We woke early even though today could be a rest day, still. It was a free breakfast in a $38 hotel, so it wasn’t a full breakfast spread, but waffles and sugar-coated cereal do just fine.
Over breakfast, we analysed the data presented by the Windy app on my phone, which is becoming as invaluable for the trip as it is when we are going sailing on the Clyde.
Decision made. While today will have a light wind blowing in the general direction of our next target town, Shamrock, tomorrow will see a strong southerly wind blowing in the worst possible direction for us cycling to our next port of call. We would cycle today and take a rest day in Shamrock tomorrow.
Not wanting to waste time, it didn’t take long to pack and wheel the bikes through to reception to check out.
With all electronic devices switch on and blinking, beeping and behaving as you would expect an expensive electronic device to behave, we were off.
Most of the day was again cycling along original Route 66. With I-44 taking 99.99% of the traffic, we shared the route with fewer than twenty over vehicles all day, allowing us to cycle shoulder to shoulder most of the day. This is apart from the uphill sections when Deborah tells me she likes to slows down to allow me to get to the top of the hill to take action photographs of her cycling up.
Even more so than yesterday, the towns that we passed through were like ghost towns. Again, while people clearly still lived in these towns there was an eerie post-apocalyptic feel about them without a sound or movement apart from the low distant rumble of the interstate passing the town by.
Some section of the original road we passed were slowly being reclaimed by nature, many of which were now impassable. We attempted to ride on these that appeared still possible to navigate, even though there were generally road close signs suggesting this might not be a good idea. After a few hours of trying our best to stay true to the original Route 66 we decided tyre preservation the best of action, so switched to the parallel modern service road instead.
The only two incidents of note today were being chased by a pack of dogs, about six in all, although I didn’t stop to count, and finding a tarantula walking across the road. Both occurring within a mile or so of each other, so all of the excitement for the day in a condensed 30 minutes.
The pack of dogs incident once again proved my investment in an ultrasonic deterrent to be my best purchases of the year. With the fastest of the dogs within a few feet of our bikes, just one press of the button had them stop as if they had just hit an invisible wall.
It was Deborah that came across Incy Wincy walking across the road, presumably as there were no spouts to be found. We have moved other animals off the road so that they don’t get squashed by a passing vehicle, however, as the spider would likely have died of old age before being run over on this road, we have to admit to picking it up out of curiosity. I placed my sunglasses in its path and it climbed on board. It was a beautiful creature close up and didn’t seem to be too phased by a couple of cyclists invading its personal space for a few minutes, seemingly happy to pose for photographs. That done, we will definitely be closing out tent door fully in future.
Soon after we had bid our farewell to Inch Wincy we arrived at the Oklahoma and Texas state line, crossing into our fifth state (sixth if we count a foot in Indiana on day one) since arriving in Chicago just over three weeks ago.
We pushed on to Shamrock, passing our first cotton field of the trip, but noticing a lack of the familiar Historic Route 66 sign that we have followed for over one thousand miles now.
The Shamrock welcome sign wouldn’t look too out of place in Ireland, although the street it was in most certainly would. The left of this road is home to the town’s cheaper hotels, so we continued up past them all to check them out. As it was still early we weren’t in too much of a hurry to check-in, so stopped at the visitors centre at the top of the street to find our bearings and consider our options.
As we stood there, a very well maintained old gas station, an old lady, the centre’s Monday volunteer, came out to welcome us and inform us it would be closing in a few minutes, at 5 pm. We chatted for a while, before wishing her a good evening and heading across the road to McDonald’s to hydrate while deciding which of the sleeping establishments we had passed would have the pleasure of our business.
To give it some perspective, the nearby Holiday Inn was listed on booking.com for $97. The hotel that we booked, after weighing up all the options, ie. price and price, was $16 per night.
The hotel branding looked completely out of place, a brand that I believed must have been a local one until, by complete coincidence, I showed up on my news feed when catching up on the news over diner – the Indian based OYO, founded by a 25-year-old Indian chap and already valued at $10B…apparently.
Check-in was a little bizarre. An ancient India guy tottered through from a backroom as we walked in. Without speaking to us he started to dial a cordless phone. He asked for my passport, which I had ready before proceeded to have a very loud conversation with the person on the other end of the phone, not on a heated manner, but in an ‘I probably need a hearing aid’ manner.
I was asked to write my details down on a scrap of paper and then handed over the $32 for two nights, as we had earlier decided that tomorrow was definitely the day for taking our second rest day on the journey so far. Well, why not at this price. $32 is just $2 more than a single night in our first stop in a KOA campground back in Granite City Illinois.
We weren’t expecting much of the room, so where pleasantly surprised to find a room twice the size of sone rooms we stayed in previously, clean, a microwave and fridge, with two double beds. Perfect.
Rather than walking back up the street to the local grocery store, we opted to eat whatever we could find in our panniers, which to reduce the number of culinary and nutrition-related comments will remain a secret, but it did include jelly sweets, Cheerios, wraps, onion and cheese, as well as a few other quality ingredients. Jamie Oliver would have been amazed by our creativity, that I am sure.
A night of watching Disney’s Frozen on the TV and a reasonably early night again. The only disturbance being four flies that refuse to go find their own room. They are lucky we don’t kill animals, even flies, but it came close!