July 22, 2008

Today we headed out east across Illinois from St. Louis, MO. We had 110 miles to cover and the temperature was just right! We made great time covering 30 miles in two and a half hours. After a great lunch at wendy's in Centralia we continued on. Karen was hoping to hit her 50 mile day. About 4 miles into our afternoon ride we came to some road construction. The road was torn up to be repaved and it was like riding rumbled strips on the side of the road. After 3 miles of riding this i had looked back to check on Karen when i hit some loose gravel that came out into the road a few feet. I lost control and fell right into the road in front of a large truck that was coming behind me. If he had not been able to swerve this story would be a bad one. I just want to say a big thank you to all of you who are praying for our safety. Laci said I used all of the prayers up when I fell on the road and the truck missed me. So keep praying for our safety through the rest of our trip. The fall, however, did not hurt my body as much as it did my bike. We continued to ride through rolling hills and after about 52 miles i realized my bike was not operating properly. When we reached laci at 56 miles I attempted to repair what i thought was the problem. I was not successful in my attempt so we began a search for the closest bike shop. The only bike shop that seemed to still be in business was kind of way south from the route we were traveling. So we started to drive south and camped in a state park on the Western border of Indiana. Hoping to get the bike repaired in the morning we went to bed to rest up for the next long day ahead.