Day 18, May 8, 2014

On paper today was to be an easy day, relatively flat and low mileage (102).  The Kiwis had the bright idea of diverting to Starbucks for a coffee before heading out, and allowing the slower riders a head start.  That was all well and good, but I got shanghaied by a curious patron who bent my ear with his whole life story (in case your interested, his one son works for Homeland Security and the other is on the SWAT team in Minneapolis, blah, blah, blah).  The day was overcast and I felt either a few drops of rain or the sweat from Jere's brow blowing back on me.  About noon, with 50 miles to go, the winds out of the south began to really start blowing and gusting hard.  We were heading east and leaning into the wind.  Farmers were out in the fields plowing and the wind created huge dust storms which enveloped us in the dirt.  With 10 miles to the lunch stop, the course turned due South, right into the teeth of the wind. The effort to slog through the wind, along with the roar in the ears was really demoralizing.  It took us almost an hour to cover the 10 miles.  The last 30 miles were heading easterly again with a side wind.  For whatever reason we kept a quick pace, probably subconsciously trying to get done with the day to avoid the forecasted afternoon thunderstorms.  Ultimately, it never did rain.  We finished with 102 miles (my GPS download shows 99 because I had trouble starting it out of Starbucks)  and my legs are feeling the effects of today's hard effort.  After getting to the hotel and looking at the weather radar, the area we rode through a day ago was getting hammered with rain.  Just a few miles west of Conway, Ak we saw some of the hurricane damage that devastated the area on April 27th.  Tonight Jere put fenders on our bikes because it looks like our luck will run out tomorrow, the forecast is 70% chance of rain showers.  Tomorrow's agenda is to ride 113 miles to Senatobia, MS; we cross the Mississippi River at about the metric century (100 km) mark (62 miles).  We saw a few unleashed dogs today, and tried out a trick we learned to keep them away.  All you need to do is yell in your most stern voice; "get in the truck".  If that doesn't work, you yell again; "get in the Fuc*ing truck!".