resting in chester was nice. when i was completed setting up the tent on dean’s deck, i looked for the closest place that had beer. there was a place only a block away! hurray! it was a swift ride downhill on my bike, especially with all of the weight off of it. i made a few quick friends at the bar, and we drank for a few hours before it was time to head back to get some rest. one of the fellows in the bar had mentioned that i shouldn’t go through cairo, illinois at night and that i should get through there as quick as i could. apparently there is a huge methamphetamine issue there and everyone is always trying to feed their addiction.

i woke up to birds chirping and when i stepped out of the tent it looked like i was in the mountains again. fog everywhere. i had relaxingly slept in for an extra hour. i would try to get into kentucky anyway. it was a mostly flat ride for the day and i didn’t see any reason that i couldn’t make it.

when i got out on the road, i went down the hill and saw more semi trucks than i’ve ever seen. there was probably 100 of them all lined up on the side of the road to pickup truckloads of something from a conagra plant. it didn’t really become an issue until i was past the plant. i was on route 3, which at that point doesn’t have a wide road, and doesn’t have a shoulder. all of the trucks leaving the conagra plant were paced to pass me three at a time. i felt they were a little close for comfort and had to find an alternative route. i found a turnoff about seven miles down the road that would take me on a levee road as well as through some farms for about thirty miles. perfect. when i turned onto the levee road, i noticed a pickup truck with a bicycle rack on the back. cool. i rode about four miles and found the cyclist. he said this was the best road to take and even better that it was flat the entire way. at the same time the wind started to pick up and i discovered that it would be in my face all day long…south south east winds about 10mph all day. i thought this was going to be easy. sigh.

a few miles northwest of gorham, i was in an even smaller town called neunert. i noticed a restaurant on the side of the road and thought it would be a great place to refill water. as i was parking a group of four cyclists arrived! i thought when i left missouri that i wouldn’t see many other cyclists since most of them are going east to west. the group was an older one, which made me even happier to see that age didn’t stop them. they were all between 70 & 84. we sat down and traded tales. they asked me about my ride and they told me how they were the outcasts of the older crowd, riding bicycles and being active. they all appeared much younger than they should have, no doubt due to their activity levels. after talking with them for a while over lunch they offered to pay. i graciously accepted and had enjoyed all of their company as well as the salad i had eaten. when we were all leaving, i thought i would give them a few minutes head start so that i could keep a pace with them, but it didn’t work out. they were fast. i’ll mention that i’m carrying much more weight and the wind on all of my bags slows me down, but seriously, these four can move. i never did catch up to them. i guess they meet regularly and do rides that go about 30 miles. if you four get a chance to read this, keep it up and thanks for lunch. i couldn’t have found a better group of people to dine with.

continuing on my ride, i started going through water faster. the day was getting a bit warmer and the humidity was also climbing. i looked at the map for the next closest town and it was only 10 miles. i arrived and stopped at the one store they had, the fast stop, but it closed at 2, and it was 2:30. i stopped at the post office which has become a good source of water if nothing else is around, but the post office had closed, only open four hours a day 8am to noon. in iowa, when i had talked with cindy at the post office, she mentioned that if a post office changes its hours down to four, then it won’t last a few more years. i’m sure this one is on it’s way out. last place to stop for water was the community center. also closed. great. next town was three miles away. when i got to ware, illinois, i realized that i couldn’t get all of the miles in for the day with the wind. the cyclists that i had met mentioned that the horseshoe state park would be a nice place to stop and i wouldn’t be too exhausted. ware has a few places to buy rocks, boulders and decorative stones, as well as a produce market. i went into the produce market and saw everything looked delicious and was priced much lower than i was used to. i grabbed a few oranges and bananas then realized it was cash only. dang. no cash. i did have some change. the owner asked what i was looking for and i said i’ve only got fifty cents. he said grab a banana and an orange and you’re all set. some people are just nice. they even filled my water bottles. if you’re in the area, definitely stop in and get some fresh fruit or vegetables.

a short time later i was in thebes. it looked like the town that time forgot about. grass was overgrown everywhere. dirt was covering most of the paved streets. a block in i saw a guy sitting outside of his mobile home that looked like a cross between “the cook” played by mickey rourke in the movie spun(cowboy meth cook) and “walter white” played by bryan cranston in breaking bad(science teacher meth cook). this didn’t seem like the place that i should be. i pedaled a bit quicker and got out of there. for at least a half hour after leaving i kept thinking about that movie “requiem for a dream”. how the addictions of people keep them from moving forward and eventually some really bad stuff will happen. that’s some motivation to get away from these places.

closer to the horseshoe lake campground i stopped for a catfish dinner at a diner. excellent and i’m glad that fish is becoming more common on my ride. i can’t wait for some good seafood when i get further south.

the delightful kelly(my warmshower in st. charles) was kind enough to reach out to her friend in chester that was also kind enough to let me camp out. he wasn’t there, but he’s got a great deck with a hose and a power outlet. all three things combined made for a great place to camp out. big thanks to both kelly and dean for being awesome people. out of the 115 i planned on doing today, i finished around 80. i would have definitely done the whole of it if the wind wasn’t in my face and my legs weren’t still a little sore from those missouri hills. tomorrow should be much easier and i’ll be in my 10th state. day 33 done.

the hills yesterday wore me out. maybe i’ve had it too easy in iowa and southwest illinois. the good thing is i feel like today i’m back in the game. yes, i still feel out of shape after the hills, but i also feel like i am more prepared for them tomorrow.

the first thing i had to do was climb a hill to get out of the st. francois state park. I routed through google to get to chester. only a mile on us67 before my turnoff back to berry road. i rode berry road for about a mile until i saw the sign that said “bridge out”. in my experience so far along the ride, when this sign appears, you can still cross cautiously. this was not the case. the entire bridge was gone. not like it happened this year, but at least a few years ago. it was time to backtrack, which i hate to do.

i rode on us67 for a few more miles until i saw a turnout that led to berry road. i wiuld like to say it got easier, but hills. insignificant hills, false top hills, there were even a few that you could see almost the entire top side of a truck or van as they came towards me. i seriously thought i may see the rear vumper of some vehicles, thats how steep they were.

a few small towns later and i had to turn off on another road. only two short miles in, the road turned to gravel. mobile homes littered the sides of the streets and i suddenly realized that i was heading into northern meth country. i now have my pepper spray on my handlebar bag after being warned about dogs, and there were definitely a few moments where the dogs got a little close for comfort. i didn’t spray because i had no reason, but if a dog does get nippy, a squirt of mace will hopefully keep it at bay.

i rode further east until i was wore out, then stopped to get a bite to eat. i shouldn’t have eaten as much as i did bdcause everything felt like a watermelon just sitting in my stomach. maybe my stomach has become smaller since i’ve started my trip. i was uncomfortable for at least twenty miles.

reaching the gas station west of the bridge that leads to chester, i talked with a truck driver. he asked if i had passed or if i was about to pass the bridge. he told me there wasn’t room for a bike, anyone to walk, and even that they close the bridge when a truck has a wider load than normal. he offered a lift over the bridge and i was happy to accept. we loaded the bike on his flatbed and unloaded it five minutes later. it was all uphill to get to dean’s place, which was arranged by the thoughtful kelly, whom i had stayed with in st. charles.

today i looked at the stats for my blog today and i just passed 60,000 views and a week ago passed 40,000 unique views. this has become bigger than i expected and i appreciate everyone visiting and reading through my stories. only 56 miles for the day. day 32 done.

i felt great today. i’m not sure if it was the great company of my warmshower, kelly and eric, the delicious food they made for me, the beer, or just the bed, maybe a combination of it all, but it really refreshed me in a way that i haven’t felt since i started the ride. kelly, if you’re reading this, thank you for everything that you did for me. my experience with you and your home was beyond excellent.

kelly had also given me wonderful directions to head east through the city and to follow the river south. i was to stop at a great farmers market that was near the heart of st louis and be near all of the tourist stuff that i wanted to take photos of. a few miles(maybe 10) into my trip i looked down and realized that i had taken a wrong turn somewhere. if i wanted to go back, it would be additional miles. i thought: “hey, i can do this. i’ll just head south towards the state park and just skip everything else.” i really should have went back to where she had suggested. the roads were all hills, and it seemed like i was forever climbing.

i was attempting to cross the merimac river, when suddenly the sidewalk ended. down the hill i saw a bike path, but it didn’t go anywhere that i needed to go. i went down the hill and got on the bike path. i stopped to look at my gps but the next bridge that looked somewhat friendly was five miles or so east. i stopped the first person on a bike and asked if there was a safe way to cross the river nearby. he said no, and we talked for a few minutes. his name was rick. he said that it would be easier and safer if he just gave me a lift over the bridge, being that he had a truck in the nearby parking lot. i agreed and he drove me over the 141 bridge across the river about two miles. we talked about my adventure and we both agreed that i had stopped the perfect person to ask for directions. crossing the bridge in his truck definitely showed me that there wasn’t any safe way that i could have crossed there.

finally about forty miles out of the city, it seemed like i had hit a plain and it was downhill for a bit. the shoulders weren’t so bad and the sun felt great. rolling through the roads wasn’t as difficult anymore and i was cruising.

passing through values mines i started to see small signs all over that advertised how much of a big community that it used to be when mining lead was a big deal. it was interesting to see so many artifacts of years that had passed.

i hit more hills eventually and then rush hour came. the cars were all in haste to get wherever, and the shoulders seemed to disappear. i stopped at a gas station for a while to wait for traffic to slow down and got some ice water. leaving, i found quite a bit more hills and about twenty miles from the state park my legs just decided they weren’t going to do it anymore. i hit a wall. i stopped and rested for a moment, stretched out and i felt a little better. i pushed harder and made the rest of the journey. i believe my mileage for the day was around 80 after my mishap, but i would have to check a map to accurately gauge everything. sometime soon, i’ll plot out the actual route i took and then i’ll have a much better guess of my mileage. i think currently i’m around 2700 miles. day 31 done.

i didn’t expect the ride from pere marquette to st. charles to be as long as it was. i also had stopped for groceries along the way, adding an additional 10 miles to my ride for the day.

from pere marquette state park, i rode along route 100 through the southern edge of illinois. it was great. grafton, elsah and alton are all nice little towns and it felt like i was on the eastern coast of lake michigan. there’s a nice wide bike lane that runs the entire length between grafton and alton, about twenty miles or so. it was a beautiful morning to take the ride along the river.

crossing the bridge after alton wasn’t an easy task. first, i was riding the suggested route along broadway, where the sidewalk and shoulder both disappear. for about a quarter mile, it was me in thin traffic, thankfully the town wasn’t big, or traffic would have been worse. finally getting onto the alton bridge, there was a bike lane. the bike lane was wide enough, and even had a three or four foot buffer between the lane and traffic. the biggest problem is trash. it seems that everyone driving across the bridge littered at some point and it all went into the bike lane and drains inside the bike lane. there was everything. shoes, clothes, fast food trash, just about everything. it made for a difficult ride. i thought about it when crossing the bridge and determined that since it was the border of illinois and missouri that neither state wanted to deal with cleaning it and so it’s just this purgatory of trash that nobody wants. seriously. these two states should work together and alternate weeks of bridge cleaning. it would make this bridge perfect.

after the bridge, riding southwest for a bit attempting to find the katy trail wasn’t as easy as i had hoped. the wind was directly from the west and i had to ride into it for a bit. winding roads for about eight miles led me to a dirt road that eventually paired up with the katy trail. the katy trail is a nice crushed limestone path that extends quite a bit around the st. louis area. i had to ride it for about twelve miles. for a small portion, less than a mile, the trail had water damage and was incredibly muddy. the mud made for a challenge. i had mud all over the tires, some on my shoes, and who knows where else.

my warmshower, kelly & eric live about a half mile from the katy trail. i left the trail a few blocks early so that i could see some of the beautiful and historic parts of st. charles. i was so distracted while riding my bike through the neighborhood i passed the street they lived on.

arriving at their home, i met kelly and we talked for a moment while i rinsed my bike and shoes with the hose. i showered and settled in and we discussed bikes, politics, weather, and just about everything else while preparing dinner. eric came home and started smoking some fresh bacon, an appetizer to the wonderful dinner. they both made me feel incredibly welcome, and i’d put them as the friendliest warmshower to date. sorry to the others, but hey, it happens. my favorite warmshowers are as follows:

fresh food: neil @ rapid city.
most helpful: kate @ spokane.
most relieving: john @ helena.
the view: frank @ devils tower.
friendliest: kelly & burt @ st. charles.

if you have a chance to stay with any one of those people, you’re a lucky person. everyone of them has a great quality that shows compassion for cyclists that really brings everyone together.

my ride today was about 52 miles. finished close to 12:30pm and relaxed for the afternoon. day 30 done. yes, i’ve been riding for 30 days now.

finally the wind was behind me. it was really behind me. i had a good distance to cover today and it went by like a breeze…or rather me on a bicycle with a breeze.

so the place i stayed last night…it wasn’t really, well, i’m not sure if it was a site. there’s a place, bear creek public use land. i found it online. it said there was camping, restrooms etc. well i followed the directions to get there and saw an rv down there. cool. go setup. wait. that rv looks like it’s been there a while. it’s got a refrigerator standing next to it, and someone has made a makeshift platform front porch. whatever, maybe someone just got comfortable. i walked down the road a little bit and found two abandoned houses. i couldn’t help myself, i had to go in one. it was ripped apart inside. i startled it’s current resident, a squirrel, who gave me the worst look. after poking around a bit, i left. it was really weird. the second house had all of the stairs broken, and i couldn’t climb up. oh, i forgot to mention that all of the houses were on stilts because of the possible flood area of the creek. i was camped in the possible flood area, between the river and the levee. about once an hour, someone came down the river on their boat. they should put up signs…telling people where the area is, because i don’t think i was in it.

i left early, got a good start to my day. i finished the first fifty before noon. the towns/villages/communities that were along the way were extremely small. places that had convenience stores that looked like they had closed twenty years ago. i was happy to find a place with water.

along the way, i met two cyclists. they were riding from minneapolis to st louis. good for them. they were a couple of older guys, and i had told me that there were originally four, but two dropped out the first few days. they were 10 days in, and stopping one more time, making their total trip 12 days. they said they were doing maybe 50-60 miles a day, and when i told them i was doing a century today, they looked at me like i was crazy. there were a few reasons.
1. i liked the sound of the campsite 106 miles away, it has showers.
2. with the wind behind me, it wouldn’t be as difficult as they imagined.
3. by riding 100 today, i can do 30-40 tomorrow and stay with a warmshower in st louis.
4. the 40 mile day should be finished before noon, so i’ll have an afternoon to relax.
5. the weather is perfect.

the other guy said they were stopping for a sandwich in nine miles, but he didn’t know the name of the place. funny thing is, they were on the same route as me and i didn’t see a restaurant or town that looked like it would have one for about twenty miles. i hope they made it.

the last 60 miles or so were hot. not overly hot, but the humidity here is a lot heavier than when it was 115, or when it was 106. those days were dry heat. i’ll be working my way further into more humidity and i hope it doesn’t slow me down.

106 miles for the day and it made me feel accomplished. day 29 done.

lindsey is heading back today. we had a great time together, but she has a ton of stuff to do in the city this week, and i’ve got to keep riding. she keeps joking that it took her 12 hours round trip to drive to see me. it took me 27 days to ride my bike to her, so ha.

she gave me a lift a little east of where we camped so that i could start riding with the river. there was a campsite that is about 30 or so miles from where she dropped me off, and it would make for a simple ride for the afternoon.

the country roads are nice, big tall corn stalks, little used pavement, and the occasional small town. the last two towns weren’t big enough to have stores or gas stations, so i’m lower on water than i would like to be. i still have about 50oz, and i’m sure that will get me through until tomorrow when i am riding.

the winds today were definitely in my favor. i hope this continues for a while. i could definitely get used to some tailwinds with low hills. tomorrow i’ve got a big day, 106 miles. should be easy, right? let’s all hope for more low hills and tailwinds. day 28 done.

rest day.

the rest day. i had originally said that i would take five rest days throughout my ride. i have taken a few, but during those rest days, i’ve either rode or made my way to my scheduled destination or close to it.

this rest day, lindsey was coming to visit me, and we agreed that we would both continue to each other until we met, then goto the campsite she had reserved. it was rough for me. i was into the wind and up hills most of the way. she was with the wind, driving. i can just let you guess who covered more miles.

we met and it was great. we went out and had lunch, ate so much that we didn’t really need dinner, but got snacks anyway. there was a tornado watch and storms that were scheduled to hit. i’ve been through a few storms and it didn’t bother me. we took a quick swim in the pool at the campground, and it was really quick because the pool wasn’t heated. i caught up on laundry. we had a great time hanging out with each other. it was really great to see her.

she offered to give me a lift for a few miles in the morning. during that time we discussed our plans for the next few weeks and what would happen if i arrived early. i’ll just camp a day or two extra along the way so that she doesn’t have to rearrange any flights, car rentals, hotels, etc. it’s much easier that way. i would rather arrive early to southern florida than late. i really want to relax on the beach.

total, i rode about 30 miles or so on my rest day. day 27 done.

i awoke in the lewis and clark state park. refreshed and ready to go. then i saw the cloud over the park. it was a storm. unexpected and unwelcome. i stayed in my tent and looked at the radar. apparently it would be gone before 6 am. relief. i waited for it to pass, shook off my rain fly on my tent and packed up.

across the highway i made friends with the cashier at the convenience store and drank coffee. i wasn’t ready to go. the winds were coming from the southeast, which was where i was supposed to go. finally, after a few cups, i made my way to the road.

my experience with iowa roads hasn’t been great. there’s not really much of a shoulder and there hasn’t been one either. let me better clarify that. there is a shoulder on some roads, but it’s all crushed limestone. not fine limestone, but more of a gravel. one inch rocks. they throw you around and slow you down. a few hours into my day i realized something wasn’t right. my handlebar bag was a little to under crowded. i had left my patagonia houdini jacket somewhere. that was the only real layer that had saved me from some storms and kept me warm early when it wasn’t appropriate to wear a longsleve layer. i know exactly where it is too. maybe not exactly, but close to there. it was 213 johnson street in sloan, iowa. i had stopped to take a rest. i pulled a few things out of my handlebar bag and put my jacket on the front rack of my bike. it probably fell off within a block of there. i know there won’t be anyone that reads this and says “hey, i live there, i’ll go pick it up!” but really, it looks like its the size of a coke can, lime green and will probably get run into the ditch at some point. but if you are there, keep your eyes open. those jackets are nice and i hope whomever picks it up enjoys it and uses it often.

so i rode for about 36 miles into the wind. i couldn’t take it. i knew i would be hours to get the total 100 miles in for the day to get to my destination. i made a judgement call and started heading north of des moines. i know, it’s out of the way, but it’s really where i would be headed if i followed my itinerary exactly. when i woke up, i thought i would make it easier and head closer to st louis. it wasn’t the best idea. i found a campsite northeast of des moines. the hills were minimal and the wind wasn’t directly in my face, more to the right side of me. i pushed on. fifty miles. i stopped as i do in small towns, heading into gas stations and refilling my water bottles. i’ve become quite good at my water weight. i’m carrying my 48oz and 32oz nalgenes empty because i stop so often. i have a 32oz that i bought a week ago before the badlands, but i call that my reserve. stopping more often to refill my two 24oz bottles is much easier than carrying all of the bottles full. anyway, back to the stop. i had refilled my bottles and was about to leave. a guy came up with his puppy and started asking questions and talking with me. he just returned from six years in hawaii. before that he lived in flagstaff. he was excited for my trip. after showing him the route i took, he laughed. he explained i could have cut directly from sioux city on the 141 and saved about 100 miles. oops. i guess i wasn’t thinking about that. sioux city was a little stressful and i just wanted to get out of there. he told me about the sauk trail and that i should take that. i looked on the map and saw that it was easily accessible right before carroll and i could avoid the city by taking that, and it went directly to the campsite.

heading east for another twenty miles or so, then i found the trailhead. it was a nice path, paved and even had people using it. i rode through and stopped at one of the benches to get on. i sat and had a quick dinner on a bench. a father and his two kids were riding by on the trail and one of them said “oh wow dad! look at his bike! he’s carrying so much stuff!” i smiled and said hello. while they were riding away, the kid asked his dad “do you think he’s moving? he has a lot of stuff on his bike.” his dad said no, and then said something else that i couldn’t hear as they were riding farther away.

iowa has been the first state that i’ve been to where everyone slows down to look at you. they all want to see me. people slow down on the other side of the road, people slow down passing, people stay at intersections for unreasonable amounts of time, just to watch me pass. i feel like i’m on display. like everyone needs to see. it feels weird. i’m not used to feeling so watched. i had hit my left ankle on my pedal a few days ago. i didn’t think much of it and it hasn’t bothered me until today. it feels swollen and bruised. i actually took some advil to make it a little more bearable, but it didn’t help much. i completed about 88 miles for the day.

i’m taking a rest day tomorrow, but i’ll still be riding a bit. i get to see lindsey and we’re camping at the koa. okay, maybe i won’t be resting too much. day 26 done.

i swear i took more photos, good ones too. they’ll be more interesting next time.

today was a slow day. i awoke and immediately determined that it was too cold to start riding and went back to sleep. maybe i just needed the extra hour.

riding after that was still slow. i didn’t feel like i was keeping a good pace, but it was nice out and i wasn’t really in a hurry. i did 77 miles today. it may have taken longer than the 95 yesterday, but i was into the wind today and a little relaxed. yes. me. relaxed.

i stopped in a few small towns on the way to sioux city. one of them i met a very nice woman at the post office and we talked for a bit. she gave me some advice on how to get around traffic in sioux city and to avoid the west side of the city. the basic idea was to avoid the whole city. go to north sioux city, take the bridge to nebraska into south sioux city, then take another bridge to where i needed to be. this would avoid all the construction. it worked out, and i even found some nice bike paths to take that mostly got me where i was supposed to be.

after i got back in place, there wasn’t any shoulder on the road. seriously. the paint couldn’t even stay on the road. i don’t really care for that, i like the shoulder and use it as much as i can. i had some anxiety for a while riding. you can’t get out of the road and theres so much traffic that the cars don’t know how to pass you. stress city.

after riding like that for about ten miles or so, the traffic was thinning out. most of the other days, i could have picked an alternate route, but today it was either the highway(nice shoulder, heavy traffic), the interstate(medium traffic, no shoulder), or the dirt roads(additional miles, slow speeds). i stuck with the middle option. for the few moments i had to get on the highway(actually the sidewalk on the highway) to cross the bridge, it was noisy. i’m not used to the noise. it was loud. i ended up putting in my earbuds without music just to make it quieter. i feel like i’ve been out in the wild for so long that i’m unaccustomed to the noises that i’ve been accustomed to for the past years. quiet is when you see six or seven people in a day. today was not quiet.

tonight i’m at lewis and clark state park in iowa and it’s next to a lake. i thought, how nice, it looks really peaceful. i was even being serenaded by the crickets on the way up to the park. setting up was simple, i finally got a shower, then i sat down to cook dinner. as i cooked dinner, i became dinner for the mosquitos. they were everywhere. swat one away, two show up on the other side. i basically ate walking to take care of my trash, because if i stopped then the bugs would swarm. i shook them off and jumped into the tent, making sure that my zippers are fully zipped. this place would really be peaceful if it wasn’t for the mosquitos and the highway noise that is a mile away. day 25 done.

oh that hill. we pushed hard. we pushed really hard. alexei is much better at hills than i, but it’s probably due to the weight of everything i have. he’s got a much lighter load, but i’m much more comfortable and prepared for everything.

we woke up in the picnic shelter and packed up early. we knew there would be a hill that we had to cross, but we needed to get some coffee and food first. across the dam was a small place with a cafe in it. it wasn’t much of a cafe, preheated sandwiches, wrapped and ready to go, plus gas station coffee. we drank the drinks, ate a sandwich and it was time to go. the hill really only took about a half hour to get to the top. i’m not sure why we were so intimidated by it. when we were on the west side of the dam, on top of the other hill, it looked much larger. i had to stop and take my jacket off since i was getting so hot during the climb. after the hill, everything became so much easier.

there were a few smaller hills, but everything flattened out. you could see for miles. with the wind at our backs, and flat ground, the first 20 miles just blew right by. then it was time for alexei and i to split apart. he was to continue east, where i was to head southeast. we had talked about it briefly earlier, and we knew the time would come. i think we both enjoyed having the company to ride with. a few days he was faster than i(hills), a few days i was faster than him(flat ground). we both have our strengths in how we ride. after riding with him for almost five days, we had become accustomed to each others habits. we would get to small towns and wait for each other to catch up so that we could ride together again. it was nice. we both had quite a few days of alone time and having someone else there to talk to really helped. it may seem strange to become friends so quickly with a stranger, but really, that’s what cycling is all about. we shared meals, planned where to stay, talked and rode together. it was good company.

after we parted, the wind was coming from the northwest and i had it all behind me. heading southeast was great. i made excellent time to my first stop, which was where the itinerary said i should have stopped(in yankton). since i had made such good time and didn’t see a point in letting all that tailwind go to waste, i pushed on to vermilion. it was an extra 20 miles, but it wasn’t difficult.

the extra push put me at 94 miles for the day and i feel satisfied rather than exhausted. tomorrow i’ll make a run for souix city, but if my warmshower doesn’t respond, i’ll keep going. i’m only ahead twenty miles now, but with these flat lands and wind, i could easily do the days that i have planned, plus more. it’s supposed to warm up again, getting into the 80s for the next week. that will make sleeping easier, and riding should become easy too. the past few days have just been cool and wet, so the change is welcomed. going into two towns today that had populations over 10k was a big change. after not seeing so many people for so long, seeing so many people and cars for the first time in about a week was different. i’ve become accustomed to seeing towns that have populations of only a few hundred. i also met another cyclist between yankton and vermillion. he was doing the new york to seattle ride. we talked for a few minutes and i gave him my advice of the path that he was headed, very much the same roads for the rest of south dakota. i think south dakota has been the longest i’ve been in a state as of yet, excluding the moment i stepped across the nebraska border yesterday to put my total states visited for the ride up to six. day 24 done.