A couple of weeks ago, Candy and I took our first real trip with our travel trailer. We spent a day in Springfield, IL and then a few days in the Quad Cities area. We opted for full service campgrounds on this trip, with full hookups (electrical, water, and sewer), so that we could have […]
Launching into an RV Life
Saturday night, Candy and I did something we had never done before: we spent the night in a state park in our travel trailer. We are the proud owners of a new-to-us 2020 KZ Sportsmen LE. It has recliners, a kitchen big enough to cook real meals, and air conditioning (a must-have in Missouri!). It […]
Beautiful Bentonville
Candy and I discovered beautiful scenery and fascinating museums just a five hour drive from our home. We headed down to Bentonville, AR in November for some leaf peeping and artwork gazing. We found more than we could do in a week. I spent a couple of half days bicycling the paved trails and roads […]
Bike Overnight to Cuivre River State Park
![selfie next to a Slow Your [picture of a donkey] Down sign](https://cheerfulcurmudgeon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2023-08-15_10-10-34_v1-340x200.jpg)
Sometimes a guy’s just gotta get away. I had an open 24 hours. The weather was forecast to be cool(ish) and dry for the next couple of days. I had a new Priority 600 bicycle with a Pinion gearbox just begging for it’s first out-of-town tour. During lunch on Monday the 14th, I told Candy […]
SP2M Day 15 – Hastings, MN to Minneapolis, MN
My initial plan for the last day of my St. Peters to Minneapolis bike tour was pretty boring: ride west from Hastings, north past the Minneapolis Zoo (hopefully with time for a short stop), north through suburbia to the bike trails along the Mississippi River, and then finish at the Stone Arch Bridge. I was […]
SP2M Day 13 – Fountain Lake, WI to Lake City, MN
Day 13 started with a flat-ish tire. My patched tube apparently had a slow leak. Fortunately it went down overnight so I got to fix it sitting indoors in my hotel room instead of by the side of the road. I trashed the patched tube and installed my spare rather than continue to mess around […]
SP2M Day 12 – La Crosse, WI to Fountain Lake, WI
Rest Day in La Crosse I spent a day in La Crosse to sleep, do laundry, blog, and (burp) eat too much. Again. But honestly, just because I had already eaten pizza for lunch, how could I possibly pass by a second lunch on the patio at the La Crosse Distilling Co? The glass contains […]
SP2M Day 11 – Prairie du Chien, WI to La Crosse, WI
This was going to be my longest day so I got up and out quicker than usual. I was fed, packed, and pedaling before 8:00am. The good news was that I had half as much gear to shlep so getting going was quicker. Compare this rig to what I had when I left home in […]
SP2M Day 10 – Cassville, WI to Prairie du Chien, WI
I had had one continual problem over the last several days: black flies a/k/a buffalo gnats. I had blithely cycled into black fly season and it was a particularly bad one this year. As long as I was riding and moving eight or nine miles per hour, I was free of the nasties. But any […]
SP2M Day 9 – Galena, IL to Cassville, WI
Fun though it was to laze about Galena, eat too much, and shop more than I oughta, I could hear the Stone Arch Bridge calling me and there were hills to be conquered. I set my sites on Cassville, WI, 44 miles and 2,800 feet of climbing away. It was going to be my climbing-est […]
SP2M – Visiting Galena, IL
I woke up on Friday morning feeling great and mostly recovered from the previous day’s hills and the previous evening’s Caesar salad, pizza, beer, and chocolate (in that order, of course, because the rules of fine dining just cannot be broken). I had a lazy morning waiting for my cousin, Melanie, to drive down to […]
SP2M Day 8 – Fulton, IL to Galena, IL
I left Fulton bright and early because I knew that it was going to be a hard day. I needed to cover 49 miles, one of my longest of the trip, and I also had to climb 1,880 feet. Pretty much all of the climbing was packed into the last 15 miles. First stop was […]
SP2M Day 7 – Moline, IL to Fulton, IL
Day seven dawned with more beautiful weather. I briefly considered delaying my departure from Moline so that I could ride over to the Rock Island Arsenal to see the atomic canon. I lost so much time on the previous day’s flat tire that I had not gotten to see it. Grown up responsibility kicked in, […]
I Did It! St. Peters to Minneapolis by Bicycle
With a gentle right turn onto the Stone Arch Bridge this afternoon, I completed my bicycle tour from St. Peters, MO to Minneapolis, MN. It has been quite the adventure. I pedaled for 15 days and took rest days in Nauvoo, IL; Galena, IL; and La Crosse, WI. I saw the Mississippi River from both […]
SP2M Day 6 – Muscatine, IA to Moline, IL
After two days of cold, grey skies and headwinds, I was singing out loud as I headed northeast out of Muscatine to mostly sunny skies and calm winds. Nothing could possibly go wrong on a day as perfect as this. Temps were cool as I left the hotel but forecast to warm up promptly. I […]
SP2M Days 4 & 5 – Nauvoo, IL to Oquawka, IL to Muscatine, IA
Day 4 – Nauvoo to Oquawka Fun though Nauvoo was, I had to leave and head north or I would never find either Minneapolis or a third restaurant. The day started cold, grey, and windy. Mother nature decided that three days of tailwinds was more than enough (thank you very much) and it was time […]
SP2M – Visiting Nauvoo, IL
I spent a rest day in Nauvoo, IL. I had hoped to learn some about Mormonism and about history. There seem to be at least two parts of the town, Historic Nauvoo and the actual modern city. I think that Historic Nauvoo would be a magical place to visit, if you are a Mormon. There […]
SP2M Day 3 – Quincy, IL to Nauvoo, IL
Imagine traveling north on one road for three hours and not passing through a single town. Sounds like something from the lightly populated ranchland of the West or some foreign country, right? I just did that in western Illinois, riding north out of Quincy to Warsaw. Intellectually, I knew that there were no services in […]
SP2M Days 1 & 2 – St. Peters, MO to Louisiana, MO to Quincy, IL
I am writing this in Quincy, IL, 114 miles into my bike tour from St. Peters, MO to Minneapolis, MN. So far, the trip has been almost all smiles. The roads have been smooth (except where they weren’t) and level (except for the hills). The drivers have been amazingly courteous, compared to the folks back […]
Planning a Bike Tour from St. Peters to Minneapolis
Just over a year ago, I bought my Masi Giramondo touring bicycle. I have clocked over 2200 miles on it, mostly doing errands around town and using it for local transportation when I am going somewhere alone. I did manage a couple of short trips last year including an overnight to Robertsville State Park (temperatures […]
