September 12, 2014
Today was bittersweet. It’s the last day of our ride, which has been truly a BLAST! But, it’s cold, rainy, cloudy, windy and 37 miles to our final destination in Grafton, IL where there is a plate of fish tacos with our names on it at the Loading Dock. We are so grateful to the Lord for watching over us, for ordering our steps to meet some awesome people and hopefully in some small way, bring more awareness to ALS. As most of you know, we dedicated this ride to Don Stewart who has survived ALS for the last 7 years.
Our first stop off was in Old St. Charles at the Katy Trail Cafe, which had a bike shop and served some of the best Caramel Macchiatos we had the pleasure of drinking in a while. It also was a good chance to get warmed up and look around a bit. There was a carnival being set up for that weekend, so it was pretty busy down on the riverfront.
Just past St. Charles we rode out into a clearing and got a chance to stop and watch several deer feeding out in a field with a large buck standing back in the distance keeping an eye on his group of female deer.
Once we got to the Black Walnut Trailhead, we jumped off the trail which only had 2 miles left (avoiding more thorns) and rode Hwy H and J into Portage Des Sioux. We stopped at a country market there and had a quick hot dog before riding our final 5 miles to the Grafton Ferry. As we stood there on the banks of the Illinois River waiting for the ferry, we were shocked to look behind us as a car pulled up only to discover it was my sister Kelly and my brother in law, Mark who was here visiting from Des Moines IA for a family reunion. It was awesome to be able to ride the ferry over to Grafton with them and have someone to celebrate the end of our ride with!
Here is Brian’s narrative of the ferry ride:
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