Ride to Grafton, Illinois

Our day started out making new friends: the café owner who served us breakfast, the city guide who gets paid to ride his bike and answer questions from tourists, and the park rangers who snapped group photos for us under the Arch. Also, during the ride we met other cyclists and café owners, and visitor center employees. While most of our readers know us, those we met along the way have some questions as to who we are. We are all in our early 60s but young at heart. We met in 2002 when we cycled across the United States as part of an Adventure Cycle Association tour and have since taken many tours together. Joe is from New York State, HP is from Switzerland, and Jeff is from Virginia. Joe is the group’s technical adviser and is carrying the lap top that develops this Blog and allows us email access. He also programmed the GPSs we each carry and is our bike mechanic (he carries enough tools to open a bike shop). HP is the high adventure guy. He leads mountaineering expeditions and ski trips. He knows more about camping and survival than a troop of Boy Scouts. Just prior to joining us he cycled from central France back to his home in Switzerland. Jeff always finds nice and positive things about each day's events and has an interesting way of expressing the day's events in writing.

Our earlier journeys were characterized by high daily mileage and a drive to get to camp early. If our first day is an indication of what is to come, we have matured. Our journey took all day to cover 45 miles. Rather than measuring miles per hour today was measured in photos per mile. Despite the gray weather, Joe and HP honed their photographic prowess by snapping lots of pictures during the day. They are the photographers, Jeff just takes snap shots. Be sure to check out their work at Our Photos.

In St. Louis we stayed in a modern high rise hotel but in Grafton we are staying in a hotel that was built in 1884. It provides a nice contrast to our first nights lodging. Our loved ones should not be worried however; this 1884 hotel was last renovated in 2008 and has wonderful rooms, good food, and excellent beer.

If you are tracking our journey, you can see our progress on this Goggle Map.