I set my alarm for 6:00, I wanted an early start. I took a shower, ate an apple and a granola bar and I was off by 7:00. My Goal, Centrailia, Halfway point, Vandalia. I muscled my way to Vandalia real quick and was able to hold off on food untill I got there. That was a bad idea. I wanted to have a nice little breakfast at a nice diner. Every small town in Illinois has one, Every small town except for Vandalia. Thats the first capital of Illinois. They had a lovely main street with no diner. I even asked a nice old lady, and she told me that unfortunately they don't have anything like that. Fuck Vandalia I Ate at Quizno's. They have a Quizno's?
Off to Centralia. The wind is just as bad as it's been. Straight out of the south. A big relief now though are trees. You start seeing trees once you're south of Pana, very nice change in scenery.
My right knee was hurting, I stopped at a rest stop off of 51. I had been on 51 all day, the traffic was getting lighter and lighter the further south I got.
I arrived at centralia at 4:00 and found a nice internet cafe. A couple rows of computers with people playing runescape and WOW. Cumfy couches, flat screens with 360's and ps3's. A Strohman's Paradise. Five bucks got me two hours of internetting, Updated my blog and found a dairy queen.
My plan for sleep tonight was to just find a woodsy area south of town. It was woodsy north of town so I figured the same for the south. At DQ I was enjoying my snickers blizzard when a family saw my bike and asked where I was headed. I told them my story, thought what the hell and asked if I could use there backyard as a campground. David was the father, Justin was the boy and I forgot the mother's name. Very nice people, he drew me a map to his house on a dairy queen napkin. Here I am.
Mileage: 65
Total: 300... perfect
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hey nicky
ReplyDeleteits rudy again.
im really sorry about the lack of diners in vandalia, i live in a small town back home and we have about 15 diners so ill have some of my people talk to their people. im just sittin here with bak and a pot of mac and cheese, tellin war stories, reading your blog ya know, the usual. just wanted to drop in and say hello. let me know if you need anything im here for ya.
also ive decided i need to build a mountain bike like yours but we'll talk more about that later
happy trails
rudy
Dude, I'm so glad you found a Strohmans paradise, that sounds awesome. It's really sweet all the cool people you're meeting and whatnot and I really like the new look of your blog. You should consider putting this all together for a book after the trip, anyway I'm still pumped about Strohmans paradise, i might visit it some time :P
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