Day 1

I started a little bit late today. I was not on the roadr until 11 am. I decided to take some rough roads in champaign county to start with. It helped me get a good feel for the extra weight I am carrying with me. I did not have any route planned out for today. I just rode wherever my bike took me. It took me down some interesting roads. Lots of gravel, some mud, and one road that turned into a muddy quad trail. The 20 or so miles of rain in the morning were not fun, but I got to test out my new rain gear. I rode about 175 miles south and stopped in Belle Rive for lunch at 3.

After lunch I continued to take fun roads until I ran into the Ohio river. At that point I had to take a state route to Cairo, then over the Ohio into Kentucky. The hills of Kentucky were quite beautiful to wind through.

There wasn’t much of Kentucky to ride through, so I entered Tennesee. I am spending the night at the Reel Lake State Park in Tennessee.

Here’s a pic of the road that turned into a quad trail south of Effingham, IL.