500+ miles later... (part 2)

DAY 5 (Wednesday) - Merna to Ord 60 miles
Awoke to the sounds of rain pelting the roof of the gym at 3:30 AM. It sure was nice to sleep in a dry location. The quality of sleep seemed to have been very good too. Packed up my bag and was ready to place it onto the truck; unfortunately when looking out the door, it was a torrential downpour. This was not looking to be another fun day. After about thirty minutes the rain turned into a light drizzle. I took advantage of the lull in the weather to walk the half mile to the truck to place my baggage onto it. Then it was back to the school for some grub. Someone had their computer on with the current weather maps up and the day was looking to be really bad. Mentally, I was beginning to lose my motivation.

I decided to just mount the bike and get a move on at 5:30 AM. It appeared as though I was the first person on the road this lovely morning. Just on the outskirt of town I came across another person who was a little unsure as to where we were supposed to head. I hooked up with him for the first ten miles and had a good conversation. The time sure moved by quickly, so quickly in fact I wasn't paying attention to our speed until we arrived at the first SAG stop. We averaged 11 mph. Ugh...there was no way I was going to continue this pace. There were two groups of riders that zipped past the SAG. I felt a challenge and something to motivate me in this will sucking weather. I thanked the gentleman for the good conversation and told him that I was just going to hammer it. So off I went.

The second group of riders was easy to catch. I was averaging at this point 22 mph, this was turning out to be a great day. Then the sky decided to start dumping. For about 30 minutes there was a torrential downpour, the road looked just like glass. Remembering my little mishap at the Beatrice Crit a few weeks back I made sure to practice the lessons I learned. Slowly I was catching up to the first group, once I caught up to them I decided to draft off them for awhile. There was some great conversation with these two even though we were cooking over 20 mph.

We passed through Sargent onto a country road. This road was not very well maintained. Also, because of all the rain, the BRAN markings on the roads were all washed away. It made us unsure whether we were going the correct way or not. I saw some hills, and feeling really good thought I would attack them. That was so much fun, I think I am beginning to like hills. The two individuals I was riding with seemed to have died on the hills and they fell back some ways. There was also a groundhog golf course on this road, 416 holes. Pretty funny I thought. The rain seemed to have let up to a light drizzle at this time.

Reached the end of the road and didn't know which way to go, right or left. There were no markings. Someone came by in their car, one of the people who SAGed themselves in because they didn't want to ride in the rain. They didn't know where to go either and said they would drive around and come back and let me know which way to travel. He came back and said to go right. I decided to wait for the group of two I passed to catch up and let them know which way to go too. Apparently one of them had a flat and fell even further back; it was about a 10 minute wait. When the caught up we headed into town together.

We arrived at the school around 9 am. One of the local organizers was there and told us to come inside, get dry, and relax. They mentioned that the gyms would be opened for people to sleep in. They even opened the wrestling room with the mats. We were the first people to arrive and quickly staked out our spots on the mats. They gave us towels to dry off with, some chips to eat, and two 60 inch screen tv's to watch. They also let us use the schools washer and dryer. The town of Ord went all out for everyone and bent over backwards to accommodate and help us. They received my vote for best host town. Even the mayor was driving the shuttle bus taking people to wherever they wanted to go in town.

The rain stopped in the afternoon. Ate some lunch and dinner and went to bed. Not much else happened this day.

DAY 6 (Thursday) - Ord to Fullerton 68 miles
The usual morning routine was followed. My legs were feeling a tad tight and I wanted to make this day a recovery ride and take it easy. I hooked up with Franz Muller and we had a nice easy ride. Three quarters of the ride was covered in fog. It turned out to still be another day of being wet, but it was a hell of a lot better than being rained on.

When the fog had been completely lifted it was a beautiful scenic ride. We arrived in town at 10 AM. The town had blocked off the main street and were having a little street fair type of event for the BRAN riders. They were making hamburgers and brauts. The best part was that the brauts were made locally by the local butcher. They were yummy. There was even a place offering homemade pies, either by the slice or whole pie. I had to have a slice of apple pie, this being my first piece of pie the whole ride. I swear the pie crust was made with lard, it was so flaky.

The truck finally arrived so it was down to the park to help unload, pitch tent, get a shower and rest. Well, while setting up the tent mosquitoes swarmed all over us. Alas, I had no repellent. I did my best to avoid them until I could get something. It was off to the showers, since the swimming pool was at the park I thought I would try the showers there. Not a good idea, there were 10 people waiting for 2 dinky showers. Later I learned that it was all cold water. So I jumped on my bike and rode over to the high school. Much better than the pool showers. On my way back I stopped at the local general store and purchased some mosquito fogger and some OFF!. At the tent I sprayed the tent with the fogger and sprayed myself with the other stuff. I was left alone for the rest of the evening.

I ran into fellow temFIRE members Janna and Nicol. They seemed to be having a great time too. I saw them in the beginning too, but they would leave much later than me and would stop at all the towns in between. Nicol was still trying to get everything in her tent dry and kept asking if she should put the rain fly on. I kept saying that it wasn't going to rain any more and she would be okay.

NOTE: Never trust my meteorological predictions. I am maybe 10% accurate.

We hooked up with some other people and went to the lasagna / spaghetti feed at the legion. As we were inside and ready to start dishing food onto our plates it started down pouring. Nicol saw the rain coming down and ran out to put the fly on her tent which was a half mile down the road. We stayed and ate and boxed up a meal for Nicol who had not returned.

We arrived back and Nicol's stuff was soaked. A nice local person offered to dry Nicol's stuff. After a while all of us decided to see about getting some pie. Yes, I know, I already had one but I was on vacation and going to have another one. Once there I had a slice of cherry pie this time. We ran into Katie, Stanin, and Steve, some follow Lincoln people. Steve was talking about doing a century (100 miles) or even a double metric century (120 miles). This piqued my internal challenge meter. I thought, I could do that tomorrow. Brandon and I decided that will will attempt either the double metric or the century ride. The next days ride would be 70 miles and we could turn back and add the miles. We decided that we would meet up with Janna and Nicol after our turn around or we would meet them in Osceola (double metric mark), which ever came first.

So, it was off to hang out and get some sleep.

Coming tomorrow...did I do the double metric or did I do the century? You will just have to wait...