Lads on tour… on bikes. Holmes, Dowds & Reid cycle across the USA.

Day 34 – Windy Day

Today was a pretty normal day. Dowds ate breakfast:

Callum looked strange:

We cycled about 10 miles west, followed by about 19 miles north. In the second section we had a tailwind and managed to average 22.5 mph, which was fun. By the time we got to Rush Center, our planned stop for breakfast/lunch, we had done about 30 miles and averaged 19.4 mph for the day so far… which was nice. Our stop at Rush Center wasn’t quite as useful as we had hoped because it turned out that the town has ample provision for those who want to get hammered, but nothing for anyone who wants a bit of food. In this town there are three liquor stores and zero restaurants or grocery stores. Here is Callum asking if any paperwork is required for him to move there after we finish:

There were no shops for the next 30 miles so we started munching down chocolate bars and gettingready to go until a guy showed up in his truck with a plastic bag full of bread, meat and veg for us to make some sandwiches with. He had been in the liquor store when Cal was asking where to get food and had nipped home, sorted us out a packed lunch and drove back. We were very grateful and we can add him our mental list of exceptionally kind people we have met so far. Cheers.

Got back on the road and got hit with a pretty horrible side-wind/head-wind. It wasn’t particularly nice but we just stuck headphones on and plowed through it.

Freaking out pilots – bloody mischievous; those religious lot.

Arrived in Ness City, KS. in pretty good time despite the winds, but we were slightly worried about camping with some of the freaky weather that was coming in:

There was lightning over to the north, but it didn’t look like rainclouds. We asked around and found out that the city was on “storm watch”.
“What does that mean exactly? What sort of weather would you class as a storm?”
“High winds, driving rain, hail the size of golf balls… that sorta thing”
“Oh. We’re planning on camping – is that a good idea?”
“…Probably not.”

We cycled down to the place we’d be camping (a city park) and found that we probably wouldn’t get much sleep regardless of weather because there was a little-league baseball tournament in progress.

Callum also managed to pick up a puncture so me and Dowds amused ourselves by switching between watching the baseball game and Callum’s puncture repair techniques.

The baseball tournament ended up finishing early due to the storm which was moving in. I asked around some of the locals to get their opinion on whether we would be safe camping or not and eventually, after some conferring which involved the words “tornado” and “nearest storm shelter”, the consensus seemed to be that we should get a motel. By the time I’d talked this over with them, Callum had already pitched his tent and really didn’t want to move. When I walked out of the tree cover, all I could see at this time was lightning casting a silhouette of a very big, black cloud. Oh well. We decided to pitch our tents but be ready to very quickly pack up and leave if everything got a little bit too windy and rainy and scary. Callum’s tent collapsed after a gust of wind ripped out some pegs which we insisted he should secure properly on this particular night… so Dowds’ had the pleasure of receiving a rain-soaked Callum Reid as a guest in his tent. The next morning I snapped this photo of the happy couple:

During the storm we talked over walkie-talkie about the chances that we might be able to win an award for being the stupidest people to cycle across the USA. I think we’d have a pretty good chance.

Day 33 – Straight Day (78 miles)

Today was pretty windy, we had however got up quite early and were ready to leave town at 7.30. We quickly stopped at the post office for Chris to see if his mobile had come in yet, It had – good times!

As we pulled away from the post office, I went to clip into my pedal and half of it fell out! – Bad Times!

Seems like every time we get to a town with a bike shop, my bike breaks. I guess it could be worse if it decided to break in the middle of nowhere! After deciding not to get a service from the extortionate bike shop and deciding not to buy there $180 “only set of pedals in stock” I was left with very little choice! Only problem was, it didn’t open for another hour or so. The others decided not to ditch me – I think now that they know the advantages to drafting behind me the lazy sods don’t want to ride on their own!

We went back to Skaets, the same place as yeserday, for some breakfast then hit the bike shop at 9 when they opened. On the way there, Chris’ chain fell off again, looks like they didn’t actually do the work that they charged him for!

I looked at the pedals and didn’t fancy paying $180 so I started to look around the shop, I noticed a set of pedals on a show bike and asked if I could buy them? The owner wasn’t too keen, I guess he was banking on me being an idiot, but after telling him I would rather cycle 300 miles to the next bike shop with only one and a half pedals, than pay $180 he agreed to sell me the show ones. still set me back the best part of $90! It’s an expensive hobby this cycling malarchy.

We finally set off into a strong headwind for 20 or so miles. We stopped at this town to refill our water as we now had a 58 mile dead straight, dead flat road with nothing but farmland on it!

If there was no wind or even better, a tailwind, I could imagine this stretch being quite fun but with a gale force sidewind trying to throw us off of the road, this became very boring and tiresome indeed!

We rolled into our destination, Larned at about 3 pm. Not bad after the late start. We headed straight for the outdoor swimming pool but on our way was stopped by the local church Pastor. He offered us to stay in his church. A roof and a fan definately beats camping out here so we took him up on the offer and said we would pop round after our swim.

The pool was awesome. It was clean, big and even had a slide for Callum! After about half an hour in there, we were getting cold so decided it was time to go to Church.

The pastor was a really nice guy. So much so that he got Callum thinking about becoming ordained himself. Although i’m not too sure that the church would appreciate Callum’s reasons for joining – a free house and a cushty lifestyle.

We had been reccomended a restaurant called Roosters, so we got directions off of the Pastor and headed there. Turns out that it was a dive. After walking just to the porch, me and Cal realised this, didn’t like the smell and decided that Pizza hut was far more appealling!

We ate a pizza each and a couple of plates of salad, with the exception of Chris who doesn’t like salad, vegetables, fruit or pretty much anything else that doesn’t look like a chocolate bar or a burger. I think he is really a yank at heart!

We were all pretty tired after dinner, Callum went for the now customary restuarant dump and we headed back to the Church, via the petrol station so that Chris could buy a milkshake!

We got back, Chris found the grand piano in the actual church and set about playing songs that i’m not too sure are appropriate in a place of worship. Turns out the Pastor was really cool and didn’t mind in the slightest. The Pastors wife came over with some DVD’s for us to watch and me and Chris sat around playing on the internet.

Callum had gone missing for a while. We later found out from him that he had gone to the balcony of the church to try and crank one out. Unfortunately he couldn’t do it with Jesus on the cross staring straight at him so he settled down in the nursery, surrounded with kids toys and books instead.

We watched some of Wedding Crashers and went to bed around 10. Late night for us these days!

Day 32 – Planned Rest Day

I woke up early today, can’t sleep past 8! The others were still sparko so I went to the library to E-mail my tutor at uni.

I got back at 10 to find Callum still sparko and Chris in the shower. I got them up and we went to the bike shop to get our bikes. Callum refused to pay the amount they charged for sorting out his gears despite him going in with a bike sounding like the tin man running a marathon in the rain! It was quite an expensive bike shop and I couldn’t help thinking they were trying to rip us off…Thats why I decided that my bike was fine enough for them not to touch.

We went to a diner called Skaets – came reccomended by many so that was our breakfast sorted. After eating we headed down to the ‘Cosmophere’ space museum. In a fairly small town in the middle of nowhere I didn’t have high hopes for this place. The advert said they had a real SR-71 Blackbird but I guessed that would be all they had. Turns out it was pretty huge. We went to the iMax theatre and watched a film about some Beavers, had a couple of science lessons then went for a walk around the underground museum…The thing was huge and just kept going and going. Chris, as per usual, took ages, leaving me and Cal sat at the end bored for about an hour! Chris – I get my money’s worth whether it’s a buffet, a free bar or a museum you ignorant clod.

We went back to the Church to find Blake then went out to do some Laundry. Afterwards we went to the towns poshest restaurant, Jillians, for some grub. Turns out that not all Americans are obese inbred slobs, the more normal looking ones just eat at nice restaurants and not all-you-can-eat Mexican buffets! For the first time on our trip, dinner was genuinely edible!

Before heading back to bed, Chris had to stop at the Dairy Queen for an ice cream, or two as the case was. I really don’t know how he isn’t 21 stone!

Day 31 – Bad day (35 miles)

Woke up and tried to get moving but there wasn’t much motivation because:
1) It was a short day;
2) The next day would be a rest day;
3) 10 pitchers of beer and a few splashes of whisky the night before.

Got moving eventually, but not before Callum and Dowds beat me to the continental breakfast and Cal managed to eat everything except for a couple of packets of butter.

We chose to take a more direct route into Hutchinson, because it was 6 miles off-route anyway. We’d asked some of the locals if they had any idea how suitable US-50 would be for cyclists; we got conflicting responses ranging from “it’s fine” to “you’ll die”, but they did all agree that it had decent-sized shoulders and Google street view looked OK.

It wasn’t too bad. Not the nicest of roads, but the traffic wasn’t particularly heavy and the shoulder was OK. Callum had snapped his chain the day before by managing to avoid oiling his chain for pretty much the entire trip. As a result Cal’s bike sounded like he was cycling over a chalkboard with wheels made of nails – not the best thing for a hangover, especially for Dowds who wasn’t using his MP3 player.We stopped at around the halfway point for food and couldn’t help but laugh at Dowds who didn’t look too healthy. None of us felt amazing and we just wanted to get to Hutchinson. This ended up taking a little while longer than expected as Blake got a puncture a few miles down the road. Sorted it out and headed to the bike shop in Hutchinson who hold the keys for a free hostel for bikers at a nearby church. We found the hostel (v. nice), ditched our stuff and dropped the bikes in for some essential maintenance. Callum bought a new chain, I got them to sort out my gears, Dowds didn’t need anything but left his bike in there anyway and Blake… is a bike shop’s dream. New chain, new tyre – both were fine but he is an American so he is indoctrinated with the idea of regular servicing and we couldn’t convince him otherwise. Crazy yank.

Ate some food at a big mexican buffet place and slept like babies with the knowledge that tomorrow we had to do 0 miles.

Day 30 – Silly day (73 miles)

Callum wasn’t too happy towards the end of last night when we told him that the actual mileage for today would be around 75 – not the 60 that Dowds’ had roughly worked out before the extended ride to Eureka. Like a true Lad on Tour, he manned up and accepted it.

At some point we’ll stick up a post explaining just who or what ‘Blake’ is but for now let’s just call him our American pet – he follows along whenever he manages not to fall off his bike, makes lots of noise and barks outside the door at 4am when he’s scared of the coyotes outside.

On our Walmart walkie-talkies we’d been picking up interference from a fast food place or somewhere like that from around 6pm onwards. At the time we were looking for a restaurant so Callum asked the mystery people on the radio and they shut up after that. We left the radio on and at around 4am we got some really weird voice coming in over the radio. None of us were really sure if we were still dreaming – it was freaky – but eventually I woke up a bit and realised it sounded a lot like Blake. It turns out he’d made the 20 mile ride into town after seeing coyotes sniffing around his panniers. He couldn’t get back to sleep and decided to ride in the pitch black of night to our motel where we’d told him there was a bed waiting if he continued on to Eureka. My comment (over the radio): “Are you f**king insane???”. Blake got a few hours kip but not before having to wake up Reidy who was (understandably) absolutely petrified and woke up staring at him with his fist cocked ready to smack him one.

Set off for Newton around 9pm since Dowds had to wait around for the post office to open. He lost his camera charger before the holiday, tried to get one via express delivery just before we left but ended up having to get his mum to send it to a post office in the middle of the USA. After all that hassle, his camera didn’t work because he had accidentally filled it with rainwater a few weeks back.

We had a pretty normal ride, with one 38 mile stretch at the end with absolutely no services… which was nice. Just to prove that you will find Yorkshiremen bloody everywhere we met an Eastbound older chap called Paul Davenport who had cycled pretty much all over the world (including Africa, South America and the Andes in winter) and had just gotten around to doing the USA. Dad and Uncle Rick: sorry, forgot to ask if he was a Wednesday or United fan, but he did like Henderson’s.
Paul Davenport – “World touring cyclist and gentleman of leisure”

We met a cool American couple just down the road and did the standard exchange of info on what’s ahead etc.

We made pretty good time into Newton, with a short sprint towards the end just for fun. As usual the first thing we did was find food, and afterwards we went back to a bar we’d seen on Main Street.

After…a few…I snapped this photo which probably says it best:

Oh Dowds…

You can’t get the real American experience until you’ve gotten intoxicated with the locals in an ill-lit bar in Kansas… right? That’s our justification anyway.

We had planned to camp that night, but managed to find out which motel Blake had gone to and, in a reverse of last night, knocked on his door around 2am asking for a place to stay.

Lads on tour…occasionally on bikes.

Day 29 – Long Day (120 miles)

Just a quick note to explain why after being in Tappahannock, VA we somehow teleported into Missouri… We have been ever so slightly lax with the posting over the last 20 days or so. It’s not the thing you want to do most after a day on the bike – tap out a post on an iPod. We’re trying to keep up with the regular posting and we’ll fill in the older ones as we get the time.

We started our first full day in Kansas today, hitting the road around 7am. Had a truly effortless first 20-30 miles. No wind, and only the person in front had to put any effort in, which meant we only had to work for it 25% of the time. Nice.

Pizza Hut buffet for an athlete’s lunch before heading out on the next big stretch to our planned stop at Toronto (population 300, as I said they like reusing place names).

Kansas is pretty damned flat and from what we’ve heard and seen, getting flatter. Makes a very nice change to the Appalachians and the Ozarks. The miles just go by without noticing. Towards the end of the day we let Blake go behind with one of our Walmart walkie talkies because we didn’t have far to go and he was struggling to keep pace on the hills with all the pots, pans, stoves, sinks and Christ knows what else he has in those bags. This wouldn’t normally be a problem – we could just slow down a little bit – but Cal had his headphones on and wasn’t really too aware of the pace… or pretty much anything to be honest. Autopilot. We got into the town we were supposed to be staying at and had a bite to eat at a small diner a few miles out of town because everything in town was closed. Me and Dowds were looking at the map trying to figure out what our plans were for the next few days and what started as a joke suggestion to carry on and do a 120 mile day eventually turned into a tempting idea. We knew the sticking point would be Cal but we sweetened the deal by promising to stay in a motel and he was up for it. Now the problem was getting hold of Blake who was just behind us. Out of radio range, left my mobile in the motel yesterday… bit of a nightmare. We ended up calling the camp ground he was staying at and leaving a message asking the ranger person to go tell him our plans. We also managed to leave a voicemail on his cellphone and told the owners of the cafe to tell him to check his voicemail. We managed to get in touch with him later and we’re meeting up with the Bostonian tomorrow morning in Eureka.

It’s 9:30pm now – way past bedtime.

Day 28 – Lazy day (66.8 miles)

Intended to get up really early today, but ended up looking out the window at 5am, seeing a monster of a thunderstorm and going back to sleep. Either way we had Callum on alarm clock duty so we thought it was a pretty safe bet that we’d get a lie in. We almost sacked off the entire day to stay in the lodge again for another night, but it started to clear up and we hit the road.

It was a good thing we didn’t leave too early because we got a knock on the door around 9am from the wife of the guy who runs the ranch, asking for some help. Me and Dowds ran outside and found Bill (the owner) supporting a gun dog which had one of its hind legs stuck in the top of a chain-link fence. Apparently it didn’t like thunder so it tried to jump over. We pulled up on the fence to keep some weight off the dog’s leg until Bill’s wife found the bolt-cutters. I snipped it and we managed to free it. Another strange experience but quite a nice feeling to have helped out.

It turns out that it was pretty good weather for the ride we had. Overcast with just enough rain to cool us down. We had hills for the first 10 miles or so and then it flattened out and Dowds became an absolute monster; leading us at around 20mph for about 15 miles to our breakfast/lunch stop at Golden City. Legend.

Ate burgers and some pie at the famous Cooky’s Cafe in Golden City (very nice) before heading off for the second stretch to Pittsburg. Me and Dowds set off slightly later because we wanted some more pie. I think we’re really getting into the American eating habits. Felt it a bit, but took turns on the front into a slight headwind to catch up to Blake and Cal at some roadworks. Some Eastbounders had told us to just walk the bikes over this bit instead of taking the diversion, but they had encountered it when it was dry. We walked over a few hundred yards of wet clay and spent about an hour cleaning our bikes so they would work again. Not the most fun experience but it was pretty funny hearing Blake losing his composure and effing and blinding across a field of clay and gravel. We met an eastbounder just after the roadworks and advised against walking over it.

Only me and Blake have the maps, so only we know the exact distance to the Kansas border, but that didn’t stop Callum and Dowds racing about 8 miles to the border. We knew this so just sat back and watched them destroy themselves.

Reached Pittsburg and did the standard check for prices at all the motels. We ended up staying in a room booked for two people, and radioed Cal and Dowds when the coast was clear to follow us in.

Nipped down the road for a Chinese buffet and met up with a dad and his two kids cycling across. Did the standard exchange of good places/places to avoid and told them about the nightmare of the 80 motel in Hindman, Kentucky (we’ll fill in the missing posts when we can). They told us probably the most bizarre story we’ve heard yet: just before they set off, a random lady showed up to their door with the ashes of her deceased daughter – she had always wanted to do the Transam, but died before having the chance. The end result is that these three guys are travelling with an urn containing the bodily remains of a stranger – told you it was a bizarre story!

Check out their website at www.krem.com (click the link at the top which says “follow the Wild Hare Adventure”).

Walmart stop to pick up some new flip-flops to replace the ones Callum lost while crossing the construction work, and off to bed for an early start tomorrow.

Day 27 – Lits go a-hunt’n

Today we got up at 7. My phone died in the night so no alarm clock today.

We rode to a restaurant in Fairgrove for breakfast at Sheila’s wheels restaurant where we were served by something who definately wasn’t given the name Sheila at birth! It had hands the size of dinner plates and a face like a Bulldog chewing a wasp. It did take a liking to Callum and Blake however, stroking them every time they spoke to it.

We then rode the largest slog of the day, only 23 miles but the heat was incredible. At Walnut Grove we got some refreshments before heading to Ash grove a further 7 miles down the road to get some groceries. The place we are staying at tonight has a kitchen so we are eating a Dowds special…Meat, veg and Tomatoes on Pasta! Might not sound very special but after 4 weeks eating burgers and other American s**t it sounds good to me anyway!

We arrived at Running Spring Farm and Hunting Preserve around 3pm. It is amazing! basically a house for just us! Kitchen, 3 bedrooms with 8 beds, 2 showers, etc… Definately well worth the $20 each for the night. If only so that none of us have to sleep in a bed or even a room with Callum!

I cooked dinner and everyone seemed to like it…it all got eaten anyway! Chris made a Holmes special dessert…Ice cream!

The TV was working OK at first. We even found the porn films but before we could even start watching one, Chris decided we didn’t have enough channels so set about re-setting the Sky box…No more TV tonight! The computer geek doesn’t always know what he’s doing!

Chris – It stopped working just around the time we tried to back out of playing (no joke) “10 Girls on Black Guys” on the PayPerView to cries of despair from Cal and Dowds.

With the TV broken we were forced to have a ‘classy’ evening. I played Callum at draughts which ended in us not realising we had a stalemate and moving our pieces back and forward for about 15 minutes, Chris played on that stupid ukulele, and Blake updated his blog.

Its now 9pm and for the first time so far we have updated a blog entry on the day it happened…very pleased with myself i’m off to bed.

Day 26 – Awakened by tramp-song

Woke up this morning to what sounded like a tramp complaining to his dog about the “mess some bikers have left here, clothes all over the place man”. With all our gear and our personal safety in mind, Callum jumped into action by telephoning Dowds, and the two of them sat in their tents asking each other what to do for a good few minutes. Callum later told me that his plan was “wait until Chris goes out and sorts it out”. Callum’s plan, as ever, went off without a hitch.

After putting on a t-shirt to avoid startling the poor fellow with my bizarre albino/african tan-lines, I went out and told him we’d checked in with the sheriff and apologised for the mess, but we’d be out of there soon. Turns out he wasn’t really that crazy, but he did mention in passing (during a conversation about gun-control) that he shot and killed a burglar when he was 15. He was a nice guy, but he did have a lot of stories, and I was desperately trying to get my stuff packed away while simultaneously keeping up a conversation about all of the following topics mixed together: border control, the benefits of a full-suspension bike and city park ordnances. Callum and Dowds, as useful as they were earlier in the morning, left me to talk with my new friend and pegged it off to a cafe for some WiFi.

Managed to get moving after a while, and headed down the road to the cafe I thought they would be at. I could tell it was the right one because I saw two bikes (Dowds’ and Blake’s) propped neatly against the side and one just thrown on the ground. Callum’s bladder strikes again. The cafe (Moose Cafe) was awesome – they gave all cyclists their first drink free, but because I didn’t want a drink she gave me a chocolate muffin for free. I ended up buying two more so I was still a Good Customer.

Most of the ride was pretty uneventful. Towards the end of the day we ran into some roadworks. They were resurfacing the road, and they do it slightly differently than in the UK. Instead of the works being done by a couple of blokes called Nigel and Dave who dig a 6-foot trench in the road, eat a Pukka-Pie and fill the hole back up again to a level about an inch below the rest of the road, the Americans do it differently and on a much larger scale. Huge trucks filled with gravel and tar; modified road sweepers to brush off the excess gravel; ‘pilot cars’ to guide people through; all resulting in…

7 miles of riding over loose gravel with rock dust clouds kicked up in our faces every time a car drove past.

Welcome to the USA – now get off your bikes and into a car you idiots.

It was actually pretty fun. I turned on my portable speaker and managed to find just enough decent, non-boyband music on Callum’s iPod to get us through it.

Arrived in Marshfield and Dowds promptly fell off his bike outside a gas station. My camera chose this moment to run out of batteries so I’ll have to leave you with a relevant photo of what happens when you decide to ride topless at midday in Missouri with cycling bib-shorts on.

Oh Dowds, you really are a Brit On Holiday. Captions welcome…

Our free city park campsite for the night was right across from the swimming pool so we had a quick dip, grabbed a bite to eat in town and hit the sack at around 9pm like the hard-core party animals we are.

Day 25 – Houston, Texas

…county, Missouri. Americans reuse place names a lot, even to the point of taking the names from another state and just whacking them in a county in the mid-west. – Chris

Dowds:
I woke up in Paula’s thrift shop after not a very good nights sleep which involved Callum cuddling me, me cuddling Callum and me sleep walking!

We left Centerville around 7. The ride to breakfast was pretty hilly. We caught Blake up at a restaurant at Ellington. After eating some toast and porridge I emptied my stomach in the toilet and after an insight into Callum’s strange masturbation clean-up techniques, we set off to catch Blake up again. This was supposed to be the hardest part of todays ride. In the next 30 miles or so we would cross the majority of the Ozark mountain range.

A couple of miles down the road we saw a turtle in the middle of the road which we stopped to move out of the way before it met its match in the form of a big truck! The ungrateful bugger turned out to be a snapping turtle which could really move and try to snap at us! After telling Callum his front wheel wasn’t the best thing to use to get him out of the road, we left him to his own devices and rode on. Callum is the only one who hasn’t got a puncture yet, and it would be completely within Callum’s abilities to have his first flat due to his tyre being eaten by a bloody turtle. – Chris

I didn’t think the hills were too bad. I quite enjoyed them in fact. I guess that the only people who had warned us of them hadn’t actually been over the Appalachians yet which were definitely much harder. These hills were very much like a self propelled rollercoaster. A fair sized drag of a hill followed by a decent speed downhill always rolling.

We caught up with Blake and soon after overtaking him I saw another tortoise in the middle of the road. This one was far smaller than the last and hid in its shell when i got near. I decided to do my good deed for the day and move it to the side of the road to which it was walking. The others didn’t see it in the road as they went past so I guess it got on its way OK.

We stopped at Eminence where we saw a couple cycling the other way to us. They were similar age to us and headed Eastbound. They gave us a few pointers for the coming maps and reminded us of a pie shop we are going past in a couple of days.

We ate some lunch and way too much ice cream and set off for the last of the mountains after a very long break! Too long in fact and my legs were getting tired. I also managed to break my pedal! Yet more expense and yet again no idea how it happened! It’s because despite your athletic abilities, you’re still a fat shit Dowds – Chris

Callum topped this though. He rode off the side of the road and fell into the ditch in only a way that Callum could!

The ride to Summersville was very steady as we were all feeling the ice cream! We caught up with Blake again and he was being followed by a stray dog. He had been following him for about 4 miles! We saw a lookout tower which didn’t look like too much more than a scaffolding tower! Not ideal for me and Cal who aren’t too clever with heights! I swear that boy Blake is Dr. bloody Dolittle. There was a point just as we caught him up when, in addition to the exhausted dog obediently plodding behind, butterflies and songbirds were spiraling round his bike like in a Disney movie. – Chris

At Summersville we found the library and took care of some essential things quickly. Outside was a veterans memorial where there were more US flags than I have seen before in my life! They really do like their patriotism! The sign read “If you value your freedom, thank a vet” I could just imagine Callum thanking Poppy’s vet for his freedom next time he takes her for a service!

I found some wifi and the others left for the final leg of the day without me. It was just one road for 23 miles so I thought I would catch them up. Seems Mr. Cramp had other plans and this supposedly easy leg became a bit of a dehydrated nightmare. I got to the town we were headed for and radioed the others on our new Walmart walkie talkies…No reply. Looks like the advertised 18 mile range is a bit of a porky and works nearer to 18 yards!

I was tired hungry and thirsty and right in front of me was KFC all you can eat buffet next to ‘The Lazy Motel’ I was so very tempted but headed down the road to see if I could get in range of the others first. I picked up Callum on the radio and he directed me to the city park we were to camp in.

Yet again there were no showers around. Not looking forward to another dirty bedtime Cal went looking around the neighborhood looking for hosepipes. I got a call on the radio directing me to the local dentist surgery. I went over Speedo’s in one hand soap in the other. Turns out this dentistry was on a main road! Discretion really isn’t in Callums vocabulary! Apart from the policeman driving past it was a very refreshing wash and very well needed.

We then all went to Taco Bell/KFC for a nutritious meal before going to Walmart for some bananas then headed to bed.

Day 24 – Centerville, MO

Lots of rain. Stayed in a cafe overnight.

Day 23 – Ozora

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 22 – Carbondale

Dowds slashed his own tyre while fitting a speedo.

Day 21 – Goreville

Ferne Clyffe State Park Campground. Callum pissing Chicken Korma out of his arse. Perfect night’s sleep for me – birds stopped tweeting promptly at around 10:30pm etc.

Day 20 – Cave-in-rock, IL

Dog following Callum. I felt like shit and followed Dowds all day. Stayed at Cave-in-rock SP CG.

Day 19 – Sebree, KY

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 18 – Rough River Dam, KY

Ate in the fancy place with the v v comfortable chairs. I cycled back afterwards in the pitch black, Cal and Dowds got a lift from a divorcee.

Day 17 – Bardstown, KY

Dowds lost speedo, got to breakfast and went for a walk. I ate massive breakfast. Reidy – knackered.

Sacked it off and did a whisky distillery tour – Maker’s Mark.

Day 16 – Lincoln Homestead State Park

Dowds goes to Danville

Day 15 – Berea, KY

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 14 – Booneville, KY

Met two guys going other way. Stayed at the church place. Massive thunderstorm.

Day 7 – 3 Brits in a military town on Independence Day

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 6 – Hills, Hangovers and Cookies (27 miles)

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 5 – Charlottesville or bust (102 miles)

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 4 – The Disadvantages and Advantages of Laziness (58 miles)

Disadvantage: waking up late when the sun is at it’s highest, most ridiculously scorching hot position and starting a 60 mile ride as trees, people, road surfaces and the whole world seems to begin to melt around us. Add in a slight hangover and you can probably guess this wasn’t so much a bike ride as a dehydrated crawl through Satan’s arse. We vowed never to leave so late again.

Advantage: arrived in Ashland, the point where we meet up with the Transamerica Trail which takes us across the USA, at around 4pm. Tired and thirsty, we couldn’t be bothered cycling the extra 3 miles or so to the (overpriced) campground, so after an all-you-can-eat buffet at Ponderosa’s we hunted around for a cheap motel. After checking out a few places we finally settled on one for $43.50 with a pool, close proximity to a gas station and a disturbingly high police presence. On a completely unrelated note, not at all relevant to the price we paid, if anyone asks, we are not three adults, we are in fact two Old Age Pensioners. We didn’t lie but the front desk clerk may have cut us a deal out of pity. It’s around this point we’ve realised that “sending in the Reidy” is the best thing to do in these situations – people just love to take care of him and mother him. If Callum had been captured as a POW in WW2, Adolf and Eva would have sent him on his way with a shower, some clean clothes and a packed lunch before they knew what was happening. That boy has powers.