Sunday July 7:  Champaign, Illinois to Crawfordsville, Indiana
Distance:  81.6 miles
Total time:   6 hours 58 minutes
Riding time:  5 hours 30 minutes

Today's was a relatively easy ride.  81 miles over mostly flat terrain, and with cooler temperatures than we've recently experienced.  The high was probably in the low 80s.  The wind was a pesky thing, mostly a Crosswind of Uncertain Purpose with just an occasional Headwind of Mostly Benign Velocity.  All that said, we didn't set any land speed records today.  We were content to chug along at 14 or 15 miles an hour rather than our usual 17 or 18.  Everyone is feeling the cumulative effects of 33 days of cycling, and the lingering effects of those damn Missouri Hills.  Have I mentioned the hills in Missouri?

We never got off to a good start.  My benchmark is 15 miles in the first hour - if we can achieve or come close to that, we're off well and we can make good time.  But today we got goosed in the early going.

Did the Brits plant those geese in the roadway to slow us down, or did the geese just find their way there on their own?  I don't believe in coincidences.

Then Magic Mark the Mechanic, who rode with us for the third straight day, got a puncture.  His replacement tube was faulty so we ended up spending a long time on repairs.  We only rode nine miles in the first hour.  Here's Mark repairing his tire.

And here are the Brits stopping to heckle us.  Allan in the foreground was Heckler in Chief on this day.

Illinois offered us more cornfields and more soybeans today.  If the corn is supposed to be knee high by the fourth of July it's overachieving.  I'd say it's almost as high as an elephant's eye.

You don't want to peer too closely into a cornfield.  You never know what might be lurking there.

We stopped for water in front of this unusual building.  In spite of my deep reservoir of knowledge about agriculture (and about all things, really) I'm not sure what it is.  But someone might use it to store something for a specific purpose.  Anyway, I like the building.

The last town we passed through in Illinois was Danville, sad and hollowed out.  It was surprising because the rest of the state had seemed very prosperous.  By contrast the first town we came to in Indiana, Covington, was as neat and tidy as any Vermont village.  Our destination for the day, Crawfordsville, is also a nice town with a vibrant center.

Here's the iconic "Welcome to Indiana" picture.  The Three Amigos and Magic Mark the Mechanic.

As we got deeper into Indiana the terrain began to roll again.  I took this picture in aptly-named Hillsboro.  The bicycles hanging from the side of the building are iron sculptures.  I have no idea what they're doing there.

When we entered Indiana, our eighth state thus far, we also entered the eastern time zone.  So we lose another hour.  Unlike it's western counterparts, Big East did not announce itself with a sign or any indication at all that the time had changed.  East coast snobbery?

Tomorrow we conclude this very difficult seven-day stretch with a relatively short ride of 63 miles into Indianapolis.  We'll have our fourth rest day there on Tuesday.  On tomorrow's ride we'll visit the Indianapolis Motor Speedway - the Old Brickyard, home of the Indianapolis 500.  And as a special treat we're also going to visit the Indianapolis Velodrome, one of the few bicycle racing tracks in the United States.  When tomorrow is done we'll have 13 cycling days left and we'll be 1100 miles from home.