Day 23 - Vienna, IL

After two days off the bike felt foriegn to me. My saddle felt unusually comfortable and my leg muscles a bit unaccustomed to turning the pedals. We headed out from Ross's Landing, the lake house, on route to Vienna, IL our 8th state of the trip.

It was a solem day. Ryan and I split up early on and I kept waiting for the readjusment period of being back on the bike to be over. By the time we got to Paducha, a river town on the state border riding felt normal again and i didn't much worry about the 70 miles I was going to put in on the day.

I came across a high arching steel bridge painted blue on route 45, which would be our Ohio river crossing and entrance into Illinois. As I made my way up the ramp the concrete switched to steel grating and the shoulder dissappeared. I felt my tires skid around the metal and quickly slowed down to a crawl. Cars whizzed past me as the buzz of their tires over the grating became louder. I kept my eyes trained on the few feet in front of my, occasionally lettin my gaze slip through the grating to the river 200 feet below.

Once over the bridge I heard a shout from Ryan who was only moments behind me. A stack of cars slowly trailing him, a white sherrif's car in he lead. He had caught site of Ryan and quietly escorted him across. He pulled over to nicely let us know we shouldn't have been on the brigde and even commisserated with us about getting burned by google maps.




On the other side of the river we passed through the town of Metropolis, the home of superman. There were illustrated signs about town from the chamber of commerce and a giant statue in the town square. Each June they have a superman festival. Makes me wonder economically who would win in a fight: Mothman from Pt. Pleasant or Superman from Metropolis.

I continued on another 20 miles of flat straight road to the small town of Vienna. Ryan pulled an audible and stayed at Harrah's in metropolis. Hopefully we'll be staying in fancy hotels for the rest of the trip with all of his winnings.


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