We are in Princeton, IL tonight and it’s been a fun day, but not without a few glitches.  The biggest problem today was the fact that Mark forgot to pack his rain pants.  We didn’t realize it until we made it as far as Coldwater – where it was pouring!  We rode to the Sturgis (Michigan) Harley Davidson dealership and he found a pair on the clearance rack for $50! Amazing! And of course, after that it didn’t rain for hours. He needed them before the day was done though, and no doubt will need them many more times before we make it back home.

Illinois was a pretty ride. Except for getting though the Chicago area, but even that wasn’t all that bad. Of course you can’t go anyplace without highway construction. We sat in stop and go traffic for about 45 minutes somewhere between here and Chicago. All that delay for about 100 yards of bridge work.

The terrain here is interesting .. sometimes it’s hilly with lots of trees, much like Michigan. Other times it’s flatter than Ohio if that’s possible. We could see for miles and miles. It’s beautiful .. lots of pretty farms.  

We met Jack and Jody Lieby, friends of Mark’s, for dinner in Princeton tonight. (They are in the picture below.)  They live in the quad cities and drove an hour to see us .. and waited in the lobby of our hotel an hour for us to get there.  We had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant Mark learned about on the travel channel – Prime Quarter Steak House.  It’s one of those places where they let you cook your own steak on a huge grill.  We all decided to pass on that and let the chef do the cooking.  It was great for Mark to catch up with Jack and Jody and I was so glad to finally meet them.  We had a wonderful time spending some time with both of them.  We wish their grandsons, Topher and Cameron, could have been there too. You know how teenager’s sports schedules are though.  We’ll catch them next time we get together.  Best of luck to Topher .. he’s been accepted to the Naval Academy! And Cameron, who is 16, will have the house to himself now. Thank you again Jack and Jody for buying our dinner.  It’s our turn next time!

Mark booked our hotel reservation here in Princeton with AmericInn. A great place to stay!

And I’m happy to report that I rode yesterday with no back pain at all. I warmed up and did some yoga stretches and all was good!

Thursday we leave for Atlantic, Iowa. The weather looks like it’s going to give us a break for a few days. No rain in sight. Time to break out the sunblock.

Oh, and click on the ‘about’ tab at the right of your page.  Kc is tracking our journey on a US map. She’s done such a good job with this blog!

From Wed May 27th

Tags: Harley Davidson, Michigan, rain

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 3:41 pm and is filed under The Big Adventure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.