day 34

3 July 2008



It rained most of the night last night. It rained on us for the first part of our ride, too. We drove back to were we left off and started from there. A little before we got back to where we stayed last night, we hit a really busy section of highway. Tons of semis were flying past both ways, it was raining, and the shoulder was very torn up and basically unrideable. My dad tried to go up onto the road, off the shoulder, to miss a torn up spot, and there was a lip between the road and the shoulder, and he went down. He skinned his elbow up pretty bad, and got some road rash on his leg. Since we hadn't reached where we camped yet, we were able to stop off and get him patched up. Fortunately he didn't get hurt too bad, and was fine to keep riding.

We crossed the Mississipi River today! It is very high. There were some flooded roads down next to the river. I can't tell how much higher the river s than normal, but my guess is at least 6 feet. Now we're in Illinois. We're staying in Chester, which is the birthplace of the guy who created Popeye! We rode 84 miles. We are camping in the city park here. We talked to the Sheriff and the police about staying here, but two cops still showed up and wanted us to leave. We had to explain things, and then they let us stay.