Running north along the Mississippi River this morning, my team had the experience of dealing with a large amount of coal truck traffic constantly on the move. We discovered at some point a loading and unloading dock onto huge barges, similar to the ones we saw being pushed by tugboats yesterday. Running on narrow shoulders with all these heavy trucks whizzing past was quite a feat for a section of our run to Chester.

The town of Chester, Illinois is mostly known for being the birthplace of the cartoon character Popeye, the sailor man.

He was a creation of cartoonist E.C. Segar who lived in Chester in the early 1900’s.

Now there are statues, parks, stores, and even a pizza place all with the Popeye and friends theme. A reporter from the local county newspaper visited us on the road to Chester a number of times and then met up with the whole team in Chester.

During our lunch break he was able to interview some of us as we also got to pose for some photos with the Popeye characters and statues.

One of our vans just happened to be parked outside Matthew Goben's chiropractic office. After watching us go to and fro for an hour or so he finally came out to see us, and also took time to have his photo taken with the torch.

While we were in Chester Karen Surman came past and stopped to talk with us and hold the torch.

Shopping for Popeye theme gifts brought me back to my childhood as we had time to enjoy the shop and museum called ‘Spinach Can Collectibles’.

We met Joann Kester in her front lawn as we were running through Ruma, IL. She was very impressed with our plans and wished us well. Ruma has it that the folks in these parts are real peace-lovers.

Leaving Chester after my team switched to the R.V., or our portable kitchen, we were now responsible for cooking of finding dinner for everyone. After signing into our wonderful accommodations for the evening at Our Lady of the Snows Shrine Hotel in Belleville, Mark and I went to the center of town to look for a nice restaurant.

I remembered that four years ago there was a great restaurant owned by some very nice Irish-American brothers who sponsored a big meal for our whole team.

We found it again on Main St. called ‘Castletown Geoghegan’. Tom Gagen, one of the brothers, happened to be there and did not hesitate to offer us meals again for our whole team. He certainly was one of the nicest people we have met on the Run this year. Even though the restaurant was busy, he took the time to chat with us as if we were long lost friends. When we arrived later with the whole team for dinner, he gave us a private party room as the restaurant was quite full at the time. His personable, humble and sincere nature impressed us all as we thoroughly enjoyed all the delicious food that he and his waiter, Andrew, served us.

– Arpan and Kokila

Distance: 104 miles

Team Members:
Arpan DeAngelo (New York), Atulya Lee Berube (San Diego), Mark Collison (England), Kshetragna Ulanova (Russia), Surya Smolennikova (Russia), Vladimir Salnicov (Moldova), Kokila Chamberlin (England), Salil Wilson (Australia), Vajra Henderson (New York), Drsalu Gruenstaeudl (Austria), Becky Xerri (Wales)

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