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.