Trish & Phill's Tandem TransAmerican

Tour 2003 

June 3 Chester - Pilot Knob (69.5)mi               Trish's Birthday

The group gave me a birthday card this morning that they all signed very thoughtful of them all.

The day didn't start out the best this morning 2 minutes into the ride we had a split in the tyre, we turned around took all the gear off the bike while Phill and Brian fixed it.  What was going to be an early start ended up around 10am (usually 8ish). This was our 3rd tyre so far and about 4 inner-tubes. We lost one tyre in a blow out another with a buldge in the wall and today this blowout on the side.

Chester is the home town of the creator of Popeye. They have a small museum in town and a statue is dedicated to him (Popeye). Even the local police have Popeye on their shirts. How could you take a policeman too serious when he has that on his shirt. He'd pull out his gun and you'd wonder if it was real or maybe a water pistol.

This morning we crossed the Mississippi river and in doing so entered our forth state - Missouri. One of the funny things we noticed right away is that the road system has letters not numbers. Ah ha Phill thinks there must only be 26 roads in this state, however these people have that covered they run out of ABC's and start on AA BB and so on - different eh!

Today is probably the worse day of the whole trip for me, (Trish)  I was so tired my legs only just turned the peddles, I had no energy at all my spirits were quite low and this was going to be a very long day.  We had only been on the road about 30 mins and the wind, hills & rain were all to much, I just turned each peddle with so much effort.

By the time we stopped for a bite to eat I thought I could not go any further,  not long after we stopped the leader Brian came up to us and he felt exactly the same and then the more we got to talking to all the others they felt the same I felt so much better knowing it was just par for the course after all the cycling we had been doing.

We were about a mile away from the camp ground when a spoke went in the front wheel (what next I thought)

The ride was bloody hard work but was made up for by Sue and Gene cooking me a special birthday dinner, we even had a birthday cake with a musical candle and pecan ice cream yogurt it was delicious.  Brian picked me a bunch of wild flowers which was so sweet and they looked lovely on the table and if that wasn't enough a room was rented at the campsite which we all used for a shower and clean up but as it was my birthday we got to sleep in the bed, it was fantastic and I thank them all for making my day a special one after starting out terrible.

I would also like to thank everyone for there birthday wishes, cards and phone calls.

Page owned & maintained by Trish Collins email to  trishphill@aapt.net.au.  Last Updated 28/07/2003