Big Getter

"There's nothing worse than going through life with a great big wanter and a little bitty getter. The way to stay happy is to make sure your getter is always bigger than your wanter." These are the words of Justus's great grandmother, whom he never met but whose wisdom has been passed down to him by the intervening generations. Hence, the name of his vessel, Big Getter. We met him in Hannibal, just over the border of Missouri, and he offered to give us a ride down river the next day on a pontoon boat he had designed and built himself, and which he had been piloting down the Mississippi since June 1. We thought about it for a minute, which was about how long it took us to realize we would have to be fools to pass up the opportunity. So we met him on the dock in the morning and spent the day drifting down the river, playing dice and shooting a beebee gun at a floating target. The water was milky with debris churned up by the recent floods. Apparently not a week ago all the roads and bridges around here were closed, so we timed this pretty well.

Lock and dam 22

Justus is an awesome guy and he showed us a really good time (you can follow his journey at biggetter.com). We landed about 27 miles down river at Two Rivers Boat Club on the Illinois bank, across the water from Louisiana, Missouri. There's also a town of Mexico and a town of Paris within fifty miles, so it would be easy for us to pretend to be well-traveled. Paris, Mexico and Louisiana, all in one day! Lloyd and Mary from the marina gave us a ride across the treacherously narrow bridge, and directions to their home in Bowling Green, where we camped for the night. We tacked on 11 miles of riding to get there at the end of the day.

These signs confused me, at first. Junction with Nine Inch Nails? Apparently Missouri has not only numbered routes, but lettered ones, as well.

From Bowling Green we rode 74 miles to Moberly, "The Magic City," where the fire house hooked us up with a shower and a place to camp in Rothwell Park. Slept like a baby. Yesterday we ate lunch at a Mexican place called Santa Fe (very good) where they served us water in the biggest glasses I've ever seen. With our bellies full of beans we rode 67 miles to Marshall, where the fire department helped us get vouchers to stay in a motel(!) last night.

Missouri River Crossing

Recent deaths: One gofer, two big, awesome frogs, four unidentifiable gut rugs, two little baby turtles, one of what looked like a small sloth or monkey, five raccoons, seven rabbits, and one magnificent doe, her beautiful, delicate face undone, deflated, ruined.

Missouri, WHAT!?

Hank the Tank

After our stop in Emden we continued on to Easton, IL where we met up with a great rain storm, at first. Then the lightening started and it wasn't long before the lightening was striking right next to us. We came to the decision that we should stop riding and look for the next porch available to take cover under. The next porch happened to be guarded by Hank the tank, a very territorial 100 lb. male, fawn, boxer. We didn't know of his presence until we were halfway down the driveway and it was too late to go back. He was barking violently, slobbering everywhere and stayed within ten feet of us, watching our every move, as we tip-toed to the front door. His head, chest and paws were massive.

Hank the Tank

We finally got to the front door to be greeted by Dorris and she invited us into her house to take shelter from the lightening storm. We talked with Dorris and played with her cat to pass the time during the storm, she even made us some food as the lightening persisted.

When it looked like it had cleared up (around 6pm) we checked the weather channel to discover that there was only going to be a brief break in the storm and scattered thunderstorms were going to continue all night. Dorris and her husband invited us to stay the night, take showers and she washed our dirty laundry for us. She let us help ourselves to some breakfast in the morning and left us with some provisions for the road ahead.

She is a great example of the awesome people we're running into on this trip.

The fields of grain are freshly shorn

Lady luck landed on my arm, last night

As we got closer to the Illinois River we started seeing less corn and more wooded areas, open pastures and rolling meadows. We spent much of the afternoon in Beardstown's library and super market (hadn't seen the likes of them in a while) before crossing the river and continuing on to Sloam Springs State Park, where we made camp. West of the river there were actually quite of few hills, like we haven't seen since Pennsylvania. In spite of the time we spent in Beardstown, we covered about 81 miles, partly because we stayed on the road a little later than usual. The sunset was wildly beautiful in every direction. As the sky went dark the fields lit up with fire flies flickering like a million flash bulbs, which was something to see from a moving bicycle.

Today we crossed the Mississippi River to Mark Twain's boyhood home, Hannibal, Missouri. This makes one month and one day since we left New Haven, almost to the hour, during which time we've covered roughly 1,300 miles. That's not quite as far as we'd hoped to be by this time, but consider that fully six days (Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Chicago, Chicago, Chenoa) and most of a seventh (Sandusky) were spent off the road, and we're not looking too bad.

Some neglected thanks that should have been made in the beginning: Thank you to my brother, Travis, for painting my helmet. It still looks beautiful. And thank you to Erik Becker for loaning me his tent, it has been a great comfort.

Dogs of Emden

Emden, IL

We were pedaling hard all day through the unending, western IL corn maze until a small town called Emden, as dusk approached. We decided it would be our home for the night. (Emden is a very small town in IL, the population is only about 600.) It was about 9:00pm when we entered the town, looking for a place to stay, and no one was to be found.

We checked the fire station and that was empty but we saw some trucks parked outside a small bar in the center of town. Dwight and I went in and started talking with some of the locals at the bar. One man, Owen, bought us both a beer and told us some information about the town. He said that everyone in town, who was still up, was at the community house for a town meeting, across the street from the fire house. We thanked Owen and said goodbye to everyone else in the bar.

We then went over to the community house. (We had no documentation on us about our trip, so I first felt a bit uneasy about barging into a town hall meeting with bike shorts on trying to explain ourselves...) We walked in the back door, which we were told to and there everyone was, about 25 guys sitting around drinking beers. I kind of tripped over my words but eventually got the point across and to our surprisement and luck, one of the guys had heard about our trip.

The Community House

They let us stay in the community house for the night which had an a/c. A couple of guys from the crew even came back with some food for us. They also told the local restaurant, Garber's, that we would be passing by in the morning. When we did stop by in the morning, our breakfast was free.

Corn and Beetles

The corn alone is taking its toll...but the beetles just make it worst. (you won't see any pictures of corn from me.)

The corn is so monotonous, it seems endless, it doesn't feel like we're going anywhere. We're just seeing the same thing over and over again. It's like a constant re-run of corn. There is no variation from one corn stalk to another, they're all the same, they're about five or six feet tall and they're growing about four inches away from eachother, so you can't see over them and they're much too thick to see even a few rows in between them.

THEN there are the japanese beetles that live in the corn rows. They are about the weight of a nickel and they collide with us at about twenty mph. As if the collision isn't enough, they try to grab on to us for dear life with their beetle legs which pierce through our bike jerseys and stick to our skin. It must be funny for passer-byers to watch us bike through the corn, dodging and ducking to avoid these things.

It's a road maze through these corn fields! I feel like Danny running through the Overlook Hotel labyrinth and these beetles are Johnny.

Avoiding the beetles on my bike reminds me of an old-school video game, Asteroids. You have to avoid these things (beetles or asteroids) as best you can with your bike or space ship, which isn't so maneuvarable. The beetles move slow enough but there are just so many of them, you are overwhelmed with which one to dodge.