Seg #10 Tunnel Hill Trail ride #1

Seg #10 Tunnel Hill Trail Harrisburg, Il:  10/26/12

Start	Stonefort, IL	N37.614197 W88.708763	N-S miles  11.5*
End	Muddy, IL	N 37.777567 W88.500538	Trl lgth48mi Ride42mi

It was a short night last night. Any more I am not a night time driver, especially when it is raining, but, that is what I did. Using the car’s on-board GPS and Trixie’s (the name Connie and I thought fit the electronic voice emitted from the navigation system) lovely reports, I drove the shortest, although scary, route to Mt. Vernon, IL. Trixie had me driving roller coaster county roads that were narrow and torturous. Even though I was theoretically guided on the shortest route, Trixie had me driving much longer than I expected. Of course my uneasiness with the rain enhanced the night time driving challenge causing me to nurse the car to sublimit speeds. It took me an additional hour going the shortest route. When I finally found a motel, they didn’t have a room available. The night attendant suggested I go down the road a couple miles. In trying to find the the correct road, I ended up going the wrong way on an interstate off ramp. That was not a good idea, especially with a semi-trailer truck  headed straight at me. Thank Goodness there were all kinds of safety barrels warning and redirecting vehicles. And, thank goodness the trucker was going slow enough that I could whip a “uie” and shoot back the correct way. Lucky for me a few hundred feet after my U-turn I was at the entrance of motel that appeared to have rooms. I got a room and proceeded to drive back around the motel to my room. The shortest route appeared to be back to the street I had just taken to pull into the place. Being pitch dark with rain falling and a weird down sloping drive, it was a “bear” for me to see the exact path to take. I took what appeared to be the shortest and best route.

Friggin' Boulder

NOT! There was friggin’ huge boulder, about the size of a Smart Car, laying in the dark just waiting to crunch any vehicle that came its way. The shape of this boulder was perfect for impaling the car on the passenger side. Damn I said to myself and then decided not to try to assess the damage until morning. I needed a good night’s rest to accept the dent. The damage didn’t look any better in the morning, in fact worse. I still haven’t taken the car in for a repair estimate but it will be at least a couple thousand bucks I’m guessing. Remind me not to drive in the dark when it’s raining.

The wind was blowing like the day before but the deciliters of rainfall had dropped to an insignificant measure and appeared that it would stop by ten o’clock. I drove on down to Stonefort, Illinois and unloaded the bike, and put on a rain suit.


Hanging chairs in rural Illinois

On the way there, I noticed rural homes with a single white plastic chair hanging from a rope in trees or porches. I guess it was a Halloween decoration. Stonefort is nice little town with a restored grocery and train depot. First I rode to north end of the Tunnel Hill State Trail near Muddy, Illinois. With a 15-20 mph head wind along with a wet crushed limestone trail, it was like riding the packed sand of the beach. That kind of surface requires fat balloon tires, most certainly not narrow road bike tires. Chugging up a soft trail against the wind, took me a couple hours longer to ride the 24 miles, 12 miles up trail and 12 miles downwind back to the car at Stonefort. The plan was for me to ride another thirty miles on the south end of the trail, but I was too beat to ride much farther. The good thing about calling it quits was I able to get close enough to Springfield so that I could make it to Petersburg by the midmorning schedule to pick up Connie. I want to get back to the Tunnel Hill Trail because it has a mile long tunnel cutting through a mountain, comparable to the spectacular Elroy to Sparta trail in Wisconsin.

Stonefort Station restored. Now an information
center and public restrooms---Nice place