June 13, 2018. Eureka, MO to Pocahontas, Illinois

M82.9 miles. I took a butter knife with me to cut through the humidity as I walked out of the Rv at 7:30 a.m. to start what figured to be my last day in the saddle. Pam had a hell of a time trying to find a campground that was in my mileage range that could accept big rigs. More about that later, however.
Not very far into the ride out of Eureka, I turned north onto MO 109, and was met by a very impressive climb to start my day. It was made easier by the fact that I was pretty sure that it would be my last big climb. The only thing that was more harrowing than the climb was the descent. I was in a shoulder, about two feet wide, with a ditch on my right, and rush hour traffic, complete with triaxle trucks, blowing down the road in my left. My Garmin told me that I hit 38 mph myself. That's ok when I have an entire lane or wide shoulder, but there really wasn't much room for error, and a pothole or chunk of debris in that little shoulder, and I was in the ditch. With Buddy's wedding coming, a picture of me in a body cast leaning up against a tree in the Bisking's back yard, flashed through my brain, but all ended well.
Then the next stretch of about ten miles was on multiuse trails with nice asphalt pavement and shading tree canopies. The one trail was  not a rails to trails for sure, because it got downright steep as I made my way up to Old State Road.
The last time I rode through St Louis, I didn't really hit the best parts of town, and  thought St Louis was pretty much a hole. Well, this time, I came in through the nice suburbs. It was more or less a straight shot for about 20 miles once I got on Clayton Road, which was just mile after mile of beautiful homes, nice neighborhoods, carefully designed strip malls, and country club golf courses. Many of the trophy wives were out for a jog on the paseos (jogging trails). I did not see a single fast food place along the entire stretch, because k was getting hungry.
Once I descended into the city of St Louis, the road quality went to hell, but traffic wasn't bad, and it wasn't long before​ I was in more older, but nice neighborhoods with dedicated bike lanes. Then it was into a huge city park with bike lanes, jogging lanes, golf courses, lakes, monuments, playgrounds and lots of green space, with the tall downtown buildings in the distance. I could not see the famous arch though.
That's when things took a turn for the worse, but one I'm getting used to. I heard a POP-HISS! Flat back tire. Damn. It wasn't a slow leak this time though. The belts in the tire had blown out, and I had a major problem. That tire was not repairable. An old trick would have been to fold up a dollar bill and cover the hole on the inside, but instead I googled bike shops, and Mike's Bikes was 1.4 miles away. I walked the distance, and got a new tube and tire, are at a Subway, all very close to downtown. When I got rolling again, I was on the east side of St Louis, and once I passed St Louis University, I got into the bad section of town. Nine out if every ten buildings were in some state of abandonment and disrepair, most caving in or burned out. The streets were deserted, and the roads only got worse. I've never bounced across so many railroad tracks in my life. I had to walk across some of them. There was quite an industrial area, which led to the Mississippi River, where I picked up the McKinley Bridge bike trail, which is one of very few ways a bicycle can cross legally. The RT 66 route takes its course across the Isle of Rocks bridge, which I believe is further north. Speaking of the 66 route, I totally bailed on that trail, and just took the easiest route, which was definitely the Google maps route. It didn't even try to take me on any dirt roads or grown over pipeline trails. Once across the bridge, my route was about exactly what I did previously, except for the very end. The route mostly was on the Madison County Transit Trail System, which is a very impressive rails to trails system, with nice asphalt and a great tree canopy when it wasn't cutting through soy bean, corn, and wheat fields. I was running parallel with some busy roads but I really had no idea where I was. I was making great time, and feeling good, all the while contemplating that this was the last ride of the trip, and that Buddy was getting married. I could push on for another day or two, but I decided against it, because Illinois and Indiana are the easiest, and quite frankly, the most boring part of the trip. If I wasn't going to be able to finish it, it seemed like a good time to pull the plug. While I'm in good shape, I plan on continuing some long biking rides where ever I may be this summer.
When the bike trails ended, and I got back out onto the roads, I was really lost. There were small towns, I crossed I 70, going south when I thought I was riding north, I rode some on US 40, then on Illinois 143. I was way out in the country, in a place where there was farming, but I couldn't fathom how Pam found a campground in this area. It turns out that it was a fishing and hunting type camp with two lakes, and 99% permanent sites. There really weren't any gravel roads leading to our site. Pam had just driven through the grass, to our power pole. And I did the same, and it just seemed weird to end up in a place where I've never been, never will be again, and didn't know where I was at the time. It was sort of sad to put the Surly Ogre on the back of the Jeep, but I was ready to be done in some ways also. We were pretty close to I 70, which is a straight shot home, so we were done. We've never been parents of the groom before, so that is alot to look forward to. Let's do it.