Into Central Time! Day 13

We are officially in central time and Illinois, woohoo!

(Sorry I forgot to post this before, it's from a few days ago!)

We got on the road (with wind in our faces again of course!). We passed this gigantic sign for Clabber Girl Baking Powder in the town that it was started. They were proud of their Clabber Girl in that town, that's for sure! Alec was confused, and I quote "What in the world is a Clabber...?". (Get ready for some more good Alec quotes from today)

We stopped at a picnic area in this cute, small town to eat some lunch. Alec took a nap on the picnic table, as would be expected. 

His eyes were seriously bothering him, so we looked up an eye doctor and found that there was one on our route just a mile down, perfect. 

They were SO nice and saw him right away. Actually, the doctor wasn't in on Wednesday afternoons and had already left. But they called her and she came in right away from doing crossfit with her excercise clothes still on! We were lucky they were so great and accommodating. When he came out I asked him what they did, and he said "lots of eyedrops and they even did them, not me, you should've seen me, I handled it so well...!" with a huge smile. (Alec quote number two!)

Later on in Terre Haute, IL we rode past a bike shop called Fat Bikes and decided to go in to say hi. There was a guy on the sidewalk (this is in the middle of a city/town place) trying to fix a chainsaw who kind of saw our bikes and asked us what we needed, and we just said we were coming to say hi. And after a short exchange we were confused, and asked him if he worked there, to which he responded, "Well, I might as well!" Which confused us even more...! But he was really nice, and the guy inside who worked there (not just kind of worked there!) was as well, and he gave us two water bottles for free. Which was fantastic. 

Just past that bike shop we crossed into Illinois! Our 8th state. The road that we crossed on was called "Illiana", which I thought was fun. And the big sign in the picture with Alec, below, was on an overpass over I-70 (we were on Hwy 40 that runs basically parallel). Wanting a picture with it he climbed up a hill and hopped onto the overpass. Anything for a picture!

Earlier in the day we saw two, uh, patriotic trucks. The first says "Murica" with an American flag painted on the hood, and the second has an American flag and a confederate flag on the back. 

And after Alec got up from this fall he said "I am like a snake in the grass", and insisted that it was the softest, most cushioned fall ever. 

This started him saying his "mantra", which I will write at the end of this post. 

The shoulder was kind of small for most of the day and had like a little drop down and then gravel, then usually tall grass. If you accidentally ride down into the gravel you can't really get back onto the pavement without stopping, and walking your bike back on. I tried to hop back on once without stopping an completely fell... It was grateful though and I unclipped my feet in perfect timing an landed on my feet! Alec did the same thing a couple times but instead of trying to ride back on the pavement, his thin tires would lead him into the tall grass.. But it's completely on purpose, he says, he's just exploring! He did a lot of exploring that day... :)

We thought this was a great sign, and very representative of a large percent of the demographic we have found in the Midwest!

Daily stats:

Mileage: 59.63

Average speed: 9.87

Max speed: 33.65

Elevation gain: 2248

Daily poem:

(Today it's Alec's mantra)

I am a snake in the grass

I am a crab in the sand

I am lightning

I am boy

(After reciting this mantra he always zooms ahead and sticks his elbows and knees out to the side as he rides...silly, silly Alec)

We also tried to stay at a motel that we discovered was only for weekly or monthly guests, but they had this sign up next to the office. Which was interesting. We were glad to move on..! Our favorite sign of the day (behind the welcome to Illinois of course!)