April 24

I was woken up today by the big guy. He made me breakfast. Eggs, Hash browns, and Bacon. Gary is my friend. He said a prayer for me. I ate up and said my goodbyes, I was off at about 7:30. It was off into some more shitty wind. Made it to Decatur at 9:30. Millikin is nice, it reminded me of Wesleyan. There are some shitty neighborhoods in Decatur, It reminded me of Bloomington.

I found a bike shop but it didn't open till 10:00. The guy saw me with my bike and let me in early. They were cool guys, they let me drink some coffee. They convinced me to buy a replacement kevlar spoke. It just looks like a piece of string, you replace a spoke with it and tension the thing real good. Spin City Cycles, if your in Decatur check them out. They also sell a bunch of north face apparel.

Not much happened till Mowequa, I got a famous pork chop sandwich, and some mac and cheese and pancake mix for later. I was getting tired outside of Pana so I asked a woman if I could camp out, I cought her going into her house. She was jacked and excited to let me but she decided to call her husband to make sure it would be alright. The Boss said no, she told me her doughter was having a sleepover tonigth so there would be little girls running around and she diddn't want to freak out the mothers by having a stranger camp out. She told me about a park in Pana I could camp at.

Now I was getting real tired, i had to drop down to my granny gear, baby blue was too much for me. I finaly got to the park, not a place to camp in. Nearly no trees, baseball diamonds, no camping signs and a band shell. For the ISU folks, it was a lot like Miller Park. I decided on bein coragous and crashing in the band shell.

I satisfied my hunger at the Pana Family Resturant. I got breakfast, pancakes sausage and eggs. They had an ice cream machine and you get all you can eat self serve ice cream with the purchace of your meal. It was good icecream too. I relaxed there for a while and called my family.

When I got back to the band shell it was getting late, the 5-0 was rollin through the park. Thats when I notice the band shell was across the street from the police station. I decided against sleeping in the park. I asked a local for a campsite, the best he had for me was a cheap motel, He said it was only about $45. I diddn't want to but I went ahead and pussed out. It was a nice motel and the lady at the counter was friendly. She fed me popcorn apples and granola bars. She said that a few days ago a kid on a touring bike stayed there, he was headed for chicago.
Shower felt nice, bed feels nice.

Mileage: 55

Total: 235