Touring with Friends

I’m lucky living in Chicago. Bike paths, like arteries, lead out of the city to the north, south and west. Also bicycles are allowed on trains. We could wind out of the city and head to Milwaukee or to Indiana Dunes. Through the years accessibility to recreational paths has only gotten better as they have been extended and further developed.

The I & M Trail started out life as a path worn down by mules towing flat-keeled boats along the canal dug from the Chicago River to the Illinois. The 60-foot wide and 6-feet deep trench was dug by Irish immigrants most of whom died of exhaustion and sickness and were buried in anonymous mass graves along the way. The work was completed in 1848 and though in service until 1933, the railroad killed the canal less than 10 years after it opened. Tracks run parallel to the trail today.

Several locks and a lockkeeper’s house remain, though the small settlements that sprang up in the canal’s heyday have vanished. The towpath is crushed limestone or hard-packed dirt running alongside the scum-topped stagnant canal through open fields or wooded sections.

Some friends and I hatched a plan to ride the I & M over the Columbus Day weekend in October.

We haphazardly bungee-corded tents and sleeping bags to racks. We might also have used fanny packs to keep snacks close and within easy-reach. We used walkie-talkies (this was before cellphones) to stay in contact in case one of us got too far ahead or behind.

We started the tour from the U in front of our building and cycled out of the city—which took half a day. The first night was spent at a spot beside the Fox River where technically camping is not allowed, except that if no cars are in the parking lot the wardens do not bother walking down the hill to the river to check if everyone has left. We had the place to ourselves.

I remember setting up our tents (I recall something missing from the small one Erin and I shared, perhaps the poles were broken; it was like sleeping under a tarp) and cooking a can or two of chili over a fire; darkness fell quickly. And it was cold! Without clouds the heat radiated upwards and temperatures dropped. Meanwhile a moon rose. Was this a harvest moon? The kind depicted every fall in the Chicago Tribune, when they ran a reprint of a 1907 illustration titled “Injun Summer” by John McCutcheon, of an old man smoking a pipe and a young boy next to him looking out across fields filled with ghost images of Indians circle dancing before a full moon. The kind of moon big enough to swallow the earth, cratered and yellow. The kind that gives credence to ghosts. Under lunar light we played a game before bedding down. There was a patch of prairie grass planted at the top of the hill; the bushy-headed stalks towered upward toward the moon. We tunneled through the straw grass, hiding from each other, waiting to be found.

When we awoke the next morning our water bottles had frozen.

We packed up, our tents unable to go back into small divvy bags, we just wound them with stray cord and strapped them on. Slowly the sun warmed our cold hands. We arrived at Seneca along the I & M Canal Trail around noon and ate peanut butter sandwiches at a pavilion erected by the Lions Club. If we’d been smart we would have turned east along the trail to find camping before dark, but we weren’t smart. We decided since it was still early we’d explore the trail. In Ottowa, a church was holding a harvest festival and were ready to close down as it was late afternoon. They gave us hot dogs and hamburgers for free, which we strapped onto our bikes. We realized we had to start heading back if we were to make it to a campground before dark.

That wasn’t going to happen. We made it to Morris exhausted, riding the 30 miles straight without a break and losing hope against the fading light. Erin volunteered to ride ahead and scout out the land while James and I waited, resting by leaning over our handlebars. After ten minutes she radioed us: Come on, there’s a great place I found! Long shadows lay across the path and it was getting harder and harder to see. We popped out by the lockkeeper’s house and across the canal on the other side was a three-sided hut with a fireplace. We quickly gathered wood and built a fire to re-heat the food. We feasted with our backs leaning against the cabin walls warming our toes, a contented inertia coming over us. Under the light of the moon and headlamps we assembled our poor tents and burrowed inside.

The next morning a bristling white frost carpeted the ground. We ate what little food we had left and took off for “civilization,” but not before depositing our luckless tents in the garbage. Along the way in the nose-tingling air we could hear birds and at one point a deer leapt in front of us and charged into the Illinois River flowing close by. I wonder if he ever made it to the other side. There is a picture of us at the head of the trail outside of Joliet. We’re smiling. By afternoon we were back in Chicago, cycling down the lakefront, toward home.