A Bridge Too Annoying

What an easy day, just a seven mile stroll from Marseilles (not France)to Ottawa (not Canada). I'm still on the canal path so the ground is nice and flat. The pack is light and airy since I can slackpack. I'll be returning to my cousin Heather's place tonight so leaving most of my stuff there was a no-brainer.
Skipping down the trail gaily and texting friends, I was glad to have a relaxing day for once. I learned that the last remaining toll house on the I&M is located in Ottawa. There seems to be only one of everything left, one mule barn, one grain elevator, one toll house, one canal...I'm thinking Noah did a pretty half-assed job of things around here. I wonder daily why he couldn't have just forgotten to bring the two gnats and the two mosquitoes. Seriously though, maybe Noah was a stickler for getting things right. I can just hear him saying, "Where is that (blaspheme deleted, you can probably guess which one, there probably only was one back in those days) other unicorn.
So I'm walking along minding my own business, thinking these thoughts when all of a sudden I reached a sign saying the bridge over the Fox River Aqueduct is under repair and off limits to trail walkers and riders until Saturday. There is a tube claiming to have maps detailing a suggested detour. The tube was empty of course. And I was supposed to meet a reporter and photographer from the local paper on the other side of the Aqueduct in fifteen minutes.
I headed over to the bridge and asked the workers how to get to another bridge. Through a wad of chewing tobacco one man slurred something about going north. The last road I passed travels to the south or to the east. I called my cousin Al on the phone and he said to go north as well. The newspapermen phone asking where I am and they suggest the same cardinal direction.
The way north is blocked by thick vegetation - does anyone actually know where I am? Maybe I will have to play Tarzan to find this confounded bridge. Finally I decided to go east until I can find a road going north. I moved a mile in that direction (which to me was backwards and I hate that direction most of all, I work too hard trying to get forward) and finally came upon such a road.
At this moment the newspapermen and Al found me and we got the whole thing straightened out. I was able to hop on Highway 6 and cross the cursed Fox (pictured menacingly above). On the other side I met up again with Al at Fox Aqueduct Park, a former residential district which became parkland when FEMA told the stupid people that it was kind of a bad idea to build on a flood plain and they should stop because the government wasn't going to bail them out anymore when they inevitably found themselves under several feet of water once again.
The short day's jaunt finally terminated, we adjourned to Al's home and chilled. A weekly paper in Ottawa also sent a delightful young chap to ask me some questions about the trip*. I don't know why people want to talk to me, I'm just a garden variety loon, nothing very special. I'm glad to play along, however, because when you spend hours by yourself any chance at an adult conversation is appealing. Anything is better than writing yet another song about the blasted fly circling your head. Believe me.

*The title of the resulting article used the word drifter to describe me. I object to being classified in such a way and would like all further journalists to use the word hobo instead. Thanks!

7 miles/Magna Carta total miles

Coming Home

I'm a long way from my parents and my brother. I miss them all very much. Fortunately, one of the highlights of the entire trip is coming up the road straight at me now. My father's brother David and his wife Jo, residents of Ottawa, Illinois, have been fruitful and multiplied. The resulting four children all live in the area and have kids of their own, with a couple step and halves thrown in for good measure. I've never had a large immediate family and have not been able to see this particular group of relations as much as I would have liked to, so when I saw Ottawa was on the North fork of the ADT I knew which way I was headed. I awoke today with their homes sitting only twenty two miles away to the west.
Their nearby presence and a cold morning were enough to motivate me to get an early start, leaving Gebhard at just past six. The miles flew by, but not without a little learning on the side.
For example, the Native Americans had a huge civilization in Illinois and some of their most impressive burial mounds and other structures were located in this area. During the building of the canal many of these archaeological treasures were destroyed forever. Ain't progress grand?
The white man doesn't always treat his own very well either. The I&M Canal linked the fertile farms of the Mississippi River Valley to the industry of the Great Lakes and Northeast, making Chicago a major hub of the American manufacturing machine. In return the citizens decided to deepen the canal in 1878, reversing the flow of the Chicago River, allowing sewage that had once flowed into Lake Michigan to instead go back towards rural Illinois. That is literally the shittiest thing they could have done.
There wasn't too much to look at as far as water today, the canal in this section has silted over. The animal life took up the slack, putting on a gaudy Broadway show for my eyes. Frogs, birds, and several species of butterflies wowed me all day long, leading me forever onward towards my goal as they fluttered, flew, and hopped along according to their various talents.
In no time I had reached Seneca, where I visited the library and lunched on some Chicago style dogs, one of the greatest examples ever of what can be done with "meat in tube form" to quote Bourdain.
The stop was no more than a speed bump. In no time at all I had reached Marseilles. This town is a great example of the differences between French and American pronunciation. The American city's inhabitants use up all the letters when saying the name, but the French fail to complete the form in its entirety, falling short by the last three symbols. I think you will find such laziness to be standard procedure in the French language.
I digress, of course, let's have an end to such quibbles. My ride is here, cousins Sue and Heather have arrived and the time has come to go home - at least for a few days before the road takes me as its bride again.

15 miles/1208 miles

A Rude Awakening

August 3: One rain drop fell, followed immediately by thousands of like-minded fellows. The hot, stultifying air had caused me to leave the fly off, so I jumped up and raced to apply my rain condom. The wind was still no longer and played havoc with my efforts. As I fumbled with the straps a thick branch came crashing from a tree only a few feet away. Despite the ensuing heart attack I succeeded in connecting with the stakes. I darted back inside to lie on my already soaked sleeping bag and hold the tent together in the fierce wind. Let's just say I've had miserable nights and leave it at that.
I left the debris strewn park around seven, bent on making ground in the early morning hours. Two gentlemen section-biking the canal trail helped me pass the time by stopping to talk with me on a couple of occasions. John and Wayne provided me with a sandwich, water, and a little road money. I know you think I am making those names up, but if so pilgrim, deal with this fact: life is too real for you.
The scenery improved as well. Channahon is the point where the menage a trois of the DuPage, Kankakee, and Des Plaines Rivers converge using an advanced position from the Kama Sutra to become the Illinois River, which means "kinky" in a fictional Indian language of my choosing. The large waterway flowed to my left while the suddenly clear canal lay to my right.
Signs of modern man were lacking for most of the walk. The old canal towns of Aux Sable and Dresden had dried up when the I&M folded in 1933. For once the railroad was not the villain - the more efficient Illinois Waterway spelled the doom of the once vibrant canal.
I did reach civilization around four, arriving in Morris. I dined at Corleone's and moved on to Gebhard Park, after first leaving the gun and taking the cannoli. I was tired, and Gebhard had made me an offer I could not refuse.

15 miles/1193 total miles/2 awful Godfather jokes

On the Rampage

August 2: Outside of having destroyed the city several times, I had never been to Joliet. In real life the first level of "Rampage" lacked the skyscrapers presented by the game, perhaps rightly fearing an attack by a giant lizard, a mutant werewolf, and a King Kong look alike. Another fictional star of Joliet, was in evidence, the drawbridge jumped by "The Blues Brothers." Joliet Jake used an old police car to channel his own inner Evil Knievel. There were actually several drawbridges crossing the river thru town, so I could not determine exactly which one Joliet Jake had flown over.
Joliet got its start as a producer of limestone and the naked cliffs on the river's western shore still bear the scars of its extraction. Later on, in the heyday of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, whose path I will retrace starting here, the town became a huge steel producer. Soda pop is said to originate here, the brain child of merchant John Paige. The dental industry should put up a plaque in his honor next to the man who invented Jolly Ranchers.
The modern town boasts a casino, Harrah's, where residents hit by the hard times can go to bring joy to the lives of themselves and their family by squandering the last of their money.
On the western outskirts of Joliet sits the starting point for the I&M Canal Trail. The original canal stretched from Chicago to Peru, but the Chicago section is now super highway. A desire not to have hikers and bikers demolished by a bus caused this part to be excluded. Like the C&O Canal, the beginning is rather bleak, with a thick algae bloom obscuring any visual evidence of the very existence of the water underneath.
The French originally first conceived of a canal linking the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes, but, being French, they never actually got around to constructing one. Americans convinced their slaves, also known as poor Irish immigrants, to build the project in 1848. The workers were paid partially in whiskey due to the liquor's perceived health benefits and not because they were a bunch of drunks.
While absorbing these bits of knowledge I covered eighteen miles, from New Lenox to Channahon (pronounced Mike Shanahan). I found a cozy campsite near locks six and seven and drifted off to sleep, lightning playing off the clouds in the far distance. The gap would soon be bridged.

18 miles/1178 total miles

Building in Confidence

August 1: I began the day by losing my other Croc, or so I learned later. The first disappeared shortly after I left Sweetser in mid-July. I had continued carrying the other as a reminder to myself that I am a moron. I'll probably forget I am a moron now, which should do loads of good for my self-confidence.
Rides on the L and Metra took me back to Matteson, where I resumed work following the weekend's birthday celebrations. I hit the Old Plank Road again and passed thru a series of Chicago's outer suburbs: Matteson, Frankfort, Mokena, and New Lenox.
The journey was surprisingly serene for all the nearby suburban madness. I first visited the Dewey Helmick Nature Preserve, a wetland densely populated with water fowl of various types. Frankfort boasted their own Prairie Preserve, a small but impressive re-creation of what was once the Midwest's dominant habitat. The occasional J.C. Penney's completed the schizophrenic nature of the surroundings.
I finished up my fifteen mile return to the grind in New Lenox where I was set to meet up with my friend Heather Anton Vitell. Due to a prior commitment, Heather, who lives in Lagrange, sent her father Ralph to extract me.
We had arranged a rendezvous at the library, which, the Old Plank website assured me, was next to the Lion's Den Rec Park. I settled in at the Lion's Den and laid down on a bench, exhausted from the day's labor. It turns out the "adjacent" library is half a mile away, something we both discovered when Ralph arrived and could not find me. We eventually realized the snafu and I was able to track him down and escape the trail for the day.
When we reached Heather's home in Lagrange three ninjas came somersalting over the rug towards me. Charla, Jax, and Jed proved harmless and so did Midas, a dog who lacked the bite to back up his vicious bark.
Ralph and his wife Gail cleared our path of children by taking them out to McDonald's. I was left to enjoy a quiet repast with Heather and her husband Joe at Thippi Thai. The meal was extraordinarily good, proving my theory once again that only Asians or those who submit to the Asian way of cooking (tongue fu) can properly execute the cooking of vegetables.
Heather and Joe were perfect hosts, providing stimulating conversations and rescuing me from the maelstrom three children can create, allowing me to relax. I was able to get a comfortable night's slumber indoors in preparation for a week of camping, where anything can happen and often does. Consider yourselves foreshadowed.

15 miles/1160 total miles

Jets vs Sharks

July 27: Frances filled up my tank with a huge breakfast of hash browns, eggs, and sausage, then made me a sandwich and stocked me with snacks before Eric returned me to the trail. I hit State Line Road running, eager to complete my onslaught on Chicago.
In only an hour I had reached the outlying suburb of Crete and soon pressed on to Steger. I had heard previously that certain areas on the south of the city did not have a reputation as a place to go if you wanted to extend your life. I never felt in any real danger of becoming a statistic on a show about the Bloods, the Crips, the Jets, or the Sharks. The route seemed to me to be very safe, at least at the time of day I passed through.
I was a danger to myself, however, almost walking in front of a turning car while crossing Illinois 1. Fortunately, mangled McCandless was not on the Roadkill Cafe menu this day.
Several long days in a row since Winamac began to take their toll towards the end, making the last few miles a real struggle. I finally reached the Old Plank Road around three. I haven't found the Icehouse plant yet, but trust me, when I do that putrid brew is going down for all the things it has done to my body. Worst. Beer. Ever.
I did spot an extremely photogenic groundhog, who waited patiently at the edge of the bushes while I fumbled around for my camera. Very soon after I found myself staring at the Matteson Metra watching an inbound train for Chicago leave the platform. There would not be another for almost an hour. I was glad to rest a spell at the station, beginning the theme of rest and relaxation that will dominate my birthday weekend in Chicago. I bid you adieu now, til we meet again on the road.

Back with another episode on Monday, August 1. 16 miles/1049 total miles

So You're Saying There's a Chance?

July 26: The second city beckons. Around forty miles still remain until I am in reach of a Chicago area Metra station. I began my march unsure of whether to try to attempt to make up the difference in two days or three. My pace was good at first and after less than two hours I had reached State Line Road, the end of Indiana if I could only stay on the left side of the thoroughfare.
My eyes got a much-earned respite from the corn and soy extravaganza when I reached the Kankakee River flood plain. The terrain there was reminiscent of the C&O Canal, although there has never to my knowledge ever been a canal there. The Kankakee snaked back and forth in spine-jarring ess curves to my left. Over to the right was a swampy area similar to the wetlands much of the old C&O canal has devolved into over the years.
The bridge which crosses the river has been closed to car traffic and is used now only as a pedestrian path and fishing pier. The water sits only a couple of feet below the span, a reminder that its potential destruction is only one heavy rainstorm away.
Upon passage of the flood plain, the old standby of farmland returned and I spent the remainder of the trek on State Line Road, where I am doomed to spend nineteen consecutive miles, putting one foot in front of the other. As the day wore on I grew fatigued and I was forced to stop more and more often. I was without a definite place to stay and had to pace myself, not knowing just how far away my home for the night was exactly. A water source was also lacking.
My savior came in the form of Eric Goetz, a master builder who had been appointed by the neighbors to check me out and make sure I was kosher. I don't know if I would have gained a rabbi's stamp, but Eric seemed to approve of my mission nonetheless. He filled my bottles and offered to pick me up where I finished up that night and take me back to his home for dinner and a good night's sleep.
The knowledge that I now had a place to stay re-energized me and I made quick time for the next two and a half hours until my appointed pickup time at five thirty. When all was said and done I had knocked out sixteen of the nineteen miles on State Line. Including the five miles spent heading out of Lake Village toward the border, I had completed twenty one on the day. Chicago is now well within range.
Back at Eric's home in Indiana (alas, I had to cross back over the line) I met his wife Frances. They are proud parents of eight children, all now adults (the youngest is twenty two), and fourteen grandchildren, with another on the way. Together the couple runs a construction company and operate a large farm, quite a hefty undertaking. Their willingness to look after me is only the more astounding when put in this light.
Frances also introduced me to a new culinary delight, a Hoosier sensation known as the pork burger. Using a ground version of an animal that squeals rather than moos may sound revolutionary, but trust me, the concoction works. I shall bring the good news of this revelation back to the brethren in South Carolina.
After the meal we went back to Eric and Frances' deck and relaxed amidst the cool night air. We talked and listened to the soothing cooing of the morning dove. While in Indiana the dove became my own personal Bob Marley, letting me know that every little thing is gonna be alright.

21 miles/1033 total miles

Thanks to all my new friends in Indiana:
Dawn and Sarah Crone
Mike Vernon
Steve Foster
Carol Impala
Joey Kubesch
Jo
Pastor Jan
Frank and P.T. in Sweetser
Tammy, Justin, Ethan, Rachel and Bethany Perry
Kent
Faith
Gus and Alyssa Nyberg
Nikki Hanger
Eric and Frances Goetz
Macy Elevator, Donna and Brenda
Tom at Hoosier Hideaway
Jill and Bob
Megan, Brent, Paul, and Mel
Guy who handed me a beer while I was walking
The Unknown Hoosier (or whose name I have forgotten in the sun)