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 Today took a lot longer than I had imagained. It was very hard work. I've changed my mind about those hills; I don't like them at all. Having a whole day of those really drains your energy, especially when the air is hot and humid and you keep getting chased by dogs. I'm now in Marshfield, the point at which the pattern of roads on the map changes from a sprawl to a grid. I'm optimistically hoping that that's indicative of a return to flat ground. Marshfield is also where I leave route 66 and turn onto the TransAmerica cycle route. There are no signs for it on the ground but the Adventure Cycling Association produces comprehensive maps and a turn-by-turn description of the route, as well as ists of hotels, campsites, grogery stores, bike shops, and so on. I'll be following their route for quite a while now. This is where things start to get interesting. Actually, that's a lie; this is where things start to get incredibly dull. I've seen several journals by people who have ridden the TransAm and they all photograph the same things, which rather suggests that those are the only sights of note in several hundred miles. I can tell you now what's coming up. We've got the graffiti-covered barn, the lasso-wielding unicylist mailbox, the airmail box, the bicycle oasis, the nation's smallest jail and, of course, Cassoday: prairie chicken capital of the world. Since Marshfield is on the TransAm, I had expected cyclo-tourists to be a common sight here. The hotel receptionist identified that I had come on a bike - I don't know if it was the helmet, the shorts or the shirt with tyre marks on it that gave it away - but seemed surprised by the notion. I'm not sure if the bloke who served me in KFC was more surprised at the idea of somebody cycling here from New York or the idea of somebody from England, or as he later called it 'Germany or wherever', being in Marshfield at all. UTC Time: 01:22, Tuesday 17 July 2007 Local Time: 20:22, Monday 16 July 2007 Estimate of longitude: 92° 55' 41.73" W = -92.928257° Estimate of latitude: 37° 20' 35.83" N = 37.343287° Possible error on position estimate: 20 metres | |