Day 16, Rest day in Owensboro, 0 miles (the shame!)

...Shame but also guilty pleasure. Today was our first day off the bikes entirely. We woke in our cool hotel room and when we stepped outside into the oven-like heat, mused 'perhaps we could er, rest our legs today? Go and see what Owensboro has to offer culturally?' Then we returned to our room and watched the Olympic cycling and swimming for a few hours, pausing only to grab some coffee and the papers from the motel office. The paper advertised a Bourbon distillery which we called about a tour, but they never got back to us.

Eventually, we did make it downtown, 4 miles away. We left the bikes in our room and used our legs as transport, which felt very novel. Downtown Owensboro is a bit of a work in progress. They are building up the riverfront (on the Ohio River)- and all the townfolk we spoke to were proud to tell us 'we should come back in a year'. Hmm. We also learned that Johnny Depp was born here, and that there are two fantastic bars with live music. We headed to both of them and neither were open until 5pm. So we retreated to our motel room instead. As the pool was occupied by raucous kids, we grabbed some beers from the conveniently located liquor store (where they sell every English or Australian beer we could think of)-and cooled off internally. After watching the Aussie womens' beach volley ball team lose to the Americans in shorter shorts, we head out for some fast food. The only highlight of that dining experience was the woman who overheard Matts' order, and bellowed to her friend 'This guy talks like Mick Jagger!' Matt practically swaggered back to our plastic table, narrowly resisting the urge to throw some Mick pony moves.