Perryville to Cape Girardeau, MO

Saturday, September 27, 2003
Distance Cycled: 52 miles
Total elevation gain: 1,940 feet
Our Total Flat Tires on trip to date: 1

Today was a pleasant day in that we did not have as many hills as the previous day and we had a very nice tailwind, the first in many days. We did have a number of hills but except for one very short 10 to 16% grade, most were 5% or less. Today was Mary Kay's birthday and Jim did the worst thing possible, he forgot. Was he ever in hot water all day? We followed highway 61 until Fruitland, were we stopped for a rest and then turned left onto highway 177, and then we followed road "V" until again met highway 177 at the park for the "Trail of Tears". After we visited the park we continued on highway 177 to Cape Girardeau. The scenery was very similar to that we have been seeing for the past two weeks.

We did not rush to our destination but with that tailwind, we arrived at the motel at 1:30 PM only to find that the rooms we were supposed to rent were not yet ready. It was another of the low cost motels we have been staying in for the last several days so we called some other motels to get their price. They would cost as much for 1 night as this motel was costing us for 2 nights. It took us about 2 hours to decide to stay at the low cost motel. We got into the motel and unpacked, took showers, got dressed and opened the door to discover that it was raining fairly hard. 20 minutes later the rain had stopped and we started to walk to a restaurant for supper. As we were walking we saw a bright rainbow.

We ate supper, returned to the motel and went to bed for 10+ hours of sleep. We were all very tired.