I must have fallen to sleep the second my head hit the pillow, so can only guess Pickleball takes more out of you than cycling across the US. The day kicked off to the best start possible, with a magnificent breakfast of freshly made waffles with a table full of topping, from blueberries to maple syrup, (sorry sirup) and walnuts. With breakfast over the daily ritual of packing and saying goodbye was once again in motion.
As I have mentioned a few times, we aren’t cyclists and we are not doing this for the cycling. We are cycling Route 66 to experience the US up close and personal, both the places and the people. While the trip is more than living up to our expectations on the former, having to part company with newfound friends each morning will never get any easier. The only hope is that our hosts will one day be our guests back home in Scotland.
With bags packed, water bottles full, bottles of Gatorade that Brenda insisted on us taking as the most generous host she is distributed around the panniers, and our MSR Wisperlite cooking stove fuel bottles filled by Clifford, again refusing to take anything in return, it was time to head out.
Clifford had described the best route back on to Route 66 a couple of times, which included lots of left turns, to the degree we wouldn’t have been surprised to have found ourselves back at the house. After 10 minutes we found ourselves back on the open road. We knew today wasn’t going to be the most invigorating of days, with much of it cycling on the service road, parallel to Interstate 55.
We did have one planned stop early in the day at Elkhart suggested by Brenda, to see a 36ft long panelled wall mural depicting the history of the town. The mural was indeed impressive and while standing at it we ended up in conversation with Skippy, an old chap from the town out on his morning stroll with his grandson following along being on his battery-powered John Deere tractor.
As we approached Williamsville I felt the front wheel of my bike starting to feel a bit ‘bouncy’. As the bike doesn’t have suspension, other than that offered by a Chromoly steel frame, the only other possibility was a flattening tyre. A quick inspection, as Deborah disappeared over the horizon, confirmed that I did indeed have a puncture, the first in either of these bikes in over 4000 miles between them. The tyre clearly wasn’t deflating fast, so with more air in the tube, I was able to catch up with Deborah at the next truck stop. While Deborah went into the shop to find out what flavours of brain freeze were on offer, I worked on the tyre. It didn’t take much to find the problem the puncture wound being quite visible.
With the blueberry and cola brain freeze consumed and the tyre fixed, we pushed on through Sherman and into the outskirts of Springfield. We stopped at a Country Market store to stock up on drinks and have one last attempt at contacting a possible Warmshowers host.
We had been emailing Karl for a month or so, but each time he could only confirm that he ‘might be able to accommodate us’ and to get in touch closer to the date, the last time only three days ago. Here we were as close as we could get both physically and datewise, but was unfortunately not able to reach him. Not wanting to hang around in the hope of a bed for the night we decided to head into the centre of Springfield and find ourselves a hotel instead. The Route 66 Hotel and Conference Centre seemed a good choice, primarily because it was cheap. Okay, only because it was cheap.
After a 12 mile cycle through busy rush hour downtown streets and the historic centre, we arrived at the hotel in good time. The price quoted over the desk was $80, which they couldn’t bring down even when I showed them the $50 price tag of the room on booking.com, so clicked on the confirm booking button and we were in.
We were initially given a smoking room, but the request for a room came with an unexpected upgrade to a room twice the size (literally, as it was made up of two rooms), which included a lounge and Jacuzzi… result!
After yet another failed attempt at an AT&T store to buy a SIM card, we found ourselves in the ‘all you can eat’ Pizza Ranch. The food was acceptable and for once I felt like the skinny guy in town, but it was calories that we would be burning off, which is more than could be said for most of the other restaurant occupants.
The one-mile walk back to the hotel was as challenging due to a lack of path, pedestrian crossings, and a six-lane road between the hotel and the food, but we made it unscathed.
A Jacuzzi, an early night, and a suggestion from Deborah of staying in Springfield for another night so that we can visit the city’s Abraham Lincoln sites. We will figure at one out in the morning.