Today I got better weather than I expected from the forecast. Around 4am, a line of storms came through with thunder and lightning. The forecast told me increasing chances of more thundershowers in the afternoon with a total of an inch of precipitation… The storm pictured below cleared just past 6am so I was on the road just after that hoping to get as far as I could before the next round of storms. As it turned out, I had a brief period of rain but otherwise dry all the way to Pontiac. In addition, it was cloudy and cooler so much better than I anticipated looking at the weather forecast.

The route today continued to follow Adventure Cycling Route 66. Other than crossing the large town of Bloomington (~100,000 people) most of the time I was on frontage roads or parallel bicycle paths to the Interstate. There were more bike paths than yesterday and this was welcome as the frontage roads ended up being surprisingly busy particularly the last 10 miles into Pontiac.

Here I am starting from McLean in early morning. They roads are still wet and it is overcast but otherwise pleasant bicycling.

A good example of some of the bicycle paths. On the far right is Interstate 55. Next to this is the frontage road with a paved bicycle path on one side. It was noisy traffic but otherwise nice to have a separate path.

Downtown Bloomington had a large line of people dressed in their Sunday finest waiting to get into the arena (it is Saturday today). As I passed closer, many had name tags. I asked the guards and apparently this is a Jehovah’s Witness convention. I found a local article about the convention. Apparently, this is the Spanish language version.

About half of my riding in Bloomington was via the “Constitution Trail” shown above.

I even found a sign that fit the theme of the US constitution. However, most of the signs were about other things.

The bicycle path went right along the train station where people here were waiting for a train. Apparently, there can be as many as six passenger trains per day along this corridor providing good connections to Illinois towns south of Chicago.

A route 66 business in Bloomington.

Soon enough I was on my way outbound from Bloomington and following the frontage road northwards. I had bicycle paths for a while but then back to standard frontage road before Lexington.

Lexington had a brief two mile path where the theme was once again Route 66 with a sign for each state.

I believe this is a section of original Route 66 and this also explains why they were able to put as many bicycle paths along my route today.

This section of bicycle path shows how some of these paths are placed on top of the original Route 66 road. They upgrade the surfacing and then have a reasonable multi-use path.

Overall, I was happy that is stayed dry throughout almost all of my ride. In addition with the overcast, it also wasn’t too hot. So much better than I would have guessed looking at the weather forecast. I continue to follow the Adventure Cycling bicycle route and am now less than 130 miles from the end of the route in Chicago.

Strava map and information listed below.