A Three Shower Day

Ashkum, IL to Wenona, IL

June 29, 2019

By: Mark

Comments Off on A Three Shower Day
Ashkum, IL to Wenona, IL

Capone was here
The house, not the boat

After a great visit with Dave at his Capone-connected cottage, it was time to move on once again. As is frequently the case, I didn’t get away as early as I hoped because, well … there were things to chat about. But eventually, get on the way I did … but not before getting a quick shot of the Capone house as I left.

My goal for the day was significantly more ambitious than the past few days. Of course, considering how unambitious the past few days have been, that’s not really saying too much. After four consecutive sub-80 km days, today was looking to be around 125 km. Destination: Wenona, IL. The plan being to camp at the city park. While that may not sound like a Warm Showers host, in this case, it is. The town actually has a Warm Showers account and advertises their city park as open for cycle tourists. But more on that later.

Ah, Illinois

Much like my previous experience in Illinois (and Indiana for that matter), today’s ride was very straight. And flat. It was also pretty windy. And hot. Very hot, actually. And that’s coming from someone who really likes the heat. And yes, it was humid too. It was almost as if I were being punished for all the times I’ve said, “I like the humidity”. I need to shut up more. (No, you didn’t have to agree so quickly to that last statement.)

On the upside, I seem to have learned a bit from my Halifax experience and, as such, I drank a LOT of water today. As I passed through the town of Kempton, I even asked some people who were out on their front porch if they would refill my water bottles. See, I’m learning. Either that or I was hallucinating from the heat.

I don’t have official temperature records of my rides (there are limits to my spreadsheet … I know, I know … say it ain’t so) but today may have been my hottest ride to date. Not just on this trip. I mean, on any of my tours. And the winds didn’t help matters. Well, they helped making the ride even more brutal.

More Illinois

The forecast was calling for winds from the south which should’ve meant a crosswind for most of my ride. The reality was actually winds from the northwest which of course made perfect sense since that was the direction I was heading. Seriously, how can a forecast be THAT wrong? Then again, maybe it’s me. Perhaps I should take some sort of solace in the fact that I must be causing havoc with the local meteorologists. I mean, they’re probably sitting around looking at all their charts and radar screens saying, “It just doesn’t make any sense … everything indicates the winds should be coming from the south and yet we’ve got winds clearly coming from the northwest.” Not surprisingly, I don’t take solace in that. Sigh.

At one point, with about 35 km to go, I was so hot that I even resorted to highjacking a hose outside one of the rural homes I passed. And that’s how I met Betty Campbell. As I approached the house … more accurately, as I approached the shade from the tree in front of the house, I did a quick survey of the area. No cars were around. Doors were shut. It looked like no one was home. Normally, I would’ve been content to stand in the shade, drink some not-at-all-cold water, and will myself down to a functioning temperature. This was not a normal day. No, this was a day where I actually laid down on the cool concrete sidewalk leading to the house in the hopes that it would work like a heat sink. To a certain extent it did. And then I spotted the hose. Desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s kind of funny, even being as hot as I was, when I started dousing myself with hose I actually thought, “D@mn, that’s cold.” and I didn’t REALLY commit to the soaking. It’s no secret that I’m not a water person.

Thank you, Betty Campbell

As I walked my somewhat soaked self back towards my bike, the front door of the house flew open and out charged an elderly woman with a shotgun in hand … okay, no … that’s not at all what happened. Well, the front door did open. Slowly. And a woman I would guess to be in her eighties was there feeding her cats. I startled her a bit when I said, “Hello” as it turns out her vision wasn’t very good but we then had a very nice chat about the adventure I was on and the heat of the day. She seemed like a super sweet lady and even offered me some cold water. She offered food too but I declined. About ten minutes later I was back on the road. The heat had already dried me off but I was a few degrees cooler anyway.

The 20 minute stop at Betty’s was apparently the perfect amount of time for the previously unnoticed rain clouds to get in range of my bike. Moments earlier, I was struggling to find the next bit of life-saving shade. Then I was being rained on. And yes, it felt good. It was actually a bit of a strange mini storm. All of sudden the winds really picked up and were swirling like crazy. Ten minutes later, the rain was behind me and I was left to finish the last 25 km of my ride.

Those final 25 km were definitely tough. As has been happening lately, the winds were picking up later in the afternoon and today was no different. Of course, they weren’t blowing in a favourable direction. There were many mind games going through my head as I willed my way into Wenona, IL.

Upon arriving, I saw a rare sight – a welcome sign. And a big one. I had to stop for a photo. As I got closer to the sign I noticed there was also a bicycle maintenance stand and air pump beside the welcome sign. This was clearly a bike-friendly place.

Self explanatory

With photos taken, I pedalled the final kilometre to the city park where, as advertised, there was lots of space for camping, a big pavilion with picnic tables, and a shower/washroom for cyclists. Sheila, via the Warm Showers site, had forwarded the code to the showers. I never actually met Sheila but I did meet Matt who pedalled over to welcome me upon my arrival. Sheila had told him I would be arriving and he even had a small welcome bag with some water, cookies, snack bars, soap, shampoo. I was stunned. I don’t know how many cyclists stop in Wenona but I suspect it will be more once word gets out of this hidden treasure.

The rest of my evening was mostly spent under the pavilion. I fired up my alcohol stove for the first time this year to cook my usual recipe. Not surprisingly, the pasta concoction I created was a great disappointment compared to that provided by Jodi and Chris a couple of days earlier. On the flip side, it was also kind of delicious. I’m sure exhaustion played a role in that assessment.

Apparently there was free WiFi available up the street at the library but quite frankly I was too exhausted to try it. For the same reason, I also didn’t have a chance to support any of the local businesses. I really wanted to because the town had clearly gone out of its way to support and welcome cyclists. That’s the kind of place where you want to spend your money.