Rain,rain go away....

Our dinner last night was a catered barbecue at the hotel (outdoor) pool chicken, hamburgs, potato salad...the works - the perfect ending to a beautiful summer day in Missouri. This morning, however, we woke up to dark skies, black clouds and a strong wind from the north. After breakfast we all stood around the computer in the lobby watching the radar screen fill with the yellow/green blobs that mean the rain is coming. But first the distant rumble of thunder and finally the lightning cutting through those dark clouds. Imagine 2o or so people counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder...and there were a few where there was no time gap at all. And while we do ride in rain we do not ever ride in a thunderstorm...it is not good to be moving down the highway as a kind of mobile lightning rod. I grabbed a cup of coffee and went back to the room to watch the French Open (which by the way did not bother Tom at all - he was quite content to sleep until the storm moved through). Finally about 10 AM it appeared that the electrical portion of the storm was over and we left in a light rain on very wet roads. I've got a pretty good rain jacket but the rain water spinning off the rear wheel onto my bike shorts is a real wake-up call. The rain diminished and finally stopped but with a strong headwind and the wet road the first hour or so was not the most fun we have had this week.

The wind did have one redeeming feature...it dried off the roads and as we continued the sky started the clear, the sun started peeking out from the clouds and eventually we could shed our rain jackets and actually break out the sunscreen (not enough in my case but that's another story.

Today was actually a continuation of what we saw yesterday - beautriful green countryside and the roller coaster hills - up and down. Someone actually counted the number of climbs we had today and it was 148. I've tossed in a couple of pictures that give a rough idea of the country and the up and down road but they don't really do it justice. There were a few hilltops where we just paused for a few minutes to stare before dropping down the slope and pedalling like crazy to develop the momentum to hit the uphill at max speed. On most hills you can get enough of a running start to get at least halfway up before the hill takes charge and you find yourself grinding away at 7/8 mph to get to the top - as a kind of point of pride - some might say stubborness - I did not resort to the granny either today or yesterday. At the same time I must admit that the hills do wear on you and heading into the last 15 miles or so I was that the last hill - the 148th - would have a label telling us the climbing was over for the day...Actually the last 1 mile or so was downhill so we did kind of coast into the motel.

And a quick little aside for the day...Several days back Tom and I met the octogenarian beekeeper and he gave us a bottle of honey. We decided to share so we gave it to our support people with the suggestion they use it for the group. So today at the first SAG we had peanut butter and honey sandwiches courtesy of Watson Nichols - and honey is a lot better than the usual jelly.

And what does a cyclist do after a ride in the rain? Of course, clean the bike. So here is a shot of Ira diligently working on bike - clean and oil the chain and then clean the frame and wheels and be ready for tomorrow. Ira has had an incredible run of bad luck with his bike including some shifting problems that sometimes leave him with just a couple of usable gears. He told me that maybe the problem is that the bike is not accustomed to being cleaned like this - he lives in Los Angeles (and we know it never rains in Southern California) and so never cleans his bike. Interesting theory I guess...

And so tomorrow we are off to Quincy, Illinois - crossing the Mississippi and another state crossing. Hopefully with the sun AND the wind at our backs. For the day it was 74 miles and 5 hours and change on the bike for a 14 mph avg.....and now to bed.