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 This is the Drury Hotel in Rolla. I didn't bother booking it since there are loads of hotels in every town along I-44, and motels in the gaps between towns. There's a motel across the road which appears to be offering rooms from £10. I was drawn to this one however by an advert a few miles back which said it provided a free HOT breakfast. Of course, given how every other hotel breakfast in America is minimalist, verging on pointless, that could well mean that they just have a microwave oven into which you could put your doughnut if you were insane. I'll give it chance though. Drury Hotels seem to sell themselves on the free extras which they provide. You get an hour of free long-distance phone calls for free each night. I was going to use this facility to book places for my next two nigths but of course the free Internet connection was easier. It's a good old wired connection here so everything works properly. None of this wireless nonsense. I'm glad I didn't commit myslef in advance to a particular hotel for tonight. When I set out today, I was heading for a town called Cuba but by lunchtime, I didn't really think I would get that far. I was feeling very tired and didn't seem to have made very fast progress on the flat rail-trail so when the hills started, I felt like giving up. When I turned onto route 66 though, the road surface improved, I received a tailwind and the signs showed that I had somehow overestimated how far away Cuba was by about 15 km. I ended up going straight through Cuba and on to Rolla, which means I've made up the ground lost in the Terre Haute debacle and am back on schedule. Unfortunately, in attempting to see if I could get all that dust off my bike, I got oil all over my trousers. I'll have to go to dinner in my shorts now. Dinner is another Steak & Shake. I saw a couple more today so they're not just limited to Indianapolis. Apparently the chain started in Normal, Illinois. I'm not making these places up! UTC Time: 02:19, Monday 16 July 2007 Local Time: 21:19, Sunday 15 July 2007 Estimate of longitude: 91° 45' 53.25" W = -91.764791° Estimate of latitude: 37° 57' 48.47" N = 37.963464° Possible error on position estimate: 20 metres | |