Day 21 - Mount Pleasant, Iowa to Pekin, Illinois

The physical impact of averaging over a hundred miles a day for the last three weeks is being felt in two seemingly contradictory ways. On the one hand, my body is worn down and I'm sometimes even a little unsteady while walking after the day is done. On the other, I can feel myself getting stronger.

The psychological and emotional impact is interesting as well. While I am amazed at what I've been able to handle, I'm also on the edge mentally and emotionally. I start each ride by checking the cue sheet and especially the distance. This morning, for example, I had it in my head that we were "only" doing 132 miles, which I thought was a nice relief from the 141 yesterday. The weather forecast was good and while we wouldn't enjoy much of a push from a tail wind, we wouldn't be fighting into a head wind either. For some reason though, when I checked the cue sheet and saw that I was in error, that we were actually doing 139 miles, I sank into a foul mood. It was only 7 miles... but I was emotionally worn down.

It was especially important not to have bad conditions today. I'm sure I would have done the miles, but it would have been a horrible day. As it was, I rode through my dark mood. I cut the ride up mentally into slices. As I do on most days, I'll note when we only have a century left. And then I'll work on focusing on the next stop or lunch. The scenery and roads were better today as well and we saw some interesting things as we left Iowa and entered Illinois. By the end of the ride, around mile 117 I missed a turn and rode an extra two miles as a result. By then I was feeling good physically and emotionally, even though I was exhausted.

We crossed the Mississippi River at Fort Madison, Iowa. The first picture is downtown Fort Madison, which is nice, but like a lot of small midwestern towns seemingly struggling to keep its population and its commerce. The bridge we crossed to get to Illinois was the old BNSF bridge that has a car deck above the rail deck. We crossed the bridge and then stopped for a picture at the Welcome to Illinois sign. I posed in my maize and blue! I even got a "Go Blue!" from a passing car. After riding through some nice rural areas, we saw one of the state's growth industries... a correctional facility. Finally, we crossed the Illinois river and I stopped to get a picture of the barges from the bridge at Pekin, where we are spending the evening.