We construct a stationary ergodic process $X_{1},X_{2},\ldots$ such that each $X_{t}$ has the uniform distribution on the unit square and the length $L_{n}$ of the shortest path through the points $X_{1},X_{2},\ldots,X_{n}$ is not asymptotic to a constant times the square root of $n$. In other words, we show that the Beardwood, Halton, and Hammersley [Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 55 (1959) 299–327] theorem does not extend from the case of independent uniformly distributed random variables to the case of stationary ergodic sequences with uniform marginal distributions.