Mikes said at last night's route rap..."tomorrow is really easy on paper. Unfortunately, we don't ride on paper!!" Man was he right! With only 77 miles to go we got to sleep in late. 7:30 IHOP breakfast and a 9A load....a full 2 hours later than usual. Rob's wife, 3 kids and his parents were all visiting last night and will follow us to Tuscola before heading home. It was great to meet them. Today's route was much like yesterday's...with miles and miles of dead flat cornfileds dotted with farms. The late start set us up for another long day of brutal headwinds...with little out there to break up the wind. From the start it was tough. We knew at the lunch SAG we'd need to get with a bigger group. The 3 of us would not make good time in these winds! About 5 miles out of the SAG we saw a big group coming up on us...and decided to jump on. Good decision!!! There were about 11 total and that is way more efficient than 3 of us working. The weather was once again...perfect! The roads were amazingly uncrowded. I think we had maybe a dozen cars pass all day. We went thru another small Memonite Community just before entering Tuscola. You can usually tell by the funny buggy tracks and horse poop in the road. I still marvel at their simple way of life. When you see a buggy cruising down the road and realize that is their "car"! I am really hoping the winds swing around for us tomorrow. We've had headwinds for over a week and that makes even the low-mileage days like today pretty tough!
Jammin across the cornfields of Illinois
My POV most of the day
Check out that street name. Judd doing some interpretation of his own in the background!
Typical Illinois farmhouse
A group assault against a very strong headwind. Steve (aka, The Abilene Machine") with a long train behind.
1 comment:
uh-la-la....more open-chest-pick
me like it!
sheppman
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