Day 113: Atlanta, IL

Alea had a tough day.  56 miles, most of it into at least a quartering headwind.  A bit of intense weather.  A detour or two.  And heavy traffic on a short stretch of Historic Route 66, due to an accident on I-55. 

A storm bore down on us fairly quickly this morning.  I had just left Alea, and while we were watching the weather, neither of us had thought there was any need for immediate concern.  I stopped a few miles down the road to buy gas, and it had already started to look ominous by the time the tank was full.  So when Alea caught up we decided to load her bike in the van and wait for the front to pass.  We took a few quick pictures and climbed inside just as the front of the storm passed overhead with lots of wind, rain and lightning (fortunately no hail, though that was possible).  There were clear signs of the horizontal rotation at the front of the storm that is an early step in the formation of a tornado, but it was clear it would be well passed us by the time it decided to touch down, if it ever did.  We went into town and hunkered down in the lee of the grain elevators, just in case it started to hail.

An hour later and the storm had pretty much passed on by, so Alea continued the slog to the south.

Rain to the east, sun to the west.

It was a fairly interesting ride early in the day.  A lot of communities are converting the abandoned westernmost lane of Historic Route 66 into a bicycle path.  Along with the typical trees and street furniture, we saw several sets of Burma Shave signs, where every 1/8th of a mile or so there would be few more words painted on a sign, with 6 or 8 signs completing the whole phrase.   Of course the final sign would say "Burma Shave." 

We also saw an interesting folk art whirlygig:

So we finally called it a day in Atlanta, IL, opting to drive a few miles out of town to camp at Hickory Lane Campground ($30, power and showers).  It is a pleasant enough and, like many of the private campground we visit, fairly rustic.

The good news from today's storm is that our galley hatch did not leak at all.  For the past nine months we've had varying degrees of leaks, and by the time we returned to the factory this past weekend we had gotten things to the point where the leaks were fairly minor.  But they were annoying, because we would repeatedly need to empty out our galley shelves in order to dry everything out, and at times a few things would get wet enough that we would end up tossing some stuff out.  We were very pleased not to have to do either today.  It is worth stating again that the current Camp-Inn design for the galley precludes the sort of problems that we've had.  We love the fact that they are constantly listening to their customers, so that they can further improve upon an already high quality product.