Day 47

I woke up feeling tired and lethargic today. I decided to go for a run to sort myself out. I did 35 minutes on a really boring road. To create a bit of excitement, I ran two laps around a cinema carpark. Thrilling stuff here in Milwaukee.

I arrived back to the hotel in time to watch the last few kilometers of Tour stage eight. Rasmussen rode away from everyone into the yellow jersey and a stage win to boot. Mayo made a move to finish second and jump up the GC. A lot of the favourites crapped out and lost time. But it's still early and a lot can happen (or go wrong in two weeks).

We left the hotel and started our long drive to St. Louis. We had to drive all the way across and down Illinois. First we got hit with more tolls on 94 (the road that goes north - south but is marked east - west). Needless to say we were happy to see the back of Chicago and all of it's bitterness. What we saw the rest of the six hour drive along 55S was corn stalks. That is it. Corn stalks. Nothing else.

We stopped once to eat, a second time to buy petrol and then outside of Divernon to have a look at Route 66. There isn't much left of it but you can see glimpses of it now and again running parallel to 55.

Paulo took the keys and we drove a short stretch of 66 between Divernon and Girard. Just to say that we did it. Unfortunately, the only thing about 66 (during this bit) is that you have a closer look at the corn stalks. That is it.

We continued along 55S all the way into St Louis. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any visitor centers before or after the state line. We took 170N, then 270E and back down 55S in an effort to find a visitor center. But no such luck. After looking for over thirty minutes, we found a Days Inn in Collinsville, Illinois. We checked in and then crossed the street to have dinner at Ruby Tuesdays (or Goodbye as we were calling it).

The evening finished with a bit of wifi time and and an all time classic on the telly - Ace Ventura. Take care then, bye bye now.