8/11/18: Great River Trail in Illinois: Savanna to Fulton

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Another great ride today. This time on pavement. (It took us several hours to get the trikes clean after the Jane Addams Trail yesterday, so pavement was in order for today.) Another hot and muggy day, so we started early again. 

The Great River Trail follows the Mississippi River for 62 miles from Savanna to Moline, with towns every few miles and camping along its route. There is an Army Corps of Engineers campground at Thomson Causeway with hot showers and an island causeway.

We talked with staff at the Freeport Bicycle Co. in Freeport the day after we rode and they had high praise for the rest of the trail from Fulton to Moline.

8/14/18: North Branch Trail to Chicago Botanic Gardens with deep dish finish

WOOHOO!!! Leslie's trike issues are FINALLY completely solved, and we're off on a shakeout ride. Another big thank you to the staff at Amlings Cycles here in Chicago, Rocky Mountain Recumbents in Fort Collins, and Stefan at HP Velotechnik, for all of their support.

We began our ride today on the North Branch Trail from Miami Woods, a prairie preserve area in the Cook County Forest Preserve system. Our route was recommended by the knowledgeable and friendly staff at Amlings Cycles. The Miami Woods trail head is a short bike ride away from Amlings in the Village of Niles, a Chicago suburb. 

The North Branch Bicycle Trail is a lovely curvy paved trail that is tree lined for much of its route. This is clearly a purpose-built trail, rather than just a simple paved former rail right of way conversion, and the result is delightful. With the hot muggy temperatures, we're enjoying the shade cover.

Our goal for today was to ride to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. The Gardens encourages alternative forms of transportation by offering free admission but charging $25 to park a car. They provide deluxe and plentiful bike parking right in front of the Visitor's Center. 

Of course once we arrived, our first stop had to be the model train garden. They featured G-scale (Garden Scale) trains with run from April through October each year. It was a trip across the U.S. in miniature, from Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty. As casual model railroad tourists, this is the most extensive example of a garden railway installation we've experienced. All of the modeling in the scenery used entirely organic materials: bark, sticks, flowers, plants, stones. Leslie would have preferred structures that were more true to life in the materials used, but can appreciate the plant-based theme.

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Wrigley Field

Yellowstone Lodge

Old Faithful

John Muir home in Martinez, CA

Mesa Verde

Frank Lloyd Wrights' Fallingwater, Mill Run, PA

Next, we sampled some of the other gardens. The Botanic Garden is overwhelming in size, and on this hot muggy day we had to budget our energy wisely. We opted for an example of an early botanic garden, focused on plants with medicinal uses. This water garden display was beautiful. Check out the platter-like lily pad in one of the shots...

We never did find out who this fellow was... 

The rose garden was magnificent. Here's a sampling.

And a couple shots from the tram tour...

Then it was back to bicycling the lovely trail. After that, based on recommendations from Amlings Cycle Shop, we stopped at the Pequod Pizzeria for authentic deep dish Chicago pizza. Yummy!!

A good day. 31 miles, all paved, hot, humid, but the shade and breeze from riding was wonderful.