Fairmount Illinois

    Second trip! This was much more of a trip than the previous outing. This time I traveled to the Casey's in Fairmount, which in fact is located in Vermillion county. This will likely be the only trip to another county. During this trip I also added a new piece of technology, my running watch, which will show you exactly where I rode and my pace. Below is the route I decided to take.

    Again, the first step to a biking journey is the application of a helmet as depicted below.

    As I left, I felt pretty good. It about 55 degrees and sunny. I was wearing shorts and a light hoodie. I felt a bit cold at the beginning, but soon warmed up. As soon as I got out of town though, I began to cool down again. I was facing a 17mph headwind from the east which made the front side of my body quite frigid. Occasionally, I would have to take a turn to go south as part of the route, which made the ride much more fun. I no longer had to fight against the wind as much. Unfortunately, I always had to turn back into the wind. Overall, the ride was pretty tiring and I was constantly thinking about wanting to just be at the destination. Additionally, at one section, maybe 15-20 miles in, the road turned into rough gravel which hindered my speed significantly and was rough on my wrists. Below is some data regarding my travels.

As you can see, unfortunately I was 8 minutes slower than the predicted time by google maps. Luckily, I did encounter some interesting things along the way. The first thing was a historical marker saying that President Lincoln had traveled along the same road while he was on the circuit of the eight judicial district. I actually saw two of these. The first one also indicated the border between Champaign and Vermillion county.

Below is the picture of the second historical marker I saw.

While I was taking the picture above, a dog approached me. Because this dog probably does not get much company from strangers, I decided to take a selfie with it. Its always good to make new acquaintances. Below is this selfie and another picture of the dog.

    Eventually, after building a friendship with this dog, I had to depart. I remembered the dog though, which game me motivation to make it all the way to Casey's. I also encountered a few farmers who were harvesting their corn and some cows who gave me a friendly look. By the time I reached Casey's I had become an entirely new and wise man from these experiences.

    I made it to Casey's at about 1 pm. I ordered a chicken, bacon, ranch pizza, and got a sweet tea. Together these items had over 2000 calories, which was good because I needed to replenish the energy I had lost. The employees were extremely friendly and helpful as well. They seemed to enjoy their job. Once they had prepared my pizza, I took it outside and sat on the curb to eat.

The first two slices were absolutely amazing, but by the time I made it to the last two, my stomach was quite full. I still managed to finish it though, and threw the box in the dumpster afterwards. On the way out I took a picture of the Casey's because I had forgot to do so when I first got there.

The return journey was significantly easier than the initial trip. I had a 10 mph tailwind and it was slightly warmer. I did not stop at all and rode all the way through. At one point when I got close to Urbana, I passed another cyclist and we exchanged waves. This was the only other cyclist I saw the whole time. I also saw an old man and said "Hey!" as I passed him. He said "Hey there!" in return. Once I got home, I drank some water and relaxed. Below is data from the return trip. I started my watch a little bit late, so the distance was a bit short.

Overall, I would say it was a pretty successful trip. I had a good time and got good exercise in.