Day 26 - Norton, KS to Red Cloud, NE

Daily Stats:
Time: 5h37m34s
Distance: 165.50km
Avg Spd: 29.4km/hr
Climbing: 822m

Today we entered our sixth state: Nebraska!  And yes, the storm clouds brewing in the background did add some excitement to our day.

Today was our second century of the tour.  It was planned as 99 miles, but I think we ended up going 105.  Again, many people were eager to get on the road as early as possible to make sure they finished on time.  Most people had no trouble finishing before dinner, but the camp was virtually empty when I got up for breakfast at 6:45am!

Karel, Brandon, Mark and I rode together, and had a great day.  There were a few stops planned along the way that broke up the ride and made it that much more exciting.

First stop was at 25kms - Prairie View CRC had coffee and snacks for us in the cool basement of their church.  There was so much good food!  And, interestingly enough - the church was on Holland Street.

Shortly after, we came to the town of Philipsburg, and not 20km outside of town Brandon noticed his gears weren't shifting so good.  We thought it was a derailleur alignment issue at first, then noticed he had actually bent the link of his chain.  He'd claim it's because he's "strong like bull" that he just pedaled super hard and caused it warp.  I'd venture a guess that the chain was angled between gears too much when he torqued up a hill.  Luckily, Mark had a spare link for a 9-speed chain, and we swapped out the bad link and were back on the road in 15 minutes.

At kilometer 111, one of the riders (Barb Mellema) had a cousin who owns a burger joint in a town called Smith Center, KS who invited all the riders to stop in for free ice cream!  There are few things in this tour that excite and motivate us Dutch riders like those words "Free" and "Ice Cream!"  Jiffy Burger, was the name of the joint that was richly themed with 1950's pop icons James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.  It was cheap and delicious, and the ice cream was served with abundance.  My bacon cheeseburger and Coke made the ride that much sweeter...

We got rained on for the last 10 minutes heading into town.  Pretty much once we crossed the Nebraska state line we were pelted with rain.  So I can say with absolute certainty that Nebraska is the wettest state of the tour.  We arrived in camp a little later, due our tardy departure and plentiful stops, but it was a blessing as the campsite got hit way harder with rain than we did on the road.  Everyone got drenched.  Tents were flooded.  Bedding got wet.  Sleeping mattresses had seen dryer days.  The town officials graciously opened up the community center right next to the park, and we are sleeping in the gym tonight.  Once the rain cleared, the trees and yard outside were littered with wet clothes and bedding, in desperate attempts to dry things out before bedtime.  Thankfully it was 90F here, and things dried quickly.  What didn't dry naturally was taken for a quick trip to the laundromat up the street for a little hot air in the dyers.

The final fun event for the day was that we passed within 1 mile of the geographic center of the continental United States.  Nobody wanted to ride the extra 2 miles to get there and back, but we took a picture at the sign right off the highway.

Well, lights just went out in the gym, and it's 10pm here, so I better get off to bed.