Chasey with Casey

Total distance: 2001.7 km

By Sundance:

A quick post update here, as we have internet access again. We forgot to mention an amusing aspect of the departure from Cheryl's place at La Center yesterday. One of the dogs who lives at her place, named Casey, decided to run along with our bikes - and apparently decided to come to California with us. It was good to be chased by a good-natured dog, who wasn't trying to eat us, but after more than a mile we decided we'd better call Cheryl and tell her to come in her car and collect Casey if she ever wanted to see her again. That was quite amusing and put us in a very good mood, as we rode along the delightfully flat countryside with a fair tailwind, before pulling into Wickliffe, posting yesterday's blog update, and heading down to the banks of the Mississippi. Here's a couple of pictures of us with Kentucky on the right, the bridge to Illinois in the background, and Missouri on the left.

Around sunset (which is extremely red and pretty), on our way south from Wickliffe we also crossed the 2000 km mark of our journey. Hooray! That made us feel very accomplished.

As the sun had set, and one of our headlights was malfunctioning, we decided we should try to find a place to turf-surf promptly. After being turned away at a place by an old man who said his wife thought we we burglars, we arrived at a house which turned out to be the home of a state trooper, Clint, and his wife Valerie and their daughter Taylor. Taylor was very impressed to meet people from another country, and we stayed up late talking about everything, and being shown her pet hermit crab. It was also nice to meet a young girl who is very smart (doing well at science and maths), as well as athletic and interested in her health. Kids like that make you hope that they get every opportunity for a good education and a bright future. Clint also showed us a possum he'd captured after it had been eating their catfood. American possums are nowhere near as cute as Aussie possums - they're like a cross between a Tasmanian Devil and a ring-tailed possum. Eventually we crawled into our tent (glad to see that it hadn't been shredded by the numerous kittens in the yard who thought climbing up the tent was the most fun they'd had in weeks), and awoke to be greeted by cows staring curiously at our tent from over the fence around their paddock.

For there is surely nothing more beautiful in this world, than the sight of a lone man facing single-handedly, a half-a-ton of angry pot-roast.