Today is our first in Illinois. Tomorrow evening we will enter Indiana. We started the day (6:45 AM) by riding across 
the Arsenal Bridge to Rock Island IL. This bridge is the site of the first railroad bridge to cross the Mississippi River. The water is still high from the recent flooding. We rode the first 40 miles on bike trail along the Mississippi, a few city streets and the Hennepin Canal State Trail. This was a relaxing ride since we encountered very little vehicle traffic.
Bob (ex-support driver) rode to Ottawa with us today. He led for most of the first 40 miles since he was familiar with the route. This gave us an opportunity to rest a bit. The route today was the flattest route yet, even though we climbed a total of 1,322 feet. We traveled a tot
al of 110 miles to Ottawa, where Bob stopped at the hotel (3:30 PM) to shower and Matt and I rode an additional 10 miles into tomorrow’s ride – another long ride, over 140 miles. Our average speed is 18.1 mph. The terrain was much like Iowa, except table-top flat. The crops were the same, but the fields were much larger. The crops looked great.
When we got back to the hotel, we greeted by two friends of mine, Russ Domeyer and John McLean, who traveled from Chicago to visit and enjoy a meal of pork chops, beans, potato salad, watermelon an
d desert prepared by John Garrity. John lives on a farm about 18 miles from Ottawa near the town of Earlville. Two other friends joined us, Dennis Schemmel (Des Moines, IA) and Terry Gogel (Freeport, IL). The food was great and we were entertained as everyone retold stories about their college days. It was great to see everyone again.
