Since I was going to end the day in Gilman, IL, the exact mileage was a bit unclear. Gilman was not a part of the route covered by the bicycle maps. It certainly appeared to be close to 80 miles, which is more than I like, but certainly could do if I had to. The weather looked to be perfect, the terrain was fairly flat, so it would just be a matter of time.

The last 10 miles were to be an experiment. They would be on US 24, a former major highway before the interstates were built. This is the highway that goes directly to the next day's destination. If it is reasonable, in other words have decent shoulders to separate me from the traffic. then I would like to use it on Saturday.

Today is my last day for a while using the bicycle maps, but they should take me all day until the last hour or so.

Or so I thought. They didn't take me 200 yards. I was sure that I was on the route until I noticed a town coming up that was not on the map. Yep, I screwed up again. The nice thing about Illinois (and I think Indiana) is that most of the roads go north/south or east/west. Since the road I was on was headed south, and the general direction for the day was southeast, I just continued south until I found a good road heading east, and hopped on it. 

It worked to perfection. An early start guaranteed a reasonable arrival time at my motel destination. I just needed to keep track of what towns were coming up, in order to replenish liquids, eat, etc. At lunch everyone in the restaurant was entertained by a car, on the property next door, that drove out of the car wash, then turned our direction and ran over a retaining wall. It's front was flush with the ground, but the rear was sticking up in the air. A tow truck arrived as I was leaving.

On the way out of town, I stopped at a shop to make sure I was still on the correct highway. The proprietor assured me I was. Upon on hearing where I was going tomorrow, he urged me to stay off of US 24. 

Finally, around 2 PM, I pulled onto US 24. It was awful. Like other roads that day, it was a two lane road, but it was much busier than the back roads I had been using, and the road was in poor condition. There was a one foot shoulder, and in the middle of it was a rumble strip, so I had no choice but to ride in the traffic lane.

I will try to find a quieter parallel road for tomorrow. Today's trip was 78 miles. Tomorrow will likely be similar, if not longer. The key difference is the change in the weather. The next several days will be cloudy with possible storms on Sunday and Monday.

Back home again, in Indiana....tomorrow.