Day 20: Madison-Evanston

This morning I woke up with the thought of the hotel in the back of my mind which really helped getting over setting up the tent in dark and and the wet stuff. When we left we first took a short ride through a nature area. Then we got on the big road which had a lot of traffic which came from the highway directly into Madison. There were literally hundreds (maybe thousands) of cars coming towards us all in a slow moving line. We were moving in the opposite direction and only 10 to 20 cars overtook us. No wonder people are stuck in traffic.

At the supermarket in the next little town we got something to eat and drink. I had some bananas and two bottles of Powerade. When we got outside a lady approached us and told us we were on the radio. People have been calling the station because they've seen us on the road and thought we were holding up traffic. Seems a bit weird to me, since we were going in the other direction. There also was a man who reads my site and asked Johann and me to follow him to the store. There he took a picture of us and told us he would like to open a bike shop and wanted to become a velomobile dealer. So, we got a 'converted' .

During the day a lot of people talk to us. Today there was a man who was on his way to work and wanted to cycle a bit with us. He had already heard from ROAM and wanted to know a bit more. That meant we had to decrease our speed and in a downhill I could simply let my bike roll. He also wanted to know if I had a upright bike and what I did during winter time to keep into shape. First of all I don't want a painful ass and a velomobile is a all-year bike which I also use in the winter.

We (Harry, Lee, Patrick and myself) were not once but twice approached by the police. The first time was in a little town where the lady officer pulled up in front of us and asked if we were driving safely. After explaining our coast-to-coast story she gave us a 15 minute escort. She kept behind us the whole time. The second time was at a gas station where we stopped for a drink. The officer stated that we were holding up traffic. I always thought we were traffic, but I could be mistaken. After he had written down all our personal information and called it in to head quarters we could be on our way. The total score for being pulled over is now six times in three weeks. In our country I only talked to the police twice in 1,5 years.

Now we are comfortably in a hotel and do not have to worry about a wet tent et cetera. Just a few minutes walking to a nice restaurant (Dave's Italian Kitchen) for some pasta and then a walk by the lake.

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