The Sure Thing is one of my favorite movies of all time. I won’t go so far as to claim that it is, say, a work of epic filmmaking, it came out when I was at essentially the perfect age to appreciate it. I’ve seen in many, many times and when I was younger, would find myself closely identifying with John Cusack’s devil-may-care Walter “Gib” Gibson. This is somewhat ironic as, if I’m being honest, I am probably considerably more like Daphne Zuniga’s Allison, who firmly believes in spontaneity, but only in its time and place...

This shows when I go riding. The overwhelming majority of the time I follow pre-planned routes that I either know well, or have at least driven out ahead of time so I know what I will encounter. I want to know, particularly for a longer ride, that I’m not going to encounter too many obstacles - high traffic roadways, dead ends, and - always - the dreaded gravel. Every now and again, though, I decide to throw caution to the wind. Well, sort of. There’s a side road off of one of my common routes that, despite growing up here, I was pretty sure I’d never been down. As I was looking at Google Maps trying to sort out a new route for some variety I eyed that road, and tried to picture it. I like to think I have a pretty good memory, but I could not recall whether it was gravel or paved. To be honest, the fact that I hadn’t ridden down it made the odds good that it was gravel. Otherwise it would probably already have tried it out. I thought about just riding out and just having a look, figuring I could take a more familiar route if it was gravel. But my inner Allison took over - I wanted that variety, but only in its time and place. So I hopped in the car and drove out to take a look. Yup - gravel. At first I just turned around and started to head for home, but I still wanted that variety, wanted to try out a different route. So I backup up and decided to at least drive down the road to take a look. I was glad I did. The quality of the road was poor - which is to say: good for cycling. It wasn’t quite hero gravel, but worn enough to make it amenable to riding. Plus, it was only gravel for about 3/4 of a mile, and then it turned to asphalt. I followed it out another couple of miles down the route that I was planning on trying to be sure that it didn’t return to gravel - it didn’t. I sat at the next stop sign and considered continuing to drive out the perspective route and then thought “no - I’ll just ride it out and take what comes”. Spontaneous, right? Gib Gibson for the win! I went home and geared up and headed out.

Once I hit the turn to gravel I was pleased to find that it’s actual tactile surface matched my visual assessment. It was smooth enough to let me catch a little video of it.

I don’t love that the first little bit of the pavement also ran along I-39 - highway noises and views are never anything that I’m looking for - but the new route fairly quickly started offering views of new things, which is what I was looking for. The first being this old soul:

This one was pretty special to me, as it appears to be perhaps the only other house in the area on what might be the same floorplan as my own 1860’s house. Mine is fortunately in better shape. And seeing this more or less confirms I’ve never gone this way before - I’d remember this.

Once I rode away from the Old Soul I started to ride towards the little town of Earlville, with a goal of hitting the northeastern end of town before turning north for the return trip. And as my initial assessment suggestion, the first few miles after that were lightly traveled Illinois asphalt backroad - which, aside from the occasional expansion joint, is truly a wonderful thing.

In my head I thought this road would take me straight into the back end of Earlville, but I clearly hadn’t looked at map closely enough. If I had, I would have accounted for this:

I’ve been living around trains like this most of my life. But I’ve never caught one on video before, and I wasn’t in a hurry, so I parked myself and the phone and I watched it go by.

Unfortunately, after it passed, I was faced with the very reason I tend to agree with Allison’s attitude regarding spontaneity:

It was gravel in both directions, and the other way would have taken me over to US 34, which is a major two-lane highway, so I figured I’d just need to suck it up. Besides, probably the intersection ahead would yield way to asphalt. Right?

Nope. I took my right turn on to still more gravel - another mile of it. As a bonus, just as I rounded the corner I encountered a pickup coming from the other way. I prepared to be bathed in gravel dust, but he kindly slowed down and minimized the cloud following him. And the next corner yielded way to pavement. I figured I was out of the woods - or the rocks - and continued to ride into the back end of Earlville.

The tracks flow straight into this side of the town, so I encountered them again, as well as the agricultural structures that go with them.

And I encountered them again one more time as I headed northward out of town (the line runs at an angle as it takes its way towards Chicago).

Just north of Earlville taking main street north the route crosses a little stream. The bridge across is one with a plaque, though it’s not very descript, as these things go.

But the stream itself was worth stopping and spending a few minutes by:

And then I got the pedals spinning, now starting the road back towards home. I was familiar with parts of the road back - parts closer to home - and they were all tar and chip, so I assumed this would be the case all the way back.

I was wrong.

About a mile and a half down the path it betrayed me. I saw the rock approaching and, frankly, my heart fell.

You know, the one time Allison goes ahead and gets spontaneous, she gets the whole car pulled over, and gets the driver (Tim Robbins) ticketed for, among other things, a load not properly tied down. That’s how I feel when I encounter unexpected gravel, and this was the second such occasion.

But there was no way to avoid it without backtracking, so I decided to chalk it up to experience and embrace it.

Turns out there were a couple of things to see along the way.

Along a little crick there was a patch of false sunflowers. A closer look yielded some nature underway.

And this fine fellow was hanging out on the road with me as well.

As I said my goodbyes to the fine fellow in the roadway and proceeded along the rock. After another mile or so it again returned to asphalt. For another two miles or so, at which point it shifted back to gravel.

At this point I was more familiar with the territory, so I went a mile to the south and took familiar pavement the rest of the way home. Well, familiar, except for this:

Yup - that appears to be a cannon - or a facsimile thereof - in the front yard. They are ready for something.

Gravel aside, it was still a good day - any day on the trike is a good day, as far as that goes. And I got to see things that I’ve literally never seen before. So maybe this was the time and place for a little spontaneity...

Applied Life

Going Off Track /October 11, 2020 by Erin Wade

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