day 52

after a much needed sleep indoors we woke up realizing we had to leave the comforts of this getaway but we made sure to take advantage of it while we still had time. i enjoyed a hot shower since you never know when you'll get another one. the world traveler from dublin was literally heading out the door and the girl from ohio, amanda, was getting things together to leave. we cleaned and packed our things up then said our goodbyes and safe travels. we were then on the hunt for breakfast (my personal favorite meal). we went down the road and out of historic downtown but found nothing, so we decided to headed out a different way hoping to find something and we did. lo and behold we stumbled across huddle house, we both never heard of it but it advertised cheap food and that sounded good to us. we got in and they have smoking and non-smoking sections but there is no divider or air ventallation to delineate the smoking from the non; odd we thought. nonetheless we both ordered a heartattack on a plate of goodness though: eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, and a waffle for me. it was great and helped fuel us that morning. so we took off down the road and it started to rain on us but we were out in the country and only houses were around so we kept riding but up around a corner there was a huge building and it was a brewery/distillery (super random for out in the country) but we ducked in there to get out of the torrential downpour. we decided to let the rain blow over and we chatted with the bartender for awhile and apparently the guy who owns this brewery owns a ton of other stuff like a vineyard, car dealerships, antique shops, etc. but he also owns a tiger/lion sanctuary/restaurant just a couple miles down the road. so random! the rain stopped so we got back on the road after a short tour of the brewery and met up with our friend lu. lu and su were heading to st mary to pickup one of their maildrops that was waiting for them at the post office in the nearby town so we split ways knowing we'd see them in chester. after some riding we finally got to the border where we waited to cross the mississippi river! i've been looking forward to this for awhile. crossing the mississippi is a huge deal in history and it marked a great marker for us as well. the bridge was down to one lane letting one side go then the other but when we got up there they were opening up the bridge to 2 lanes again but the construction workers let us go across so we had the whole bridge to ourselves as we hurridly crossed. we arrived in illinois and said farewell to missouri. the land of lincoln and popeye i guess or atleast chester is home to popeye. the home of popeye sign was bigger than the little writeup about lewis and clark, funny and sad how that happens. guess the creator of popeye came from chester and they are exploiting it like crazy with statues of all the characters all over town. we rode into town trying to find the eagles lodge which has a bunk shack for cyclists; after some time and i would say bad directions, we finally made it and it was good but different from where we stayed the previous night, we got spoiled before. a 6 bunk shack with a/c and a fan then a shower and bathrooms at the main building so that was nice. we pumped the a/c and went to find some dinner at reid's harvest house, a buffet! it was wonderful to say the least so we filled up and headed back to the eagles. lu and su arrived and we chatted with them for a bit then we all kind of did our own thing: evan checked some internet and made some calls then went and hung out with lu and su in the lodge while i called family, took some pics, and caught up on my book. it was a relaxing evening. we all then crashed after a full day.