Photos: Diane’s friends and trail angels Connie and Joshua
I&M Trail
Sylvia and Kevin in front of Lincoln and Douglas Debate statues in Ottawa city park
Haircuts on our day off in Ottawa
Outside the Fiesta Restaurant: Me, Sylvia, Marisha, Phil, Kevin, Bill, Mida, Tim. Pete took the photo.
A first for the trip. We get into the town of Morris meet up with Bill’s friend Ron and decide to eat at Al’s Diner. Just after we order an energetic sprite of a man comes in and heads right for our table. He says his wife told him that cross country cyclists were in town and he needed to get down there meet us and buy us lunch. We asked how he came to know about us. He says, ‘it’s a small town.‘ We shake hands with our benefactor Kim DesLaurieri. He’s the principal of the catholic elementary school and rode RAGBRAI last week raising over $30,000 in the process. We share stories and true to his word he buys us all lunch. After he leaves Ron simple response was, ‘small town America.’
We discussed our route with the Schwinn dealer and decide our best option was to head due south out of town on the Dwight blacktop. In Dwight we met up with Pete and Marisha, Kevin’s friends from the Tulsa area, and decided to stay the night at the Super 8 in Watseka. Unfortunately we didn’t add up the mileage till we had ridden another 20 miles to the town of Cullom that’s when we realized that we still had over 40 miles to go. Thank goodness Marisha was there with the Blazer to sag. Kevin had other friends meeting us in Watseka for dinner so he and Bill sagged in first. Then Marisha returned to Ashkum for Pete, Sylvia and me. I got to meet Kevin’s friends: Tim and Mida who rode across America the first time with Kevin 10 years ago; and Phil who used to live in Tulsa. After a quick shower we kept the Fiesta Restaurant open well past 9 eating and cutting up.
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