From a nice, cushy hotel room...

Well, not exactly cushy, but the Super 8 aint terrible.

Mom and Dad came up to Chadron this afternoon to rendezvous with us for our off-day.  It's great to see them, of course, so we are going to enjoy a few days together.  There are a few state/national parks and forests in the area that we will check out, and I'm sure we'll catch up over some meals (as if we weren't being fed well enough on this trip).  They met us on the road today about 3-4 miles outside town and took some videos of me and a few other riders.  They recognized some members of the group, mostly people who have been in pictures or who write blogs.  The group thought that was pretty funny.

As for the bike, we are all very much looking forward to our day off.  You can ask any of the 32 of us and we'll tell you the Carroll, IA to Chadron, NE week was the toughest of the trip so far.  We had a major century yesterday from Winner to Martin (105 miles).  The night before a bunch of us went to a drive-in movie theater in Winner to see the sixth Harry Potter movie.  I've never seen or read Harry Potter, but I've also never been to a drive-in so I had to check it.  Luckily, Isabelle and Eileen sat on both sides of me and explained some of the story.  Cool experience.  

However, it didn't start to 9:30 and didn't end until after midnight.  Thus, I didn't to sleep until 1 AM, as did many others.  Thus, we were all exhausted to being with.  Maso and I were on sweep (meaning we were the last to leave and last to arrive to make sure everybody got there); we had great conversation throughout the day, which was pleasant since I haven't ridden much one-on-one with her.  However, we had trouble from the start and it made for a very long day. Lauren caught a flat and we came across some bum patches in our attempt to fix the tube.  We eventually used one of my tubes, but 45 minutes later, we were all a little jaded.  

From there, the mercury kept rising throughout the rest of the day.  That made for a lot of problems for some people, and as sweep we helped bring in a few of the strugglers.  We didn't get into Martin until 7:45 PM, just over 12 hours after we'd left.  It was a ridiculously tough mental day for all of us.  As I've started calling them, "Survive and Advance" days.  On the bright side, I started seeing signs of how close to Colorado we are; we crossed into the Mountain Time Zone, I saw my first Colorado license plate of the trip, and I saw a guy in Martin riding a horse and wearing a Brian Griese Broncos jersey (quite humorous).

As we prepped for the ride today, most of us just wanted to get through the day.  However, lots of really cool stuff happened that made today one of my favorite of the trip thus far.  Natalie, one of our leaders, has been itching to get back on the road despite her broken wrist.  Earlier this week she bought (at a discount) a trailer that parents usually carry their kids around on the back of their bike.  We've had people fighting over the opportunity to attach the trailer to our bikes.  I got my first chance today, and I carried Nats for 6 miles early on.  With the parents coming, I decided to make some tracks after that, so I used some excellent tailwinds to speed to first lunch.  Then Trevor and I pounded out the 30+ miles to second lunch with more tailwinds, so that was a blast.  After weeks (seemingly) of headwinds, it was a welcome treat.  We caught some rough cross/headwinds on the final 20 miles, but we narrowly missed a storm that looked like it was bearing down on us and coasted into town with sunny skies.  Overall, it was a great day.

I'm looking forward to Wyoming over the next week.  We hit the Tetons pretty soon, which will be a major challenge.  The group is slightly nervous about the climbs, but this is a pretty tough and competitive group.  We'll be just fine.