Kiki Bikes Across America

Sunday, June 14th – Vienna, IL to Carbondale, IL

Today we got up a little later than usual – about 8am or so but took our time getting ready and rolled out from Kerri and Tracy’s around 10:30 in the morning. It was already getting hot pretty fast, but we only had 43 miles or so to ride to Carbondale, so we had plenty of time. The miles were slow and tiresome for me for some reason, maybe the heat and just knowing we had a rest day tomorrow and not feeling motivated to go fast like I was the previous day. We rode 23 miles and then stopped for lunch just outside of Anna where Rt 146 and 51 intersected. We had Subway and I had the first person question my solar panel and why/what for? So I explained it was to power my GPS and that it had been working well for 20 days thus far and I had only really needed to us the AA batteries in it for about 3 hours. It’s been great and I love it:)

Anyway, we continued the last 40 miles to Carbondale and it was slightly hilly for the portion I led and then nice and flat for the sections Chris and George led. Chris led us the last 6-7 miles into Carbondale and got a nice pace going around 19-24 mph on the flat/slight downhill portion. It was definitely nice to get to Carbondale fast in those last miles. We stopped at Southern Illinois University to go to the library and try to get internet access. The computers were all locked down with username/password, except 2 which were for 15-minute use. I went on and looked up motel/hotel rates and found some decent prices for around $50/night which was our back-up plan. I also checked couchsurfing and warmshowers for potential hosts. I had emailed two couchsurfers the night before but hadn’t heard back yet, so that was out. I then checked warm showers and found one guy (Ben) listed with a phone number so I called him up and he answered. He was really friendly and nice and was out of town but said he’d try to find a friend we could stay with. He called back about 30 minutes later and said we could stay at his friend Rachel’s in Carbondale. He sent me her number and I called her and she was totally cool and friendly – really laid-back and willing to let us crash with her for a couple of nights.

We then biked over to her place and hung out waiting for her to come home. Then we unpacked, showered, and called in an order to Thai Taste and went and picked that up and brought it back here. We all really liked the thai – I’d get it again tomorrow, but I think I’ll try something else instead just so I’m not eating thai two nights in a row. After eating, Chris, George, and I walked to the laudromat and did our laundry and then walked to Dairy Queen a bit over a mile away. They got brownie batter blizzards and I had a cookie dough blizzard – really yummy. We then went back to the laudromat to put our clothes in the dryer and wait for about 20 minutes till they were done. We got back to Rachel’s around 11:30 and then called it a day and went to bed.

GPS Stats:
43.7 miles
31.6 max speed
11.7 avg speed
03:44 moving time

Computer Stats:
44.65 miles
32.5 max speed
12.1 avg speed
03:41:38 moving time

Snake count: 1 dead today
Dog chases: 0