Part VIII: The Awry Journey

Have you ever planned a trip where nothing went as expected? For some reason these trips usually are the ones we talk about the most. Last year I had planned a bicycling trip with a couple of friends. We wanted to take a local trail from our hometown to the southern most point of the trail. The destination was Kankakee, Illinois, which was a nineteen-mile straightaway on the gravel pathway. I was so excited because the furthest I had run on the trail was just a couple miles south, but never to the extent we planned on traveling.

When embarking on a long bike ride it is important to have all the essentials in a backpack. I loaded my backpack with food, five water bottles, my phone charger, a camera, my cellular phone, my wallet with some extra cash, sunglasses, and a hat. I didn’t bring suntan lotion with because I had already put some on before we left. The weather was supposed to be a perfect 75 degrees, partly cloudy and a nice, breezy amount of wind. I made sure I wore my good running shoes because I knew my feet would be comfortable in them while peddling.

Preparing my bike for the trip was difficult because I had to replace both tires, clean the belt, and find a seat that wouldn’t destroy my rear-end, among other things. Once I had the bike in tip-top shape I knew I was prepared and ready for the daylong trip. I called my friends to tell them I was ready and we met at my house around 7 A.M. in the morning.

After the first eight miles our bodies already began to ache because our seats were not comfortable. We managed to get through the pain by just talking the whole way to Kankakee. The scenery was gorgeous along the route, definitely a surprise to me. When we arrived at the end of the trail we decided to look at the map and see how far away Kankakee State Park was away from the trail. It looked like the park was only one mile away and we thought that would be worth the extra distance. We traveled a good distance when we finally realized that the one-mile marker on the map was not correct. We searched our phones to figure out exactly where we were because we had taken side roads to get to the park. Finally we were able to locate the park, it was a couple miles from our location. We laughed it off and continued on our way.

Eventually we arrived at the park and biked our way through the hilly terrain ending up next to the Kankakee River. We ate lunch and said it was time to begin our journey back home. Instead of rerouting where we just came from, we decided to cross the river and find our way back to the trail because it would be a shorter distance and less confusing to get to.

We were biking along the side of a busy road for quite a few miles when we thought we had gotten ourselves lost. According to our phones we were only two miles from the trail that would take us back to our hometown. On the way to the trail we ran across a biker bar and since we were running low on water, we decided to stop in. To our surprise the bar and its patrons were very nice, the bartender even cooked us tacos. It was a rest we all needed before we finished our journey home. Along the route home we all decided to go finish our biking adventure at our local ice cream shop. It gave us motivation to actually keep moving especially since we were all so tired and sore. At this point we had no clue how many miles we had just embarked on but we were quite curious. As soon as we arrived at home we jumped on the computer and calculated exactly where we biked and how many miles we logged. The distance we traveled was fifty miles. This was an experience I would never forget because it was so unexpected and hilarious to think that we just biked fifty miles for no reason.

Please join me next week when I discuss what to buy when looking for workout clothes and accessories. Enjoy your week.