Day 27

I got back in the groove again by getting on the road at 7:30. This was scheduled as a long day, so I wanted to get an early start. I had checked the weather a couple days before, and knew I'd have a south wind pushing me most of the way, so I knew the 100+ miles wouldn't be a problem. It's just a matter of having enough daylight to fit the day's travels into.

Eight miles out of the state park and I was in Carlinville, which looked like a really nice small town with a pretty town square/traffic circle/gazebo right in the center. That's where I got on IL 4 going north, and it was a great strip of new asphalt for many miles. "Illinois First" at work? I passed through or near several small towns on the way towards Springfield.

There's just something comfortable about riding through this area of Illinois. The large farm fields mix with the regularly-spaced towns built around grain elevators, and there are open views all around. This is probably just my Midwest-born-and-bred prejudice showing through, but I find farm country to feel a lot more "wholesome" than hill country. Well, I guess it's not prejudice, since I have been through both areas personally and I still feel that way; perhaps "preference" is a better word. Who knows, maybe it's just because I hardly get chased by any dogs in farm country, and those that do spot me have so far to run to get to the roadway that we both know they won't catch me. And I don't mean to say that. I dislike hill country; there is often a lot more variety, and it's quite different from what I'm used to seeing. Some of the best days of my trip have been in the hills. The two areas are just quite different.

I've noticed another affect of my Midwestern upbringing. When driving around Illinois or Wisconsin, if you aren't in a city, you're generally driving through farmland. So I'd apparently assumed that all rural areas are farm areas. I now know that that is definitely not the case. In fact, I would say that I've been riding through farmland only about 20% of the trip. I figured that if you're living in a rural area, the main way to make a living is farming, but clearly there must be a lot of other things to do out there.

Anyway, back to the road. Around 11:00 I was going through Chatham, just south of Springfield, when I spied a Steak n' Shake. I don't know if I'd just never been in Steak n' Shake country before this, or if I'd somehow ignored all the Steak n' Shakes along the way, but suddenly I thought "Why in the world haven't I eaten at a Steak n' Shake yet?" So I resolved to remedy that situation. However, I wasn't quite ready to stop, so I pulled out the computer, did a quick search along my route, and found another one just up the road in Springfield. It's amazing how helpful this computer can be sometimes. I stopped at that one, and yep, it was good.

My basic route took me through the west side of Springfield, but I decided to make a slight detour through the center, mostly because I wanted to visit the library. Along the way I passed the Capitol and various other government buildings, and signs for Lincoln historical sites, but I didn't really have the time to stop. The lunchtime street scene in the downtown area seemed quite lively and active, and much more cosmopolitan than I'd expected.

I finally got out of Springfield around 1:30, and the it was north on IL 29 for another long stretch. Eventually I made it to Mason City, where I had a decision to make. Since I had been making such good time with the tailwind, I'd actually been considering the possibility of going on to Jubilee College State Park, about 30 miles past my original destination. That meant I'd been pushing fairly hard most of the way. However, with my various detours and stops, it looked like it was going to be more like 140 miles rather than the 130 I originally thought. So I decided to end the day fairly early at Sand Ridge State Forest, just southeast of the Illinois River.

When I got to the aptly-named Pine Campground, it seemed totally empty. Eventually as I rode around, I found one guy at a site deep in a corner, but since I picked a site at the opposite corner, it was almost like I had the entire campground to myself. For one of the first times in a long time, I actually felt a little bit tired after getting into camp. Not exhausted (I still cooked dinner and had no trouble setting up the tent), but I did spend a little more time just lying around than I normally do. There was a sign in the front of the campground saying that a park ranger would try to collect my $7, but if they didn't, it was up to me to pay it to avoid being a criminal. That led me to believe that it was fairly unlikely that a park ranger would come by (in fact, the whole State Forest area seemed quite devoid of people). I was right, and now I guess I'm a criminal.