Wood River, IL to Vandalia, IL
Started the day leaving the Katy Trail and joining the MCT Confluence Trail. I was hoping the trail section would be longer, but what felt like a very short time, I had to get off the trails and go onto secondary roads. Mostly the road took me through industrial areas, so there were no viable photo ops.
Much later in the afternoon, I had a front wheel blowout ~6mi outside Vandalia, so had to call it a day. First of the trip, not bad. Unfortunately I did not have a spare tire with me, so could not fix it roadside. A young man, Wyatt Carter, stopped and asked if he could help. Unfortunately he could not transport the bike, but he could take me to a Walmart that was close by. As it is one of the big stores I thought it would not be a problem getting a new tire in the sport section. Unfortunately they did not have any tires in the size I needed. Wyatt took me back to the bike, and then he and his wife headed off to celebrate their first wedding anniversary.
In the meantime, Yvonne managed to arrange a tow truck to pick me up, and take me into Vandalia. The driver mentioned that the next town over, Effingham has a good bike shop and would be able to help. Unfortunately it was too late in the day to get there before they closed, so I had the driver drop me off at a motel, and I stayed in Vandalia for the night.
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