"Beating It" is Poetic License and sarcasm for the pace we made across much of Illinois coming out of Iowa. I should have probably applied for my Poetic Learner’s Permit first, but I figured, just go for it. Glad we had a nice rest the day before because that frantic pace of 15 MPH would have just been too much for us otherwise. Apparently, all the Chicagoland area (which must be something approximating the size of Australia) was dotted with road construction...big dots...some of them for miles. Summer is the time for road repairs however, and that's all I'm going to say about that, to borrow from Forest Gump.
Illinois calls itself the "Land of Lincoln", and understandably so. But, it is also the "Ground of Grant" as we learned while traveling the Memorial Highway for this General and President whom Lincoln so loved because he was actually effective as a field commander while smoking cigars and drinking up all Lincoln’s spare whiskey, leaving the empty bottles for Lincoln’s kids to collect for the deposit money. I don't know if Lincoln's kids tried to smoke the cigar butts, but life was hard in those days.
We rode many miles and made camp in Indianapolis in quite possibly the worst Days Inn...no, the worst hotel of any stripe I have ever lodged. Put it this way, no one could have done further damage to this room that would possibly worsen its condition. It was ready for one of those cleansing fires like they did in the movie Ben Hur after moving the lepers out of their dungeon cell. I would have gladly slept outside, but they charged a higher rate for that. They know something.
Here's the day's route:
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