Day 36 - Coralville, IA to Fulton, IL

Sorry for the technical difficulties folks, looks like the big Google deactivated my account for a few days... all should be back to normal now.

Daily Stats:
Time: 5h50m31s
Distance: 154.30km
Avg Spd: 26.4km/hr
Climbing: 821m

Great ride today.  It was slower, and flatter, and not so hot.  I rode with Rachel and Katie.  Getting out of Coralville was a bit of a maze, but ""Linkin Road"" was awesome - no traffic and huge, beautiful farmhouses on both sides of the road.

We went through a few towns today that had names the same as a few of my friends: Lowden, DeWitt and Clinton.  DeWitt was by far my favorite, and we stopped at a great place called The Garden Cafe, which was oddly located in the basement of an interior design store.  I scored the last piece of peach-raspberry crisp, and the girls had some pina colada cheesecake which we ate on the patio in front of the store.

Another highlight of the day was seeing a crop-duster spraying a field right beside us off the road.  It probably wasn't too safe to be so close to the dangerous chemicals, but it was just so cool to see the planes turning and flying low.

We also entered our eighth state of the tour today: Illinois.  We crossed the giant Mississippi, marveled at the grandeur, and imagined I was Tom Sawyer rafting down the river.

Camp tonight is at Unity Christian School in Fulton.  We're densely packed into the small field outside the gymnasium, and are making the best of the greenery that's not exactly flat.

A few members of the school board organized a dinner for us - chicken, pork chops, corn on the cob and pie.  Oh, the pie!  They say Iowa is the Pie capital of the USA, and even though we're in Illinois, we're still loading up on pie.  A band also played some music for us during and after dinner - they were a rocky, worship band that also played a few cover songs.  It was pretty cool.

I realized today, too, that we haven't been to McDonalds in over a week!  Never thought I'd have to count out how long it's been...  The down side is that we could have used a McD's for Wi-Fi today, as there's none at the school and nothing nearby.  Tomorrow we're in a State Park again, so there's no internet again.  Oh, well...  guess I'll have to spend more time socializing!

**Sorry folks... this times the pictures are up.