Part 2, Day 7, Chester IL to Farmington MO


48 miles, 3:50 riding time, 12.4 mph avg, 2593 ft ascent

You will notice that my daily mileage has been decreasing steadily.  I have found that I am not getting enough sleep to fully recover, so the next day my legs get fatigued faster.  Maybe tonight I will get more rest.
 
Touring hard on a bike because there is lots of shifting. Most downhills are followed by uphill (what goes down must come up!) so shifting quickly from highest to lowest, or nearly lowest, with each hill. It is amazing how quickly gravity pulls on a loaded touring bike and sucks away all momentum!!  
There was no welcome sign when we crossed from KY to IL on the ferry so we got the obligatory photo on the way out of IL

Third state of tour. Here is the Chester bridge over the mighty Mississippi 

There was traffic and no shoulder so I couldn’t take a photo, but the view of the river was impressive. On the other side of the bridge is Missouri. 

State 4.  We left the Mississippi River valley and headed up into the Ozarks where the route returned to rolling hills through woods mixed with farmland. 
Today was not as hot as the last 2 days, but
We arrived at our destination, which is Farmington MO, at about 1500.  Duane was having some mechanical problems so we stopped at another bike shop.  He decided to offload some gear and mail it home.  We checked into Al’s bike hostel, which was originally the city jail.

We are staying on the 2nd floor.  We met an Eastbound cyclist, Elloise, who is a single female that is doing a modified TransAm where she will connect with the Underground Railroad route to take her North to the Northern Tier, where she will go east towards home in Maine.   
Tomorrow we will try to get an earlier start with a goal to reach Ellington MO.  In order to reach Pueblo CO in 3 weeks, I need to get the average aily mileage back up to the 70+.  





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