made me think of how lucky we are in the Cuyahoga Valley, and all along the 80-90 mile towpath trail for that matter. Because when something gets washed out, or there’s a ton of deadfall, man, they’re on in that day. And it’s cleared and good to go. But out here….nothing. Some of the washouts I’d experienced on the I & M, those things were years old, not from the recent spate of storms we’re experiencing right now, but from storms years ago. So tell you what Akron-Cleveland-Massilon-Dover, you’re lucky you don’t have to deal with the lack of maintenance that’s going down out here in Illinois. 


Made it to Colon in another hour, and while I was at it I scouted out one of my options just about a mile from where I was to meet Judy, a RR feeder line that went in my intended direction of travel to the south. I could meet Judy, then pedal back to this line and go on it for about 20 miles. But on closer inspection I saw that it contained concrete RR ties, and the gravel was all funneled into the middle creating this nasty trench of loose ballast. So that pup was out right off the bat. I knew from there onward that I was berminating it for the remainder of the day. Met Judy, banged down a Powerade and coke, gave Jude directions on the berm riding and had at it, still trying to get the most bang for the buck out of the day before the predicted rain hit us. 


Did berm of Rt 84 S, to berm Rt 6 W, to L on 200E. And they ranged from great to horrible, especially 200E - it sucked big time! Made me question why in the hell I ventured so far north to go east-west, when I had to go right back south again. But….had to go with the gameplan. And speaking of gameplan, I took the east-west on those canal trails to get some great gravel trail in, about 110 miles worth actually, but my price for that was to have to go due south to get to where I need to be to X the Mississippi River and hit the Katy Trail in MO. Now the good thing is that there’s many more gravel roads in western IL than eastern and central IL, so I do have that going for me, but I still have to go south for a solid 120 miles, and my laundry list of roads to make this happen is two full pages long - one line at a time. So suddenly that seems very daunting. It really hit me as I struggled on 200E. I mean there were points where I was just snailing along at 5-6 mph. 


So then I got on 150 south, and that berm was good, but from all the rain, the gravel was a bit soft, which took away a couple mph’s. Went through the town of Omega, yea, that’s really the name. And then my goal for the day was actually going another 11 miles through Alpha - yup, another winner of a town name. AND who named these towns anyway, the nerds from Big Bang Theory? - all the way to Galesburg where I have access to some dirt and gravel roads. But about 5 miles from Alpha…RAIN! I even got a severe weather warning on my cell. So Judy zipped on back and got me just before the deluge hit. And that was the end of the day. I managed to get in 56 miles, having gotten shorted on the start of the day and the finish of the day. And I continue to fall further and further behind schedule. 


As I sit here and work on the blog…surprise….it’s raining and it’s been raining for 4 hrs thus far. Well, as I often tell my clients “we have control of many things in our life, BUT we don’t have control of the weather, so don’t let it control you!” I’ve got to chew on my own advice big time this evening - cuz I’m feeling pretty beat down by this weather.