Day 4 - Chicago!

Today's ride was a fitting finale. 90 miles in all (not bad, eh?), and the ride combined elements of everything we had seen so far. The morning started with beautiful and isolated roads with little traffic, then segued to busy and trafficky roads and then completely switched to serene and leafy bike paths. We were on three or four different paths during the course of the day, covering probably about 40 miles of the route. And I was happy to be on them, except when I stopped to stretch, when the mosquitoes descended en masse. Who knew Indiana and Illinois had so many bike paths? Even native Chicagoans on our trip were surprised. I say Indiana because we briefly passed through its northwest corner on our way from Michigan to Illinois (that's for those of you who, unlike my son, Ben, are not geography majors).

And, yes, of course I went swimming again in Lake Michigan when we stopped at about the 80 mile mark so that all 110 of us could ride into Chicago proper together. This time, however, a couple of other good souls joined me (although none had the, ahem, foresight to actually pack a swim suit and camp towel - I long ago learned that biking in wet bike shorts after a swim is the pits).

By the way, for those of you keeping track, this ride turned out to be a Climate Ride fundraising record, with a total of more than $400,000 raised. Yours truly, with your help (and a little matching action), exactly hit my $5,000 target mark. So well done all around! I Challenge Myself will get a nice check shortly.

Thanks again for reading and for your support. I hope to connect with you again when I'm next on the road.

And, of course, here is today's route and a few final photos.