After another wonderful breakfast at the Lionberger's, it was time to continue on my journey. I made my way to Nauvoo, IL, which was a Mormon settlement and the place where their leader, Joseph Smith, was killed. There sits a pretty nice looking giant stone Mormon temple in town that is open to only select followers.
I decided to stop off at the Nauvoo visitor center to check out some of the town history. Little did I know that it was more a Mormon center than anything town-sponsored, and while checking out the displays and statues I was given all sorts of Mormon literature and a conversation that started with the typical ice breaker questions and then immediately jumped into a proselyting type of thing. I eventually got away and made it back to the bike.
When I finally made it to Warsaw, where I was going to stop and grab a late lunch, it was already 2pm and now 100 degrees! There had been some rolling hills I had to contend with on the way there, and I was wondering how I was going to deal with the next 32 miles of no towns or stops until Quincy. Lots of extra water!
But as I sat there trying to figure it all out, my host in Quincy, Brian Hill, called and said it was a bad idea to do the next 32 miles in this crazy heat and he was on the way to pick me up. At first I told him he didn't have to, but he insisted that it was a bad idea to keep riding, and I agreed to stay there and wait for him, which was the best idea after all.
When I started this trip I wanted to do it 100%, all the way by bike, and that was gnawing at me a little, but then I thought about it and already had gone 100 miles more than the official route distance up to that point (from going off route to check things out, cycling around towns, detours, etc) so I was ok with it, I'm sure I'll pass the official total route mileage by a couple hundred miles when this trip is over.
After a little more than a half an hour Brian showed up in his truck and helped me load my bike in the back. As I got in gave me a cold beer. Brian told me that he's a retired teacher and has done multiple cross-country rides and he knew what a touring cyclist wanted - beer, shower, food, AC, & sleep. I couldn't argue with that!
When we got back to his house he showed me around and tossed me a beer for the shower. Brian's a very cut and dry kind of guy, he said he's been in my shoes a bunch of times and didn't want to annoy me by asking me 100 questions about my trip. He made me a great dinner, let me wash my clothes, and had today's Tour de France race up on the TV for me to watch. I watched most of it then decided to turn in early, heeding Brian's advice, that I should try and get out of there as early as possible to beat tomorrow's equally as hot day.
Start:
Dallas City, IL
End: Quincy, IL
Distance: 36.10 miles (+32 miles by car)
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