Day 15:

I have a day off in Billings, Montana.

I am still a little tender with my road rash, but it is healing nicely.

I’ve been thinking about work every day, but brain rot is starting to set in. The brain is now in severe atrophy. With any luck, my brain will completely disappear soon.

Day 16:

Today was the shortest ride of the trip, only 51 miles. Even though I was at camp early, I couldn’t do much. It was too hot. I couldn’t survive in my tent, and I had no place else to go but hide out in the shade and vegetate, but with my brain shriveling more from disuse everyday, vegetation is becoming pretty easy.

Day 17:

Today we entered State #4; Wyoming. It reached 94 degrees in mid afternoon, but got cooler as it clouded over. Fortunately I was able to get to camp and setup my tent before the thundershowers started.

The bugs are terrible. These little gnats that you continually ride though get stuck to the suntan lotion all over your body. It looks like someone sprinkled pepper all over you.

It is really amazing how helpful the riders are to each other. If you stop along the road for anything, all that pass you ask if everything is okay. They will stop and help you change you tire, even in the pouring rain. Usually everything is under control when I pass other riders, but today it was apparently my day to help. One woman got her chain jammed when shifting, and a guy needed a bike pump.

Day 18:

I was expecting this ride to be an experience, but the experience that I’m having is not the one I expected.

Today’s ride was 113 miles, the longest 1 day segment on the ride. I was on the road by 6:00 am. The route chart described this day as gently rolling hills. The first 20 miles weren’t so gentle. They were up and down like you wouldn’t believe. The hills were long, usually a mile or so, and you couldn’t "work" the hills (going fast on the down part so you have enough momentum to take you most of the way up the next.)

Then it leveled out for about 30 miles, and the last 63 miles were again not so gentle. It took me until 6:30 pm to finish.

The 95 degree heat saps all my strength and I can’t pedal as hard and fast. Late in the afternoon, it clouds over and the temperature drops about 10 degrees. I never believed that 85 could feel so cool.

So, I get into camp, get my gear and begin setting up my tent. About this time, a thunderstorm starts. All my gear is strewn all over the ground while I’m extracting the tent from my duffel. I have the tent on the ground with all the poles inserted but not yet stretched to give the tent structure. About then, a guy came through the tent area. Said hail was reported downtown and it’s coming our way. "Don’t put up your tents, just get yourself inside the building. (we are at the fairgrounds and the building was a large exhibit hall.) I didn’t want everything getting wet, so I finished setting up the tent and putting everything inside in record time.. By this time, the rain was starting and it was very large drops and lots of them. I (and everyone else) ran for the building and were soaked by the time we got there.

It rained and the storm moved over us very, very slowly. We had heavy rain and almost four hours of intense lightning that stayed within an a mile of us the whole time. The local sheriff restricted us to the building, and many of us hadn’t even had time for a shower or dinner.

They finally brought us dinner at about 9:00 and at 10:45 they let us free.

Day 20:

Rumor has it that the hail storm broke windows in town and killed two cows.

The ride today was only 75 miles. Piece of cake! Rolling hills and 85degree weather. We had a steady head-wind which kept me cool. Not a bad ride at all.

A very beautiful day compared to last-night.

Day 21:

Reached South Dakota. I’m now officially in the mid-west. We came into South Dakota through the Black Hills Forest. Very beautiful.

After leaving the forest, I came into the typical mid-west scenery, some plains, some sky, a road, and nothing else. We had a tail wind so the last 40 miles of nothing went very fast.

We have only had a tail wind a couple of days in the whole ride. More often than not, we have had significant head winds. Didn’t someone tell me that the prevailing winds were from the west? This must be the work of El Niño.