JUNE 27: Quincy, Ill. to La Plata, Mo., 69 miles via U.S. Route 24 and Missouri Routes 6 and 156. Average speed today, 10.6 mph. Total trip mileage to date, 1,430 miles.

Day began with a prayer. Vic Jacquot, visiting Quincy from South Dakota with his wife, Vickie, ran into us outside the Super 8 motel lobby and asked many questions about our trip. Turns out both are cyclists and were fascinated by our cross-country journey. But they were also concerned for our wellbeing.

“Can we pray for you?” Vic asked.

“Sure,” I answered. “We need all the help we can get.”

“I’d like to pray now,” he answered.

After my double take, we stood in a circle in the motel parking lot as Vic asked the Lord to watch over and protect us at some length.

Within an hour we realized who really needed the prayers: The people whose homes and businesses we saw flooded as we crossed the Mississippi from Quincy into Missouri. A church and several homes north of the high suspension bridge were up to nearly roof level  in the brown waters of the river. And every storm, the local paper made obvious, brought new concern over fragile levies and more flooding.

“How much more can we take?” read a headline in Quincy’s Herald Whig.   

Yeah, “Whig” – even though that party last saw action in, like, 1856.

Meanwhile, our ride continued – into darkening clouds and what we figured would be a furious thunderstorm. When we felt the first drops, we hustled our bikes beneath the eaves of the snack shack at the “Splash Center” -- in the submicroscopic town of Ewing.

“If this storm is anything like the others we’ve had lately, it could go all day,” said Britta, in charge of the municipal pool. Outside two boys splashed around while a sullen high school girl manned the lifeguard’s chair.

“She didn’t realized she’d have to be out in the rain,” explained Britta. “Now she’s hoping the thunder and lightning start so we have to close.”

The lifeguard’s wish was not granted, but ours was. Within 20 minutes, the sun broke through the clouds and we picked up our journey on Missouri 156, a tiny state highway leading through some of the smallest towns we have seen on the trek.

Amazingly Newark, population 100, had a good place for lunch. Robyn’s Nest not only had great sandwiches and burgers, but soft serve ice cream in 27 flavors. We left satisfied, but by mid-afternoon both the temperature and humidity had risen, a headwind had kicked up, and hills – which we had not seen since Ohio – materialized in front of us.

Not only that, but Route 156 seemed lonely and empty to the point of spookiness. But life materialized in the form of a friendly black Labrador that darted from his yard and chased after us some 10 miles west of Newark. He caught us almost immediately, then proceeded to literally run circles around us for more than a mile.  He crossed the highway numerous times and once narrowly missed being hit by a pickup truck.

I dismounted at the next farmhouse and knocked on the door.

“Never seen him before,” said the middle-aged woman who answered the door. She studied the Lab, who had followed me onto her lawn, then came up with an answer.

“I’ll lock him up in the shed until you guys are gone,” she said.

It worked: By 4 p.m. , dog long gone,  we reached the town of Novelty –its real name. I knocked on the door of one of the few homes in this town of 120 to ask if we could fill our water bottles.

Two women obliged, but warned there would be a lot of hills between Novelty and La Plata, where we would spend the night. “And the farmers between here and there don’t like strangers on their road,” the older one said.  

“Oh, we’ll stick to the highway,” I answered, eliciting a look from the woman.  

“You mean they consider this highway their road?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, closing the door.

Ben was spooked. “Maybe this is the kind of place you shouldn’t be wearing those Grateful Dead cycling jersies, Dad,” he said. “I keep looking at these pickup trucks and thinking about the end to ‘Easy Rider’.”

Suffice it to say, that movie did not end well for its cyclist – the Harley-riding Dennis Hopper.

We survived the day, but Ben’s bike did not: On the last grade leading into La Plata, his brand-new chain, put on in Peoria, busted. We walked the last two miles to our motel, where a closer inspection revealed that his latest derailleur hanger was about to give out.

It was the latest in a long series of mechanical problems that have plagued Ben’s bike. And this one came in a town without an apparent Good Samaritan to rescue us, without a bike shop and without rental cars to take the crippled bike anywhere. Even Amtrak, which normally stops in La Plata, was out of service due to the floods.

 What’s more, all previous repairs to Ben’s bike had proved unsuccessful.

In less than a month we had replaced three derailleurs, four hangers, one wheel, one tire, one chain and at least a half dozen spokes. We had lost more than three days to mechanical problems and barely a day had gone by without some sort of mishap. It had gotten to the point where Ben worried that every hill we climbed would produce another failure.

He has lost 25 pounds on our ride, but was starting to think that he was still too heavy,  even for today’s high-tech cycles. “My enthusiasm’s gone to zero,” Ben confided.

We mapped a strategy – I’d ride  the 17 miles to Kirksville Saturday and look for a rental car, and Ben would call every shop within 100 miles that could either repair his bike, or maybe sell him a new one.

Although the view from La Plata was bleak, the shakes and sandwiches at the nearby Corner Café were great. Later, after a spectacular and cacophonous thunderstorm, we fell asleep.