Day 8 - Muscatine, Iowa to Kewanee, Illinois 5-29-2011

We left Muscatine at 5:57AM this morning as we knew that we needed to bike 75 miles to get to the next town that has hotels which is Kewanee, Illinois. Leaving Muscatine it was foggy, overcast, and windy but with no rain. We had ate breakfast at the hotel so we were set to go. About 18 miles into the ride it started to rain Our first stop was in Reynolds, Illinois where we went into a Casey’s Corner Mart to get out of the rain and have something hot to drink. From there we headed to Sherrard, Illinois which was only 9 miles down the road. As we arrived in Sherrard a car pulled up next to us and told us that we needed to take cover because there was a bad storm coming with 70 mile an hour winds and 1“ hail.. He told us that just a block up the road there was a corner mart gas station. When we got to the station the gal said that we should bring our bike and trailer right in the store and that’s where we stayed until that storm passed. I couldn’t believe how dark it got and it was only about 10:00AM in the morning. After the storm passed we headed out and biked another 9 miles and then it started to thunder and lightening so we took shelter in a hall in Orion, Illinois. There were people there getting ready for a graduation party and told us we were welcome to stay inside and out of the rain. We felt like we already had a full day of biking in and we still had 30 miles to go. After a few miles out of Orion it quit raining but the winds did not let up. The winds were coming from the southeast at 20 to 30 mph so they were pretty well hitting us head on almost the entire day. It took us 9-½ hours of actual biking to get 79 miles - it seemed like at time we were barely moving even though we were both pedaling hard. So we arrived in Kewanee at 4:55PM and we stopped at a Chinese restaurant and ate dinner before checking into the Super 8. We are both exhausted and looking forward to a good night sleep.

10:00AM - we took cover in a corner mart due to prediction of 70 mph winds - we were surprised how dark it got so quickly before the storm hit.

Crossing the Mississippi River for the last time on this trip - just biking out of Muscatine and into Illinois!  Goodbye IOWA!

We are hoping to leave the hills behind!

Cornfield that had been planted this year and is now flooded due to the storm!

There were a number of places that we saw tree limbs down - we were also detour today due to powerlines being down on the road.  Fortunately the detour didn't take us out of our way.

Note the flag blowing in the wind - we were biking right into that wind.

If you look closely you can see a deer in the middle of the picture.  It was really foggy starting out this morning.