" Forget Glastonbury, the Cannes Film Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe. We're in Rockville, Parke County Indiana and this week is the 52nd annual "Covered Bridge Festival". On its roadside welcome board, Rockville boldly announces itself as the "covered bridge capital of the world". I wouldn't dispute it, as the locals take it pretty seriously. At first glance it looked like a flimsy excuse for a hog roast and a few drinks. After having a look around it still seems like that. Unless you're a Rockvillian. It certainly makes up for missing the horseshoe throwing competition in Austin, Nevada by 1 day.
The Covered Bridge festival is so big that we almost got caught out finding a room. After seeing 'no vacancy' signs on a couple of motels we saw "The Bubble Gum Bed and Breakfast" (www.bubblegumbandb.com). It was also full but Elaine the friendly owner kindly offered to call round some other places for us.
She did and everywhere in Rockville (its small) was full. We sat and had coffee with Elaine's entire family, who were in the lounge watching Jeopardy, in between coming up with nonsensical suggestions for where we could stay, which ranged from the church (Elaine's mum), to the fire station (Grandad), and then Elaine actually called officer "Bob" at the police station to see if we could have a cell (no, she really did). Bob politely said that it wasn't possible. In the end by the time it got to 8:30 Elaine gave us Room 3 as the people who booked it had not shown up. I'm sure they're going to arrive any second now. Room 3 has 1 double bed, so we're forced into a 'Morecambe and Wise' situation tonight. Just what I needed...Hard ride today from Decatur. Windy again. Just over 100 miles but we did about 10 extra because we got lost. On leaving Decatur this morning, Bugs said, "chuck the Illinois map, we don't need it now as we'll be in Indiana at lunchtime and its a straight road to the border". We did and it was but somehow we got lost on "the straight road".
Saw some stand up comedy in a bar in Decatur last night. The first act was truly diabolical. The 2nd, a guy called Dwight Yorke ( interesting career change from Premiership football) was reasonable. We thought we might have been out of the cowboy hat belt by now but most of the local Decatur men were 'dressed up' in their uniform of boots, jeans, unfeasibly large belt buckle, chunky cowboy shirt, oversized stetsun (worn indoors), goatee beard, bottle of Bud Light, swagger and oversize pickup truck outside. Mind you, in our cycling gear they clearly thought we were a right pair of top Leonards.
So another landmark day today. A new state and crossing into our 3rd (and final) tour time zone, Eastern time. Dave - we're not sure of the motto for Indiana. Is it "The Maschmeyer State"?
(Good guess CT, but as readers of last night's post could tell you, it is in fact the Hoosier State. However, the state legislature might consider a change if there's enough public demand. I am considering a campaign, using the readership of this blog as my base. The significant response to the 1st Poll (see right), suggests that there are people out there who want a voice on the important issues of the day).
Shortly before the State Line, we had our 2nd brush with the law. We got pulled over by a copper as Buggy sailed through a stop sign causing the police car (who had right of way 
coming from the left) to stop to avoid hitting him. Officer Troga of the Illinois PD stopped me and shouted "your friend needs to pedal his sorry ass back here immediately as he's looking at a $75 traffic violation ticket." Bugs didn't respond and kept going, oblivious to the fact that the cop car was even there because he was listening to Led Zeppelin 4 on his ipod, very loudly. A defence that held little water with Officer Troga. Where is PC Barfoot when you need him? (In fact Pete - what has happened to Barf?) Anyway, after a chat about the fact that we were just 2 dopey British guys who didn't know any better ("we weren't sure what the big red sign with stop on it meant - we don't have those in Wales" etc etc) and the bike ride, he let us off.
Special mention today for a key member of our support team - our in-house meteorological expert, Lindsay Dovey. Linz has been sending us strategic, in-depth tactical weather reports, from the Met faculty at Reading University where she's studying for a degree in Meteorological Studies, which now form the cornerstone of our strategic ride planning. Eg "Lads, you will get wet today, Linz". Keep them coming Lindsay!
CT & Bugs"
For non-UK readers, this is a picture of the only other famous Welsh meteorologist & is in no way meant to suggest any likeness between Ms Dovey and Sian Lloyd. Also note the level of detail and useful information that one can expect from a British weather forecast.
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