Hi All,
Our gang is in Greenville, MS tonight and absolutely exhausted. They did 95 miles today. The temperature was a balmy 95 degrees with the heat indices at about 110. Adding to that, the humidity was really up there. The road temps were 100 to 104. Ya, they're cooked.

Chris limped into town with his back rim barely holding his tire. This is not the bent rim either, that is shot. Thankfully, there is a bike shop there and is supposed to have the correct rim for him. He's still missing a brake too, but Roger wasn't sure if he was going to get that fixed or not. I guess the shop person has to really know his stuff to fix the brake.

What you guys are doing is fantastic, I've heard people complain more driving from here to there. Keep up the great fun its awesome!! John Baum Pittsville WI.

We started out the day with a crappy breakfast at Super 8. We got up at 5:15 so we could hit the road early.

To cross into Arkansas, we had to cross the I55 bridge. It has a pedestrian walkway, but I cannot see that any pedestrians would ever use it. It is nearly impossible to find, impossible to travel to via walking, and it doesn't go anywhere.

Wow, what a horrible night. The thunder and rain rumbled all night, as we slowly dehydrated in our little sweat lodge tents. We all slowly melted, unable to cope with the hot sticky night. At one point I heard Katie put a cold bottle of water on Lauras back, Laura screamed her way back into the land of the alert. A few minutes later it hit me.....where did Katie get a cold bottle of anything? "The pop machine, the stuff is super cold! It is only $1" says katie. In communication between tents I talked Katie into bringing me a bottle. Diet coke, dang.....I never drank it, but I did keep it close to my soul until it no longer was cooler than myself. That was the best $2 I have ever speant.

Our nights sleep was less than stellar. The hotel was a huge disappointment. We all dragged ourselves out of the hotel and sleepily day-dreamed about a nice place to sleep. Motivation was in short supply....so mostly we were quiet.

Since we had then missed breakfast, we hit the main road rather than the route. This would be a huge shortcut, and would hopefully lead us to breakfast. Also, this would mean traffic. The purpose of this trip is to avoid the highway so we hoped to find breakfast quick and get back onto the rural route.

After several miles, no breakfast, so we stopped at a fruit stand. $6 got us as many peaches as we were willing to eat.

75 miles (962 total miles)
Google Earth File

This morning a cat was sitting outside Roger and Chucks room. I wonder if they need to do laundry?

We had a quick gorging on french toast the the restaraunt accross from our hotel (formerly owned by the hotel owner and now sold to family), and hit the road trying to beat the heat. Of course, a headwind for the bazillionth day in a row. This wind from the south needs to change.

Pictures and GPS data to be added later, sorry.
54 miles (887 total)

We left our Charleston EconoLodge after a 6 am breakfast. We are getting hotel breakfast as early as possible, but the days are warming up faster and faster. We might have to start skipping hotel breakfast so we can hit the road even earlier in the day. I am getting sick of it anyway.

I still can't believe that the Comfort Inn in town wouldn't let us put our bikes indoors. We are boycotting them the entire trip. So far Drury motels seem to be the most biker friendly.

We stopped at a gas station in _____ for a quick snack. I just can't eat a big breakfast at 6am and am hungry soon after. By 8 am I am ready for lunch.

Ice cream at 8:30 am is awesome!

Today we had to decide between staying on the Missouri side, or crossing over to Illinois.

"I am not sure if it is the right decision, but I decided to stay. Katie was a bit bummed, she wanted another boat ride." - Chris

We started off with breakfast at the hotel. Afterward we stopped at a gas station hoping to find a map of the area, so we could find a way around the crazy hills and busy roads. Had no luck. So we had to take the busy road. We couldn't really figure out how that could be a national bike route. On the positive side, we had a decent shoulder.

We ate our Super 8 breakfast around 6:30, it was pretty good.

We left around 8. That is the problem with hotel breakfasts, you can't eat very early.

We put in a quick 20 miles, trying to beat the heat. We stopped at a local dairy, but it was not open. A nice man told us we could take a rest at his place 6 miles ahead, but we never saw him. Bummer, we all imagined that he had the best lemonade waiting for us.

Chuck said we climbed at 3-6% for several miles straight. I kept checking to see if my tires were flat. I noticed afterwards that a 1-2% grade felt flat.

Sorry about the downtime.

The AC adapter for our router died. Some great IT work by Laura and Dee got it working.

I will try to catch up on posts. I might just do text for tonight, and add photos later.

Thank you for your patience.