Katy Trip for September is getting in Shape

Have the train reservations set up for getting to Sedalia and probably a stay at the Hotel Bothwell and some place to stay for all but one night, the last night, on the trail before getting to the eastern end at St. Charles. Really looking forward to caching, benchmark hunting, wine tasting and maybe even buying a corn cob pipe in Washington at the Meeerschaum corn cob pipe factory and museum. Oh, yeah, the bike riding will be great, too. Also, don't want to miss the Augusta Brewing Company in Augusta. It's on a little hill just by the trail and doesn't look like a lot but the 3 times I've eaten there the food and beer has been great. The wineries in Augusta are also good but visiting them would mean a bike ride up a hill and don't know if my brother and I will be up to that.

Katy Trip and Wanderings in Indiana

The Katy Trip is coming along slowly. Have reservations from central Illinois to Sedalia. Haven't figured it out from there. Hope to do about 50-60 miles a day and at least get by the corn cob pipe factory. Other than that, not sure about the rest yet.

Did a little caching coming up through southern Indiana with my new caching toy, the iphone caching app. That is pretty neat but hard for me to get used to the way the map shows on the screen. Found two caches and a TB in Jasper, IN, with the iphone. Could have found many more if I'd had time. There is a neat restaurant called the Mill House at 1340 Mill Street in Jasper. Has a really nice wasabi salmon salad at a very reasonable price. The service is also very good. You'll have to look that one up on your smartphone or gps because it is not easy to find that Mill House in a residential area of Jasper.

Katy Trail Trip This Coming Fall

My brother and I are planning to do a bike trip on the Katy Trail, which goes east west in Missouri, this coming fall. We haven't finalized plans yet but so far are planning on starting as close to the western end of the trail around Clinton, MO, as we can and come back east to St. Charles, a little north of St. Louis. We will probably spend either five or six full days pedaling on the trail and camp some days and stay in B & Bs other nights. Still working on whether we'll take an Amtrak or rental car to the west end.

There are a lot caches along the trail and in the little towns along the trail and there should be a number of benchmarks as well. So, I'll be researching the overnight stops and the geocaches along the route and checking out the Amtrak schedule and hope to leave plans here as they develop.

Have a very good book on the trail written by a fellow who owns a campground and bookstore along the way. I'll definitely get full use of that. Will list the name of the book on here.

I put in a note on the last blog here that I visited a neat restaurant called Lynn's Paradise in Louisville, KY. Here is a night time picture of the restaurant with the moon in the background at the upper right corner of the photo.

Louisville is a pretty flat area and seems to be good for bicycling and there are a number of caches in the area I want to search for next time I'm there. Let me know of any good caches and bike trails, etc you know of in the Louisville area.

Louisville area Visit

Went to West Virginia last week and on the way went to Louisville, KY. Stayed at the Tucker House Bed and Breakfast and visited Lynn's Paradise Cafe. Both were well worth the experience. The Tucker House is operated by Devona and Steve Porter. They are very nice, the rooms we saw were furnished nicely with antiques and it is in a pretty setting just out of the business of Louisville. Lynn's is a great restaurant in Louisville which has great funky tables and decorations that kids will love. Every table seems to be different and have games on them for the kids to play. If you like the games they are for sale along with a lot of other neat stuff in the gift shop in the front of the restaurant. Oh, and the food is great, too. I mean, fried green tomatoes. Who can't like those? We also went to the Bluegrass Brewing Company, a nice microbrewery that has two locations around Louisville. There are lots of places we want to see on future trips to Louisville.

Going to list some more on geocaching, benchmark hunting, and bicycling soon. Right now doing indoor workouts and spinnng at Gold's Gym in Bloomington, IL. The Gold's Gym is not perfect but pretty nice and hope to get ready for this 175-mile bicycle ride next summer by working out at Golds. I'm not getting any money for listing Golds here. And, I'd encourage anyone who can to go to a gym, any gym, especially in the winter, if you live in areas like Illinois that have nasty winters where you have limited exercise possibilities for months at a time.

Before the weather went bad, I did a lot of servicing of my geocaches by bicycle. I have several on the Constitution Trail here in Bloomington/Normal, Illinois, and check them a lot by bike because it's the easiest way to check them relatively fast and get some exercise at the same time. I also have a lot of caches in the country south of Bloomington I check on regularly by bicycle. I could probably get in a 60 or 70 mile ride by checking them all the same day. Have never done that but think I'll try that next spring. I'm sure it would be at least 70 if I went to the furtherest north on the Constitution Trail GC1T3XTand then to the ones in Lexington, Illinois; GC1CXWK and GC1DHNC.

Traverse City and Old Mission Peninsula, Michigan

Went to the nice northern Michigan community of Traverse City last weekend and found a few caches. Didn't try bicycling in the area this time for any geocaches or benchmarks but did hit the lighthouse on the Old Mission Peninsula to the north of Traverse City, an interesting microbrewery called North Peak Brewing Company in Traverse City and enjoyed the great colors. We also went to three wineries. One was the Peninsula Cellars, in a 19th century schoolhouse 6 miles north of Traverse City. The others were Black Star Farms. and Chateau Chantal. On the way up we stopped at a restaurant called Clementines in South Holland and tried a seasonal brew from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo. On the way back, we went to New Holland Brewery in Holland, Michigan.

I will list the geocaches I did find there on this blog soon. Most of them would be great to find on a bike and the Old Mission Peninsula website cited above lists a good place to start your bicycle touring of the beautiful area. There are also lots of places to buy local apples, cherries, and other produce in the area.

Route 66 2009 Publicity Bicycle Ride

Last week I went on two days of a bike ride along the old Route 66. The goal of the St. Louis to Chicago ride was to publicize and encourage bicycle touring along the old Route 66. It was organized under the auspices of the League of Illinois bicyclists. About 30 people did the entire six-day ride which must have been fantastic. A large contingent of the riders seemed to be from the Mclean County Wheelers bike club based in Mclean County, Illinois. Now, after only doing two days of the ride, I wish I had done the whole ride, except maybe the part from Joliet, Illinois, to Chicago. I'm not real excited about the idea of trying to ride in the urban Chicago area. I do hope to ride some or all of the remainder of the old Route 66 some day. At least the Illinois part. The photo accompanying this blog was taken of most of the group at a former Route 66 service station in the Bloomington, Illinois, to Pontiac area.

Fly Fishing and Fly Tying

I rode my bicycle down to a local lake and caught the bass in the picture with this blog on a fly I tied myself in a class I went to last winter. It is so neat to be able to tie flies, fish with them and catch fish. It isn't a very big bass but it's the first one over a few inches long I've caught with one of my own flies. If you ever get a chance you may want to learn to tie flies.

St. Albans, West Virginia, Alban Theatre Restored

Not too long ago I went back to my hometown and heard that the old theatre I went to when I was a kid has been restored. I wasn't able to get inside of it on the day I was there but the outside sure looks nice.

Buckeye Lake, Ohio

Trying to catch up here on posts. I recently went to Buckeye Lake, east of Columbus, Ohio, and enjoyed some boating with the family as well as taking an 8 or so mile bicycle ride to a neat little nearby town. Ate at a restaurant the Old Canal, that is on the remains of a canal. You can rent bicycles or canoes out of this place or just eat there. The pictures are of the 3-story yellow concrete house I stayed in and of a marina where there is a restaurant that sometimes has entertainment down the lake from the house. There are lots of interesting things around this area to see but one can only see so much in one day. Didn't even pick up any benchmarks or caches while there.

My Benchmark Contest Standing

I forgot to list on here that I came in 7th or 8th in the benchmark logging contest this spring. Didn't put the ummph in it this time I did the first one when I took third place. There just aren't that many within easy access that I haven't found already. If there is another benchmarking contest I'll have to stake out a new area where there are quite a few new to me that are available.

Bike Riding and Benchmark Hunting on West Virginia's Fantastic North Bend Rail Trail

My brother and I took a 2-day trip a few weeks ago on the North Bend Rail Trail which is between Clarksburg and Parkersburg in north central West Virginia. l'm going to list some comments on the rail trail trip and a few more pictures for anyone interested in riding the North Bend Trail. We stayed in the lodge at the North Bend State Park, near the west end of the trail. There are 10 tunnels and about 25 bridges on the trail as well as some interesting little towns along the over 70-mile trail.. There are also two places which make custom marbles and marble like glass. One we went by is Sam's Crystal Creations. The other one is in Davis Marbles in Pennsboro. They have a nice storefront in this friendly little town and an amazing array of marbles, paperweights and various similar pieces of glass and also will make custom marbles.

I've downloaded a few pictures of the trip but have only posted one picture of the 20 benchmarks I photographed and posted on the geocaching.com benchmark database. This one, which you see in the pictures with this post was at the West Entrance of Tunnel 6 on the trail near West Union. The original, put there in 1943, was destroyed and this one, called a Reset, was put in in 1963. You can look up my others listings on there under wvhillbilly59. I may list some comments on the benchmarks in future blog posts on here but all of the postings I made are on the geocaching.com database.

I will soon be listing some more information on my bicycle geocaching and benchmark hunting. But, right now I want to register my disbelief that the RIAA has won the outrageous case against the poor young lady of some $80,000 for every record she supposedly illegally copied. This is such a ridiculous miscarriage of so-called justice and such an example of part of what is wrong with this country now, big business with their armies of lawyers being such a bullies and such jerks.  If recording industry executives and artists got paid a little less than their outrageously obscene amounts of money they do, the recordings could be so much less expensive and more people would be willing to pay a reasonable price for their music. Instead, the industry charges obscene prices and behaves like gestapo storm troopers (think brainless money grubbing lawyers) in cases like this.   

I haven't been on here for a way too long but have been doing a lot of stuff I'll list soon.  One thing is trying to find out more about the benchmark I'm putting in this post. I pass it often on my bicycle rides.   It's between a couple of tiny towns,  Ellsworth and Cooksville - both in Illinois - I go through often while trying to put more miles in my rides.

I've been taking part in a very small contest to see who could photograph and verify the most benchmarks in a three month period this spring.  

I've also been setting out a series of  geocaches that are easily accessible by bicycle.  Actually, I go from one to the other checking them during my regular rides around Bloomington/Normal, illinois.  

I've been doing some bicycle based searching for benchmarks lately.  I'm trying to combine training for a one-day, 160-mile, bike ride and searching for benchmarks for a benchmarking contest I'm participating in.  Figure that's the only way I'm going to get to do both. Now, if I can just get the Central Illinois spring weather to participate.  The 4-6 inches of snow they are predicting tonight sure isn't helping.  Here is a photo of one of the recent benchmarks I found. I looked for this one for probably at least an hour a year or two ago and then, earlier this month, managed to find it under several inches of still dead winter grass and a few inches of dirt. This particular one is between Bloomington and McLean, Illinois, about 40 feet off of the old Route 66. There are a lot along the old Route 66 just between Bloomington and Chicago. I'm going to be trying to find as many as possible of the ones that still exist between Joliet and Alton, which is most of the old Route 66 area in Illinois.  A lot of this I'll combine with getting ready for that long bike ride, the RAIN Ride, which is across Indiana in mid July.  

I'm now in a new benchmark hunting contest run out of the benchmarking news groups.  I've been doing most of the searching this time on my bicycle.  It's a three month contest and I'm trying to get in shape to go on a one-day, 170-mile bicycle ride so riding around searching for benchmarks is a great excuse to put on the miles on the bike. So far, I've ridden nearly 100 miles on a bike searching for these marks.  Will put more in here including some pictures as I go along. The major problem now is for me to remember how it has to be documented on the benchmark news groups.  I did it a couple of years ago but just can't remember now exactly how I listed my finds and attached pictures as well.  

Haven't been adding to this lately. While it isn't bicycling weather in the midwest, I'm going to begin adding to the webpage this is off of "bicyclegpsing.com" and adding as many bike accessible caches and benchmarks as I can find. Please let me know of any in your area.

Just put in two caches that I like to bicycle about 15 miles to: GC1CXWK,  RT66:IL Historic Lexington and GC1C8RT, RT66-IL: South of Lexington,  the first of which is just south of Lexington, IL, on the side of the old Route 66. The second one is at the northeast edge of Lexington but is a multi requiring running all over Lexington and learning some about its history.  I'll try to include some pictures soon.  These are both going to eventually be listed on a website promoting caches along the old Route 66,called Route 66 Geocaching. So far, it only has caches in Illinois and Missouri but has hopes of eventually having listings all across the old Route 66 area.  One of these days, I want to cache along at least the Illinois Route 66 on a bicycle.  

Finally getting back to caches

Finally picked up a couple more caches.  Found two caches and almost found another in Lincoln, IL.  It was too cool for me to find these on bicycle but they certainly could have been found by bike.  One of the ones I found was GC12P3Q, Tribute to Flight, is beside the Heritage in Flight museum at the Lincoln, Illinois, Air Force museum.  One of these days I want to go to the museum, which I understand is very nice.   Picked up a TB there and dropped off a geocoin.  It's a really nice cache.   Another I found was No Cash Cache GCH2X1 an urban micro in dire need of help at this point.  I didn't have an extra log or other stuff to help it out or I'd have taken care of it. The best one would have been the one I ALMOST caught, of course. It was a multi featuring several of the connections this little midwestern town, Lincoln, IL, had to Abraham Lincoln.  It was the first town named after him before he died, for instance. Anyway, I got to the final stage of GCA848, Abe in Lincoln, and within about 200 feet of the cache in a nice park when my GPS batteries died.  Of course, that NEVER happens when I have extra batteries.  I'll have to go back again this spring and try it again.    All of these caches could easily have been done by bike.  This last one would be best done by a mountain bike, at least the last 1/3 of a mile of it.   One of these days I'll list some of these on my webpage on bike trails suitable for bicycling. I'm going to try to do a list of caches and, I hope, benchmarks near the old Route 66 as I bike ride it from near St. Louis to Chicago.  I'll probably do it in two trips of at least two days each.