USNA 1973 Ride-2-Remember

Day 42, 14 September: East Moline to Princeton, IL

Iowa gave us a great send-off yesterday as we rode the Mississippi River Trail through the towns of Davenport and Bettendorf and over “Old Man River” into East Moline, Illinois. Today Illinois treated us to the Hennepin Canal Parkway Trail for the majority of our 61-mile ride. In my opinion it was one of the most relaxing rides to date. Not much elevation change, no car and truck traffic, pretty scenery and pretty good riding surfaces. The Hennepin Canal was constructed from 1892 to 1907 to connect the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. We rode the towpaths adjacent to the canal.

Our day started early as usual with morning temperatures in the mid-40s rising to mid-70s by the end of our ride in Princeton, Illinois. You can feel the high humidity difference from our mornings out west. It sure is feeling and looking more and more like Autumn every day.

After going through East Moline we entered the bike path (towpath). As you can see in the pictures, it was a wonderful experience for us.

As we progressed along the trail, we stopped at what appeared to be a working lock.

Now for the exciting part of our ride. Our mile 30 rest stop was to be the last we would see of Dave on this ride.

Dave was equipped with all the latest high tech gadgets and communication systems to make sure you cannot get lost. Dave did just that, he got lost, as he careened off on a towpath heading 180 degrees from the correct track. We tried everything to try to reach Dave to find out where he was and turn him around as you can see in the picture below. All to no avail.

After veering off course for about 15 miles, Dave arrived at what he thought was mile 45 expecting to see Sally and the support vehicle. He then called Sally to inquire where she was. Sally said she was at mile 45 per plan. Dave then realized he was off course. Mark also noticed an unusual location for Dave’s AirTag and called Sally, who by then was on the way to pick Dave up. We did have fun for the remainder of the day at Dave’s expense. Dave made this relaxing ride quite a bit more exciting.

Tom Tesoriero