Chester is the home of the creator of the Popeye comic strip. There are statues all around town of the various characters from the strip.
We are staying at the lodge of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. They have a cabin behind the building, across the parking lot, that has bunk beds and a window air conditioner.
There is a shower in the main building that opens to the parking lot. The door doesn't lock, but there is a chair inside you can place against the door to keep it closed. It's very nice that they provide these facilities to cyclists for free.
We had dinner in their dining room. I got the 3-piece fried chicken dinner special with house potatoes, cole slaw and Texas toast. It was served in hungry cyclist portions.
For dinner the main choices were a Denny's about a half mile away and a Subway next door. We chose the Subway.
The route took us by several lakes today.
We stopped in the market in Goreville where I chugged a 32-ounce Gatorade. Then we had them make us sandwiches and we sat on a bench out front of the store eating them. Jim had a long conversation with a gent named Ben who was a fount of knowledge about the local area and its history.
Another person in the store mentioned that as of a few days ago, the ferry at Cave in Rock now closes at 6 pm instead of 11 pm. Important info.
We are camped at Cedar Lake Ranch campground, just east of the wide-spot-in-the-road known as Tunnel Hill. It is most popular with equestrians but they are not here now because it is too hot to ride. We have the place mostly to ourselves. We have a nice shady camp site about 0.3 miles from the showers and toilets.
There is very poor cell coverage here but they do have WiFi at the store.
The town of Cave in Rock is famous for a cave in, well, a rock.
We had lunch at Rose's restaurant located near the ferry. When we came out, two other touring cyclists rode up. Adam and Ajumal are college students in Philadelphia, originally from Malaysia. Greg spent several years in Malaysia many years ago and had fun talking with them about the food. And of course we did the standard touring thing of exchanging information about the route ahead.
We're camping at Cave in Rock state park. There is a lodge/restaurant a half mile away where we had dinner. There is a beautiful view of the Ohio River from the lodge.
After breakfast at Rose's we took the ferry across the Ohio River.
I think the state line is the river.
This is Amish country.
We each bought an apple turnover from this nice Amish lady with her stand along a remote country road. Later we stopped at a convenience store to buy a soda and eat our pies. They were nice and warm after spending a couple hours in the panniers.
I must be getting acclimated to the heat. It wasn't pleasant today but at least it wasn't a death march.
We need to wash clothes tonight so we're staying in a motel. We ate at the Long John Silver's across the street.
Last updated July 23, 2018