Bicycling With Marlene

In 2012, when Marlene Litton Almaroad and I were young and spry she decided she wanted to go bicycle riding. So she called one day, and I was all gung-ho. Yes, let’s go. The thing about doing anything with Marlene is, she always does the thinking and the planning. And it is always a good plan. She wanted to start out riding all around Johnston City, our old homes and haunts.

We started our first trip in June of 2012, at Jefferson School. Then we rode further north to Davis Street past where she lived when she was young. Next we came back south and rode out on Prosperity Road. All our lives it seems we walked or rode on Prosperity Road, either visiting friends or going to 4-H at the Stritzel’s. By this time we are getting hungry which meant lunch at Andresen’s. Back in the saddle, we headed to Johnston City Lake before going back to town by the home where she grew up and that of her grandmother.

Here is Marlene in front of the house where she grew up, stopping for lunch at Andresen’s, and Marlene at the lake.

We rode all over town then made it by my old house. West Broadway was JCHS Road. If you started where T-Mo’s is today, you would go by Connie and Johnny Murphy’s, Jansco’s, Rusty Wiseman’s, Tommy Heiser’s, Virginia Gamble’s, Mike Snow’s, Ronnie Shelton’s, Tommy Thomas’s, my house, Maxine Pyle’s, then the Kuhnke’s. One road to the north, I think 8^th St., in a five block stretch, you start with John Imhoff’s, then Randy Brymer, Marsha Brymer, Paula Hicks, the McDaniels, Zola Williams, to Rhonda Murman. Sometimes when I go through town I have fun telling Larry who lived in all the houses. You knew them all back then. And now we are all gone. I can’t figure out why we only had less than a hundred in each class. Some of these families were big.

When we got to my house, they were totally remodeling. So Marlene said, “Let’s go tell them you used to live here and see if they will let us see what they are doing.” I was skeptical, but they actually let us look around. Lots of changes for the better. And even now, I have noticed they are building on.

Marlene had all the gadgets. Her odometer said we did twenty miles that day.

Then she got courageous. I think she was researching places to ride. So she called and said, “Let’s do the Tunnel Hill Trail.” So on July 21, we drove to Karnak and parked the car in a little park. We always took Marlene’s car because she had a bike carrier on the back. Then we pedaled to Vienna to another little park right near the lights. When I was in Mr. Wales’s Biology class, this is the same spot my mom and I stopped to get some insects for the class collection requirement. We rested, must have eaten and had a little to drink. That was fifteen miles. Then we started back the way we came and included the Karnak Spur on to the Cache River. That was our first thirty mile trip. You can tell by the pictures that we took a lot of breaks on lots of bridges.

Marlene on a drink break and me in front of the tunnel.

That tunnel was not pleasant. It was so dark I lost my bearings and couldn’t tell how near I was to the side until my knuckles hit the wall. I was trying to keep my eye on the end light, but it didn’t help. Somebody else told me they had the same problem, maybe Roger. If it wasn’t you Rog, sorry.

In August, 2012, we rode the other half of the trail, from Vienna to New Burnsides and back again. Another thirty. Another trip full of beauty as you can see in the next picture. So far we were doing a trip a month. These pictures remind me that Marlene, as she would start to snap a shot, would always tell me, “Big smile.” Sometimes I would, sometimes I wouldn’t remember. She kept telling me this all the way through Greece, too!

To finish that Tunnel Hill Trail we drove two cars for the first time. First we parked Larry’s empty truck at Eldorado. Then we drove Marlene’s car with the bikes on the back to New Burnsides and began the thirty mile ride back to Eldorado. That’s why we had to have a car at both ends. We didn’t know if we could back track and do sixty miles in one day. Doubtful. After we arrived in Eldorado we loaded the bikes in the truck and drove back to New Burnsides to pick up Marlene’s car. Thirty miles. That ride has nice concrete paths. Next, my perfect trip planner came up with the Katy Trail in Missouri. We began at St. Charles on the Missouri River, rode a straight thirty miles so we could get in as much of the trail as possible, and then called a cab to come get us. She told them we needed a van because we had two bikes. They were very accommodating and everything went off smoothly.

This is Marlene on a bridge over another creek and me in front of the Missouri trying to smile bigly!

Remember our break times. And I think this is the Missouri trip where we found a green sign beside the river on the site of another town settled by Daniel Boone.

I want you to notice that Marlene is always as fresh as a daisy, always has a big beautiful smile, and always has on her earrings.

As a side note, remember, the Missouri River is where everyone started west beginning with Lewis and Clark in May of 1804 on their mission for President Jefferson to explore the west. They had come down the Ohio the previous year, stopping at Fort Massac in Metropolis in November of 1803. This fort was originally Fort Massiac and was given that name by the early French colonials in 1757, but later Americanized to Massac. If you have not been to Fort Massac, go now, but surely you have with the encampment every year. There is a semblance of the fort, original foundation footings, the river front with benches, and a statue of George Rogers Clark that the boys climb on. The museum is nice, too. If you have been to the encampment, go again. The food is great, nice little kiosks to buy things, people in period dress, lots of things for the kiddies, and the battle. There are camp sites but no full hookups.

I think we are so very fortunate, due to the rivers surrounding Southern Illinois, to live in an area where the history is full of the beginning of the United States. Wabash on the east, Ohio on the bottom, and Mississippi on the west. Fantastic. You can also read my story about Shawneetown history, which is very old, on this website.

For some reason we skipped September, then in October we went to Camp Ondessonk, but we didn’t ride our bikes. This is the lake and me on a sort of swinging bridge. The colors were gorgeous.

In May, 2013, we rode through some old neighborhoods of St. Louis and ended up in Forest Park.

I don’t remember why we slowed down, but I remember I had already started to fall. We took our last trip on August 13, 2013. We rode over the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge from Illinois to Missouri. Then we followed a trail that led to Laclede’s Landing. This took us past the flood wall and the 3-D murals. St. Louis and Paducah have great works of art on their flood walls. I have pix of the Paducah flood wall art on my story of the 1937 flood. You can see these and other stories on this website.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the Landing overlooking the river, conned some boys into taking our picture together, and then rode our bikes across Ead’s Bridge back to Illinois. Once we got to Illinois, since it wasn’t the bridge we had left from, we weren’t at our car. We called another cab and requested another vehicle large enough to hold two bikes. But, alas, that’s not what arrived. So Marlene paid the man at the gas station $10, in East St. Louis, to watch her bike until we came back. We loaded mine into the cab and took it back to the Chain of Rocks Bridge where we were parked. Then we went back to get her bike. Yay. It was still there.

Marlene on the Mississippi and me at the flood wall.

I must have had my knees replaced in 2014, because in October, 2015, I was doing my turn on Cumberland Island as a docent when my grandson was born. I went home for his birth, stayed a week, then went back to finish my time for two more weeks. We had a bicycle on the island, so I tried to ride. But the roads are not paved, just sandy and wobbly. I fell once on a big root. Marlene told me she bought a 3-wheeler because her legs were getting too weak and her balance wasn’t good enough for a two-wheeler any longer. But it didn’t work out because her legs were just too weak. I got one a few years later and tried to ride with the same grandson down our big hill on the driveway and ended up in the corn field. So much for that. I think it is trepidation more than skill. Sold mine also, but Larry gave my last grandson a few rides in the basket first.

I miss it, but then we started traveling, so all is good, and Life is Good. Get a t-shirt!

I hope some of you ride these trails and have the wonderful times we did.