Today was a looong day. We woke up at 4:45 to be out of the Athletic Center by 5:30. We travelled down the road to the Channel 5 building 2 miles away. Channel 5 is one of the largest and most watched channels in St. Louis and has an area outside where the reporters come outside to talk to the fans or whoever is up and out at 6am. (It’s kinda like the big fenced off area outside of Good Morning America or The Today Show.) There were two other groups that wanted air-time and some random fans as well this morning. We got in line and waited along the fence until it was time for the camera to come to us. When the cameras got to us at about 7am, we were able to get a solid 5 minutes airtime about who we were and what we were doing. After that, we rode another mile or so through the city of St. Louis to the City Grocer. The City Grocer is a contemporary grocery store that has a small restaurant and coffee shop inside it. There, we had a sponsored breakfast consisting of bacon, eggs, sausage, and potatoes. It was excellent. After breakfast it was nearing 9am and the temperature was nearing the low 90′s. This wasn’t that bad except for the fact that we were still in St. Louis and we still had 100 miles to complete. We started to head down the road until we were stopped at mile 10 by some reporters from Channel 5. They were so intrigued by our trip that they wanted to get some interviews from us and some “ride-along shots.” For another 5 miles or so, they rode in front, behind, and beside us and filmed us riding.
We entered into the state of Illinois and the first town we arrived in was the town of Collinsville. Although it was obviously not my home town, it looked similar and it was cool to ride through a town with “Collinsville” everywhere. For a brief second, I felt as if I was getting real close to home although “home” was still 800 miles away.
The roads today were real rough and halfway through the day I hit a patch of rough asphalt in the shoulder and blew my tire out. It was my front tire that blew and it was actually quite the violent flat tire as I had to brake very quickly to prevent from losing control. I went to patch my tube and noticed 4 sizeable holes had resulted from the blow out so instead, I replaced the entire tube.
Our lodging tonight is in the auditorium of the Effingham High School. The air-conditioning is not very strong so it seems like it will be another night with no need for the sleeping bag and only shorts while sleeping. Although we don’t have a friendship visit planned for this evening, we have some programming with the Rotary Club.
For dinner tonight, the Effingham Rotary Club came out to our High School and brought along a professional cater with them. We had an amazing grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, and Italian pasta meal. The Rotary Club was very accommodating to our hunger needs and provided us with some great company for the evening.

Dan Heaton

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