Day 2 started in Rockford — cool morning, tired legs.

By the end of it we’d have gone through a quartering tailwind, then a headwind, tornado damage, a road that technically stopped existing, some very spicy hills, and a Sprite. In that order. All in a bit over 80 miles.

So we rolled out of Rockford into some genuinely lovely neighborhoods and then picked up a stretch of mixed-use paths winding through park areas. Nice and easy. We had a bit of a quartering tailwind too — not a freight train at our backs, just a little nudge from the left rear. Enough to notice, enough to be grateful for.

We knocked out the miles to Pecatonica and stopped for a quick bathroom break.

After Pecatonica came a really beautiful stretch — quiet roads, wetlands off to the south. There was a little gravel mixed in here and there, and the terrain started to roll a bit more, but it was still very much in the “pleasant” column.

We stopped for lunch on a short stretch of the Jane Addams trail. I had some hummus and crackers left from the night before. We mused (ok I mused) that we could be home by end of day if we just kept trucking north, but we turned back west and continued our journey.

Then we hit Lena, IL, and things got a little more real. A tornado had come through in mid-April and you could absolutely tell — roof repairs everywhere, roads closed or just… gone?

In fact, leaving town we found ourselves on a road that gradually stopped being a road and became more of a suggestion — a dirt track that maybe a confident 4×4 driver would attempt on a good day. Definitely not passable by anything like a normal car. But our bikes? Totally fine. We picked our way through and carried on.

By this point the little tailwind we’d had was gone, replaced by a headwind out of the west-southwest. We put our heads down and kept grinding west.

We’d been watching some hills building on the horizon for a while. Eventually we dropped down into the Apple River valley area — east of Galena — and those hills stopped being a distant promise and became a very immediate reality. Up and down and up and down and up and down. Steep, relentless, gorgeous. Hills that were objectively beautiful and a little brutal when you’ve already got 50+ miles in your legs and a headwind for company.

We finally made it into Galena and found a churro/coffee shop called The Churro Cafe.

Did we get churros?

Reader, we did not. I got an iced coffee, Harald got a Sprite, and we sat down like two people who had ridden into a churro shop specifically to not order churros. 🤦‍♂️ In our defense, we were cooked, and sometimes the body wants what the body wants (caffeine, bubbles).

Then we climbed one final hill to the hotel. Walking distance to a little local Mexican spot — with a taco food truck parked out front — and also a Piggly Wiggly. We grabbed what we needed and had a solid dinner.

And by “solid dinner,” I mean Harald liked his burrito so much he got back in line and ordered a second one. A man who has burned through approximately a hundred Sprite’s worth of calories all afternoon does not mess around at dinner. Respect. 🫡

The real treat of the evening was the hotel Jacuzzi. We both took full advantage. Highly recommend ending a hard day of riding in a body of warm, bubbling water.

Then we collapsed into our beds and slept the sleep of people who had earned it (and, in Harald’s case, the sleep of two burritos).