Day 48, July 14

Sebree to Axtel Campground at Rough River Dam, 76 miles

Last night I stayed in a cyclists hostel that the Baptist church in Sebree set up inside its youth center. It was nice but had some sort of alarm that kept going off all night about every 10 to 20 minutes. A kid who was there when I first arrived said it was a tornado alarm but it may not have been since there was clearly no tornado; just some mild thunderstorms.

Around 7:30 in the morning I decided to head out despite the sketchy looking weather. The clouds got even darker as I reached Beech Grove and I hung out there for about 10 minutes debating whether or not to wait there for a couple of hours but ultimately decided to continue on. Big mistake! About 3 miles outside town it started pouring and I ducked under some trees and pulled a tarp over myself and my bike to keep dry. After about an hour and a half of rain and lighting the sky mostly cleared.

The picture below is of Green River, just outside of Sebree. A more appropriate name would have been Brown River.

After the rain I continued through Glenville and Utica toward Fordville. The picture below was taken on either road 1738 or 1414 and is typical of the area. It was actually really nice to ride through. After the rain it was a lot cooler and I had a good tail wind. As you can see there was water everywhere.

Somewhere along road 2671 toward Fordville:

At Fordville I had lunch in the town cafe.

I apparently did not learn my lesson the first time. As I was leaving town I noticed some seriously dark clouds in my mirror but decided to push on, hoping to stay ahead of them. About 5 miles out of town it ended up being the same story as outside of Beech Grove. A series of huge thunderstorms came through and I ended up under a tarp in the woods waiting it out.

Due to the double whammy of storms during the day I was a bit behind schedule and at risk of not reaching my planned destination of Rough River Dam State Park before dark. Since there were no closer camping spots I set off for there anyway.

When I reached the town of Rough Falls I found out that the state park campground was closed, which really put me into a race to reach the next campground another 5 or so miles away. My map showed it as being down "unsigned road 736." Not only was the road unsigned but there was no sign indicating that there was a campground there and I ended up at a third campground another mile or two down the road.

Below is a picture I took while riding over the dam. This appears to be a natural stone spillway. There was also a large construction project at the dam (the reason for the closure of my original destination).

Right as the sun was setting I pulled into Axtel campground and started my evening routine.