The Wonder Bread truck driver is having a bad day.
I’ve just walked into Goreville’s Dollar General on Thursday afternoon and Wonder dude is leaning over his hand truck, now freed of its glutinous burden, and working on unloading his own. “I mean, I’m not allowed to be on Facebook, but she’s friends with her ex-boyfriends!” Dollar guy listens with silent empathy, as Wonder dude rails against the double-standard and his implied fears that he might be losing his woman.
I leave them to some measure of privacy as I drift aimlessly through the grocery store, playing the endlessly frustrating game called “what do I want to eat in the Dollar General?” It’s basically an amped-up 7-11 with some housewares mixed in. On one glorious occasion, I encountered a DG with a miniature produce section, including some bagged spinach, bananas, and blueberries. No such luck this time. But, I’ve got a microwave, and they’ve got bags of frozen rice and vegetables, along with some hard-boiled eggs. Could be worse.
As I approach the counter to check out, Wonder dude wraps up his tirade and Dollar guy speaks for the first time: “I totally hear you, man. Believe me, I hear you.” And with that, Wonder dude is out the door and I’m out $9.94.
The post office is my other stop, and one of the reasons I pushed a fast pace today. I’ve got new shoes waiting for me, courtesy of mom. It takes a few minutes, because the lady at the counter is speaking with an older patron, who feigns outrage over the cost of shipping a package. (Looking later at the $20 it cost mom to ship my shoes, I’m right there with her.) The postal clerk spars jovially and then adds some measure of seriousness to the discussion, noting that the woman looked much better than the last time she saw her. “Oh yeah,” she cackles. “Last time I was here, I somehow ended up walking sideways out of here. I don’t even know what was going on. But now they’ve got me on steroids, so I’m feeling much better. It won’t last long, so I’m going to get the most I can out of it while the getting’s good.” And with that, she half-staggers, half-moonwalks out of the post office.
The postal clerk is rightly impressed by my shiny new shoes. They provide a natural conversation starter, given that it’s uncommon for someone to receive a fresh pair of shoes via general delivery at a post office. After we talk a little about what I’ve been doing, she pauses and then asks: “Do you like talking with people in all of these small towns?”
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It’s Tuesday morning. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. While the opening leg of this walk, winding westward from Shawneetown to the Shawnee National Forest, remains roadbound, it’s a farewell of sorts. Southern Illinois promises one of the most extended stretches of off-road walking of this part of the ADT, overlapping with the River-to-River trail, which links the Ohio and the Mississippi. This is the most sparsely settled terrain I’ve encountered, too, with very limited resupply opportunities. Certainly nothing today.
I pop in at the Double M Campground. Despite being closed, one of the proprietors comes out to help advise me on the next stretch, following a dirt road through their property to the RTR. She comes out once with a nub of an idea. She returns later with a detailed map for me of all trails through the area. She appears a third time with exactly what I needed to hear. With that, I’m on my way, merrily into the woods.
The trail seems lightly traveled, with perhaps as many horses passing through as hikers. As elsewhere around here, spiders and deer predominate, the former slowing my progression as I fight my way through abundant networks of webs. Nonetheless, though, the walking is good, and I’m upbeat. And before long, huge rock formations begin to coalesce around me, a sign that I’m arriving at my day’s destination, Illinois’s version of the Garden of the Gods. I head to the campground to set up shop. I gave myself a lighter day to make sure I’d have plenty of juice to troll around the area, and everything played out as hoped.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a tremendous gust of wind rips through the trees and a thunderclap crashes overhead. The campground’s toilets are 50 meters ahead and I bolt for them, arriving just as the downpour hits. I’m there for the next four hours, sitting in the dark, mercifully lightly fragrant space, as the gods water their gardens something awful. Accuweather warns me to not even think about going outside, so I hunker down and eat peanut butter.
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Accuweather doesn’t want me to go outside on Wednesday, either. Thunderstorms are promised this afternoon and those might be a mercy; before they arrive, Accuweather projects that the temperature will hit a “RealFeel” of 104 degrees.
Hot and humid is a special kind of miserable. Nothing encapsulates it for me quite as much as when my sunglasses get dirty and I move to clean them off. The problem: there isn’t a square inch of dryness on any of my clothes. My shirt is soaking. My pants, from belt to legs, are miserably damp. I have nothing at-hand with which to wipe them dry, so then I have two options: leave them dirty or look through hopelessly smudged lenses. This sounds like “first world problems” style moaning, and I recognize that it is on many levels, but it represents the inescapability of wetness in a humid land. It doesn’t take five minutes of being out and active for dryness to be irrevocably displaced.
After yesterday’s close call, I’m not messing around today. After a short break in Herod, a small village with a friendly church about five miles from Garden of the Gods, I power through the next 17 miles to Eddyville. Despite having a population of 100-150 people, it’s a veritable metropolis compared to what I’ve seen over the previous two days, and most consequentially it still has a restaurant. I slide into a chair, leaning resignedly back against the wall, and wait for a few minutes to catch the waitress’s attention. The restaurant is completely empty, but she’s watching Days of Our Lives, and I know better than to interrupt that. She attends to me with an economy of words, taking my order as efficiently as possible and then delivering my meal with minimal pomp. Maybe she reads a lack of engagement on my face; maybe she reads heat stroke. I’m happy to sit, to drink, and to evaluate. While I had planned to stay at a campground a mile north of here, tomorrow’s forecast–potential for thunderstorms all day long–gets my attention. The skies are still blue for now, so I decide to roll the dice and push through five more miles, to make tomorrow more manageable. It’s going to suck.
In the end, it wasn’t terrible. The trail provided plenty of shade and the thunderstorms held off long enough to let me complete the walk. The route meandered wildly through the woods, often leading along trails that had dense, knee-high plant growth and hoofprints pooled full of rainwater, so the going was slow, but no complaints.
I crossed into the Bay Creek Campground around 5:30pm. The office was empty. Hell, the whole camp was empty. I notice that a small house near the front has a couple of vehicles by it, so I knock (ignoring several signs warning me about the dog inside that would love to sever my carotid artery) and meet an older lady. “Hi, sorry to bother you. There wasn’t anybody in the office. I’m hoping I might be able to stay in the lodge.” She evaluates me and then utters, “it’s $30.” I pay and thank her. “Are you biking?” “No, I’m walking across the US.” “Why aren’t you biking then?” Well, I like walking.” The conversation ends.
I hand-wash two sets of clothes, drink three liters of water, and eat the rest of the peanut butter.
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The alarm goes off at 4:30am on Thursday. I moan. The weather forecasts have a 40-80% chance of rain mocked up for every hour of the day. I need to be in Goreville before 4:30, when the post office closes. I decide the best course of action is to get up early, gun it, and hope that the pattern of preceding days (clear early, rain in mid-afternoon) continues despite the forecast.
The moon shines brightly overhead as I stagger out of the lodge, heading toward the minor highway. No River-to-River Trail for me today; between the forecast and the post office, I’m not messing around. I settle into a rhythm. I’m feeling better and better.
And then lightning shoots across the horizon. And again. And again. Coruscating pink flashes blast through the sky in front of me, as faint rumbles percolate towards me. I am walking directly into the storm. It arrives thirty minutes later, sending me in pursuit of shelter under a scrubby tree, the best of a series of bad options. For all the sound and fury, though, I avoid the worst; it’s wet for 15-20 minutes, but I have decent shelter, and I carry on soon after.
Now I’m flying. The sky clears. I peel off my rain jacket. My pants start to dry out, at least to their “normal” state of dampness. The Google Maps app keeps having to adjust its projected time to destination because it can’t account for my pace. Originally I was expecting a 2pm arrival in Goreville. Then 1:30pm. Then 1pm. Then things get wild and I start dreaming of 12:30.
And then I look up. Oh crap. The clouds are back–surging waves of gray and black, full of bad intentions. No. I check the app; six miles to go. No, no, no. I know at this point what those clouds mean; I’m a half-hour from impact, max. I can’t beat them. In denial, in defiance, I accelerate, but it’s no use. Soon raindrops are pelting me in the face and I rush onto a covered patio. I knock, but nobody’s home. Good enough. I huddle in the corner.
Accuweather has a very special weather alert, noting that significant thunderstorms are now rolling through, potentially bringing serious flooding and penny-sized hail. For the next three-to-four hours. I check the radar; a giant red blob is about to pass overhead. Precipitation rakes the earth. A blinding flash of lightning pops in front of me. I count: “one…” BOOM; it feels like the ground shakes under foot.
I wait. And as I wait, I grow resentful. What am I going to do, sit here cowering in the corner of this patio for three hours? I’ve got raingear, don’t I? I check the radar again; the red and orange blob has moved on. It’s just yellow now. Good enough.
The next hour-and-a-half is a wet, surly trudge along a suddenly busy minor highway, with cars and trucks whipping past regularly. At one point, a cop pulls up alongside–my first in days!–but he clearly seems concerned about my wellbeing. I let him know that I’m fine and he wishes me well, probably happy to not have me soaking the inside of his vehicle.
Finally, around 2pm I roll into Goreville and settle into my cabin, dumping my pack and crashing into a chair, staring idly at the wall for longer than I’d care to admit. Crap, I think, I need to get to the post office.
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“Do you like talking with people in all of these small towns?” The postal clerk’s question catches me off-guard, not because it’s an irrelevant subject, but rather because of how it reframes these last few days.
I was excited for this section of the walk because of the off-road terrain, because of the wild stretches, because of the natural splendor. The downside of all of that, though, was the social isolation. Almost nobody is on these trails. I’ve seen no other hikers. The campgrounds have been desolate. Three different stores / gas stations have closed down, so there have been few other places where people might gather. The weather didn’t help, of course; maybe things would have been different if it were 75 degrees and lovely.
For now, though, I’m struck by the fact that the experiences I’m drawn to on this trip are not the pleasant walks through the woods as much as the small town conversations.
Technical Notes
- A few ADT waymarks in this stretch! One appeared on the backroads after Shawneetown. Others flanked each side of the highway in Herod
- The state coordinator for Illinois advised me to take the first right off of Route 1 onto Thacker Hollow (instead of Karbers Ridge), to follow that to Double M Campground, and then to follow their wagon trail road to the River-to-River trail. I did that and it worked great, and I recommend it to others. Gets you off the road sooner and might give you a chance at a meal at the Double M
- While it’s possible to camp at Garden of the Gods, there are also four primitive camping areas in the 2-3 miles after that
- The church at the crossroads in Herod has a great covered area with picnic benches and power outlets. Prayer groups there are accustomed to looking out for walkers and offering them drinks/bathroom access
- The grocery in Eddyville is closed. The restaurant is still going strong, though
- There are some weird moments after Eddyville where the ADT splits off from the River-to-River Trail and it gets… a little sketchy. Those trails are not well maintained at all; in one case, I was basically wading through bushes. I’d stick with the RTR
- Bay Creek Campground has a lodge where you can get rooms for around $30. I think I was the only person in the entire camp the night I was there. It’s crazy how campgrounds in Illinois clear out completely in August
- The Methodist Church in Goreville offers accommodation to walkers/bikers
