Golconda, IL to Grand Rivers, KY

Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Distance Cycled: 74 miles
Total elevation gain: 3,635 feet
Our Total Flat Tires on trip to date: 1

We have now traveled 1,436 miles on this trip. Today was a difficult day in that it was two long days in a row and we spent even more time going up and down hills. The hills started early. We had to go down two hills and up one just to get to breakfast and when we left Golconda we traveled less than a mile before we started a long 7 % grade. We continued to go up and down hills all morning. At noon we had completed just 24 miles. At the end of the day we had climbed more hills than any other day since we started September 1st. The interesting thing is that we spent the exact same amount of time riding the bicycles today that we spent riding the bicycles yesterday.

We traveled 16 miles and stopped at Elizabethtown, IL where we got our first look at the Ohio River.

I rested the bicycle against a post but had it too upright and guess what, it fell over breaking another mirror. The good news was that the remains of the first broken mirror replaced the broken pieces of this mirror. 10 minutes work and the broken mirror was replaced. We continued on our way to Cave In Rock State Park. Here was a cave that was used by river pirates before Steamboats came to the Ohio River. They would lure unspecting travelers to the cave where they would kill and rob them, dumping the bodies into the Ohio River. We ate lunch in the nearby town of the same name. After lunch we took a ferry boat across the Ohio River to Kentucky.

The sky looked like rain all day and both Mary Kay and Becky were worried that we would not reach the motel before dark or that we would be rained on. Well the afternoon when better than the morning and we reached Smithland, KY before 4:00 PM. By that time we had traveled 63 miles and we were all getting very tired. We continued on our way and after going up and down another series of hills we reached the overpass over Interstate 24. Just in front of us was a Best Western sign but it was supposed to be another 4 miles to our motel. I checked and it was our motel. We were all thankful to have reached the end of the day. My day was not finished because I washed all of our dirty clothes. The only clean clothes that I had was my swimsuit and a jacket. Tomorrow we only have 50+ miles to travel.