Blowing in the wind

---

No alarm went off this morning but I still woke up just on 5:30am - the boys were rapt.
I was treated to a rendition of Happy Birthday at breakfast and was given choice of which legs to ride for the day - perfect. We left just before 7am and made our way ever eastward. Crash Test Jeff decided he was riding today and there was no way we could dissuade him. He did have a generous portion of pain meds though. The road was perfect for the first 50kms, soooo smooth, and the wind gods granted me strong tail winds for my birthday. Jeff actually handled the riding very well considering. His first leg was a little conservative but after that it was like nothing had happened. He did need a top up on the meds in the afternoon though. We crossed from Illinois to Indiana around lunch time and lost an hour by crossing into the next time zone, we're now 14 hours behind Melbourne time. The road surface also got a little rougher which wasn't to Jeff's liking too much. Our plan today was to ride until 4:30pm and then drive the rest of the way to Bloomington so we had time get to an RV Park, settle in and then to go out for dinner. What actually happened is we finished at about 5pm due to losing an hour and then couldn't find an RV Park. The first one was an empty block of land and the second one was a mobile home park as opposed to an RV Park. We drove into the middle of town to see what we could find. Bloomington is actually a very nice town. It is home to a world class university and about 85,000 people. Without an RV Park to book into we parked in the Main Street and all had a shower in the RV. We then ended up at a very nice restaurant called the Crazy Horse. And we all ended up ordering the same thing, the 12oz NY Garlic Strip Sirloin. It was sensational. After dinner we plan to drive east which is our way out of town tomorrow. We'll either find an RV park or a carpark, either way we'll hunker down for the night ready to do it all over again tomorrow. We have decided that our target is to get to Washington for the 4th of July. We have 8 days to get there. We have also decided that we all need a minimum of 3000kms for the trip. Bring it on. Footnote #1Jeff scored 2 failures trying to patch the tube that blew out when he hit the rock. He should have just cut it into a thousand pieces. Footnote #2We are considering a tattoo to commemorate the ride. We think a cog on our calf with something like the following written underneath:3000kms, Coast to CoastUSA 2017 What do you think, should we do it or not?

---

Comments

[Anne Knights]

Tatts
I love tattoos - go for it!

[Dale]

Blog
Living the dream Mark. Actually it's my new dream. Love the blog, love the pics, love what you're doing. No tattoos!!! Get a plaque, a trophy, a signed caricature, or a t-shirt. No ink!!

[Glenn]

Tattoo. Hell yeah!
Such an awesome idea. Here's some ideas. 1. Cog with usa map in the middle and 3000k 2017 in the middle of that. 2. A cog shaped like map of usa. With stuff in middle. 3. The classic. Right across your back . Or front. Bald Eagle on a bike being shagged by Skippy... Classic! BTW. Aussie Mates Riding Across AMerica. AMRAAM. fuck yeah. Hoo Yah! ?