Joliet to Oglesby, Il. Muddy trails, tornadoes, thunderstorms, route detour, flat tire, broken shifter. Other than that we are having a blast! Today's route was nearly all rough trail surface running alongside an old canal. Saw so many animals, including 4 deer and a snapping turtle named Mel Gibson. The end of the night started after someone drove by us and yelled, "There's a tornado coming!"
Map at:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=204845776009439337429.0004883d7b4959fc68c66
Chicago to Joliet. I'm updating this from my phone so ill keep it brief. We conquered the first leg of the trip. The first 45 miles were easy sailing. The last 30 miles involved us riding through pouring rain and thunderstorms. At one point I freaked out when I started hearing a clinking noise coming from my rear wheel. It sounded like a broken spoke but Michelle eventually found the culprit and removed a large pebble from the tire, so now she is the bike tech for the trip. I tracked it with the gps in my phone and you can view the map by clicking on the link below. The gps took a while to locate satellites so the very first chunk of the trip is missing. There is also about 25 miles or so missing from the end when the battery was getting low.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=204845776009439337429.0004883d7b4959fc68c66
Blogger will only let me upload a few pics at a time from the phone so ill be splitting them up between posts.
-Mark
