Thursday, August 12, 2021

Biking on the Mississippi

We have biked each day, going a little further each time, and building up our leg muscles, stamina and endurance (enduring the saddle sores from those bike seats 😁).

Our first short ride took us by one of several John Deere manufacturing plants in East Moline (8 miles round trip).  

The next day we rode up river to Port Byron where the world famous Tug Fest will be held on Saturday.  This is a tug-of-war between Illinois and Iowa across the wide and mighty Mississippi River. It takes four teams of 20 strong men and one team of 25 strong women to compete. Of course, there are many other fun activities surrounding the event like carnival rides and arm wrestling and beer drinking. (15 miles round trip)

Today we did the mother of all rides - I may be exaggerating a bit - all the way down to Davenport and Rock Island thru Moline.  A ride of 28 miles!  The path took us thru some nice parks, industrial areas and across the River.  We saw more John Deere plants and visited the John Deere store but sadly the museum was closed for updating.  We had lunch in downtown Rock Island and then rode across an ancient iron bridge that at one time also accommodated a railroad track on its upper level and cars on the lower level.  The pedestrian lane was on the side. Not much to see in downtown Davenport so didn’t stay long.  We also visited Sullivan Island where steel mills once thrived but is now covered by nature.

The weather has been quite warm but a cloudy sky has kept it from being miserable. 

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