I started out the day before the sun was up, packing up and filling my water bottles before heading out of the campground at about 7am. I had a nice time to myself with limited phone signal but not too much traffic on the roads. Up to Falls of Rough was very flat but the road got a bit steeper after that.

I stopped in at Fordsville to do some shopping and get some breakfast. Unfortunately the parts store didn't carry the tiny bolt I needed and the pharmacy had no baby wipes. However, the "budget breakfast" item on the menu at the diner was stellar. Best breakfast I've had all trip, or maybe it was the 35km on the road I'd already had.

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I carried on through back farm roads where the ground started getting flatter and more corn fields showed up. All the drivers would wave in this part of the country, it felt like a pretty good place to be. My hands were starting to get a bit numb and I was feeling the miles but I kept on going. 

I stopped for lunch in the tiny unmarked town of Pleasant Ridge. The local Grocery/deli owner Elvis of Doolin's Groceries came out to greet me. He gave me a free slice of brownie and we got to talking about farming in the region and he let me know how to avoid copperhead snakes. It was boiling hot out today so I rested for a while I ate. Elvis told me of a few others ahead on the trail, a British couple, a lone Russian/German and a South African couple. It was good to know I wasn't far behind some others.

I carried on, zipping through farmland. I had plenty of downhills and tailwinds in the afternoon so time flew by. As I was getting pretty close to Sebree, my destination, I came across some Eastbound cyclists. We stopped and chatted a while. They had a lot less gear than me and had come in from Santa Monica, California. They joined the Trans Am in Illinois after taking Route 66 across. Good on them for moving so quickly. I gave them some misleading info on the difficulty of heading the opposite direction to me and carried on.

I must have averaged close to 30 km/h for the last few miles that it was into Sebree. I stopped at a dairy bar for a burger and shake to go and headed into the church/hostel. None of the phone numbers listed answered me today, except for one person who was out of town. I decided I'd just head down the back to check it out myself and found touring bikes everywhere. There were 2 couples, one from California (George and Clementine), and one from South Africa/Australia (Karin and Matthew). They'd both taken a rest day here so I had managed to already catch up after only hearing of them hours before.

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I did my washing in a real washing machine and ate my burger as I tried to get through a week of socialising in one go. It was nice to chat to people my age and not just the staff at diners or my uber drivers. We watched some tv shows and headed off for bed. I'm considering taking a rest day because one of my fingers has gone a bit numb but I'll see how it is in the morning.