Today I (Sam) woke up pretty amazed with the view around where we set up our tents. It is pretty cool going to bed when it’s pitch black not knowing your surroundings and then realizing how it really is. We had somewhat of a slow start, getting out of our campsite at around 11am. We did at least have “The Midpoint Cafe” to look forward to about 11 miles in. The cafe is at the midpoint of Route 66 between Chicago and Los Angeles. Their food also looked really good based on the photos on Google. Unfortunately, the place was closed for the day upon arrival due to short staff. This was a tough blow, but we hung out outside of the restaurant for about 20 minutes anyways. We then headed over to a gas station nearby which sold pizza so we helped ourselves to a couple of those. After the gas station, there would only be one more 4 miles away until we reached the town of San Jon 51 miles away. I bought a bunch of cliff bars, sugar wafers, pistachios, and Hot Dogs to get me through the following day. We stopped at the next gas station for about an hour because James and our good friend John were in deep trade talks for fantasy football. I helped broker the deal. After our extended break, we walked another 7 miles until finding a good spot off the side of the road to pitch our tents for the night. These last 7 miles were challenging because the service road next to I-40 went away, and the dirt path we were expecting was non-existent. We were originally going to trudge through the grass, but James hopped on the interstate shoulder to check it out and it seemed to be the superior option. While this was intimidating at first, the shoulder was actually very large and flat, providing us with enough space to feel safe. Still, we were very cautious and will continue to be when this situation inevitably arises again.
10/5/22
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