Day Two, What Shall I do?

Howdy Family and Friends! Day 2, what to do? For me (Jen) today was exactly that…where oh where do I start…laundry, dishes, floors, oh wait! I know! How about Happy 13 Anniversary to my husband! To celebrate, I went out for coffee with the ladies from the church! Dave gave me a gift certificate to the Hub (for coffee) an Angry birds stress ball, and a sling shot from the Angry Birds game…not exactly romantic you say!? I agree, but it was from him!

From Dave: Today was the first full day of the ride. What a day! We rode 40 miles before lunch and it was an interesting ride. It was 42 degrees when we left. If only it would have stayed cool all day. That first section had a lot of down hills, but there were three major uphills that challenged us right away. Over all it was an uneventful day. There was one flat tire, but everybody seemed to be doing well.

As we pulled into Alliance for lunch, the wind shifted to the west and we were very excited to have a major tail wind for the last half of the ride. I choose to start in the back today and took my time riding to the front so I could visit with all the riders along the way. After 14 miles, I had had enough and it was time to go. The wind was picking up and we motored. We ended riding an extra 18 miles more than we had planned because the wind was so favorable. All together we road 83 miles and stopped in Bingham. I was totally wasted the last two miles. I didn't have anything left in the tank. The front group got there really early so after resting for a while waiting for the bus I decided to ride down into Bigham and take the royal tour of the town. There isn't much there, but I have to say the streets are very well marked. Every street had a sign. It was a fun adventure. When I returned to the highway everybody else had arrived and the bus was almost there. Wahoo!

Remember I said we wished it stayed cool. It was 105 along side the road. Not fun. Tonight I was given the "forget me not" award. Before I left Burwell I was fixing some seams on top of the bus to stop some leaks and I thought I had taken care of everything. At Arby’s today I was looking at the bus and I couldn't figure out what was laying on top of the bus. I thought I might have damaged something with a low tree branch or something. So I walked out and look and found the caulking gun that I had used the other day. It rode all the way to Chadron and back to Alliance without falling off. Pretty impressive! Summary of the day I rode 84 miles and averaged 19.2 miles an hour. Good day over all!

From our loving, speedy anniversary window to yours, have a great night!