Okay, so Shady Rest campground was almost perfect. We had a great little fenced in area with grass for our tents....the weather was nice, the night was cool but not cold. Laura and I almost died of allergies though, as did Katie. Their is some tree in this area that is driving us nuts. Hopefully it goes away as we get further West. All 4 of our tents fit nicely in this litlte area.....although the gnats have been terrible. We hid in the tents as soon as we walked back from dinner. The locals say that the gnats have never been this bad; I have even seen a few walking around with automobile air fresheners attached to their clothes and hats (apparantly it keeps the gnats away).

Roger and TJ put their stuff away while on the porch to get away from the gnats.

I think these yellow flowers might be bugging me. They are very pretty though; entire fields of them go on for miles.

We were ready for a long day, but the wind was at our backs and we were making great time. We stopped for ice cream at a new place called Sweet Memories. This was only the 3rd day of business, and we were some of the first bikers to visit. They had excellent shakes.

In Saco we ran into the first touring riders we have seen in quite some time. These guys were from all over. I will try to remember to post their website addresses later. They are all going West to East, and had a really rough morning. Their advice was appriciated because their are 2 possible routes to take on this stretch. They informed us that the route they took was all gravel and mud. We had covered 44 miles in the time it took them to cover 28. We were quite happy to part with our new friends with us having the tailwind.

We are running into a few places now that do not take charge cards. I hope our cash lasts.

It isn't a great photo, but we did see this antelope today. I think he was probably having trouble from the heat, because he did not even try to run from us. By this time it was 95F air temp, my bike computer was reading 103F over the road.

This was turning out to be a pretty good day. Sure, it was hot, and the gnats were annoying.....but we had a tailwind! Tailwinds heal all wounds. The terrain wasn't much to look at. Mostly it was 70 miles of this.....

I am a treehugger. I love the empty stretches of natural land.....it is truely beaufiful, however even I was getting a bit sick of the grasslands. Katie has been getting very bored with it!

After 60 miles, the heat was really starting to get to us. We had not been in the shade for hours, and there was none in sight. Then, we turned left, right about the time our wonderful tailwind turned right. Our previous friend had turned against us in a mean and cruel way. Taters was ka-put. She dropped to 6mph and barely kept going. I did the best I could to shield her from the wind, but she still struggled. Eventually we made it toMalta, and did some Laundry.

The local propaganda has rog convinced to not do meth, not even once.

Then, guess what we got in Malta?!?!? A hotel room! Wahoo. The AC was needed. Laura was especially needing it, which is strange since she usually does the best in the heat. Rog and I seemed to be doing the best, which is odd because we usually do the worst in the heat. TJ was okay as well, but even he was surprised at how wiped out he was.

We walked to dinner at a great steakhouse in town here. My buffalo chicken had a lot of buffalo....as if I wasn't thirsty enough (and dry hot burning lips). Everyone loved their food, but Laura was too wiped to eat much. We took hers to go and she can finish it after cooling down some more. She will be fine; her and Kate gave it 100% today. Hopefully it is less than 95F tomorrow.....and the tailwind coming back would help too!

Everyone else is asleep already, so I am off to bed. No gnats. No rain. AC. This is the nicest hotel we have been at in quite some time. All 5 bikes and people fit in 1 room easily. This place, the Northern Something, is pretty darn nice compared to the dive hotels we stayed in on this trip. Camping at city parks is far preferred in my book.

72 miles (991 total)