Day Seven – Dubuque IA to Home
Miles: 510
Breakfast was at the local place named Dottie's. Another good local restaurant, and a good start to the day. We didn't have much on the roll chart for today as 500 miles and losing an hour would not leave us with much time to spare if we wanted to arrive home at a decent time. Our first stop was in Dixon to see President Reagan's boyhood home. It was well kept and there was a statue of the President on the property. We took some pics and looked around a bit but after a short time we were back riding. Those first 80 miles went quickly, and the next 60 were equally quick as we found ourselves in Allen Park in Ottawa IL on the Illinois River. The attraction here was the Ottawa Rail Bridge. This lift bridge was built in 1898 with the lift portion being added in 1932. It is still operational, but unfortunately we did not see it in operation. The next hundred miles took us to the Illinois-Indiana border on US52. It wasn't much of a rest stop but we got off bikes and stretched our legs not knowing this would be the last official stop of the day. We stopped in Lafayette for gas and that was truly it. We suffered many detours in Indiana completely getting off our route and managing just by our knowledge of the area. Down to Connersville over to Liberty and down OH177 into Hamilton. Not that great of a ride with all of the detours but it still beat riding on the interstate.
