Best day by far!!!!

Before I begin about today, let me catch you all up on the rest of our night. As previously mentioned we camped out on Ash Grove, Missouri in the city park with our cyclist buddy, Nina. We thought it would be a pretty simple night, set up camp, sweat a ton while attempting to sleep and then maybe get a few hours like the previous nights. Instead we got what we wished for, thunderstorms! Not only did we get thunderstorms but there were viscous winds that came along with the pouring rain. Lil foot and I were just about ready to pass out when we hauled ass out of the tent and rushed to drag it under the pavilion, then we settled in again thinking we were safe. Not the case. Only 15 minutes later the winds picked up and blew the rain right into the tent again, ugh, now what do we do? After moving some tables around we found a spot on the cement that was safe from the rain so we put the tent there. As we were rushing to move everything, I looked over at poor Nina and then left lil foot holding the tent to help her a bit, I know I'm nice like that!
Now safe from the rain it was off to sleep, at least so we thought. Now around 1am after being asleep for maybe 15 minutes the sound of a train blowing its horn for half a minute came through town. All three of us shot up in our tents and almost had a heart attack. The train didn't only sound like it was passing through town but passing through the pavilion we were sleeping under. UNREAL. Finally we got a bit of sleep, like 3 or 4 hours tops.

On to today, literally the best day by far! This morning was no longer hot as Hell since it rained all night, and we were looking foward to leaving the hills of the Ozarks. After maybe 10 or 15 miles of the last bit of hills we hit the flats! From Ash Give we made it to Golden City for lunch where we ate at Cookie's Cafe. Apparently the pie is famous among locals and cyclists bit I wasn't too impressed by the looks of them. Jerry, yours looks 100x better! I had a milkshake though that was very yummy, and they bring you the melt mixer with the remaining part of it! Loved that.
After lunch as were we getting ready to start up again, I received a call from my brother, Jerry. He asked where we planned to stay the night then called me back 10minutes later with AMAZING news, a night at the Holiday Inn Express, thanks Jerry (and steph and little nugget, of course.) This was the much needed rest were looking for and definitely beat camping yet again in a location with out a shower or rest room at night. BTW the bed is sooooooo great!
While I chatted with Jerry, lil foot and Nina chatted up an older couple, Tom and Diane Richards. I assumed they were going through the usual questions we get from people but when I was off the phone they informed me we would be riding about 10 miles down the road to the couple's farm and each taking a ride in their two person citaborca (acrobatic spelled backwards) plane! We didn't hesitate to take them up on this offer so we hustled over! We arrived to their farm not know exactly what to expect, this was going to be one for the books for sure. Tom and Diana show us their hanger with the plane and now we were like little kids on Xmas morning. Nina went up first with Diana, then lil foot with Tom and that's when the clouds began to roll in. Diana asked if e could wait around a little so I would have a turn, so we all chatted about our travels and theirs. About 20 minutes later it was my turn! I had a blast, Diana showed me different towns, friends farms, the road we would be biking and the clouds! Our luck had clearly changed for the best!

It was easily the best day on the road, we left the hills, had an amazing hotel room for the night, a plane ride in the afternoon then went to applebees for dinner where we bumped into Chris and Gary (the Brits)!! Those guys crack us up! We had a few drinks during dinner and talked about the last few days since we had last seen them. Now the plan is to take today off to get things done and mostly get my bike sorted out. Then tmorrow we will ride to Toronto Kansas where we will camp with the guys!

Big, extremely big thanks to Jerry, Steph, Nugget, Tom and Diana. You all made our hard work through the heat wave beyond worth it!

On a side note here are a few stories we've heard along the way... Nina informed us that the brothers we met back at the beginning of Kentucky had called it quits, the younger of the two was hit by a ... Wait for it.... DEER. Apparently while on one of the back roads a deer came charging out of the woods and rammed right into the back end of his bike, he wasn't hurt but his bike had enough damage to have to called it quits. Now that's a story I would never had expected.
The dogs have calmed down now, and due to my lack of spray, Mike (Asian cyclist we met in bardstown) would be happy to hear that I stopped and pet a dog. Believe me though, this is not my new method of dealing with dogs chasing me, I will be back to spraying those bastards once I have spray again! A little dog yesterday that attempted to Chase me must have forgot he was chained up because he went flying back when the chain reached its limit. Poor little guy but it was like watching a cartoon!
What else... Oh we passed by another eastern bound cyclist from Germany. I noticed that when people don't understand eachother they tend to just say 'yea' to give themselves a little more time to process what was said so they could answer. The German guy used 'yea' to just about answer all our questions, so we kept it short with him when we realized we weren't getting much info out of I'm. Nina on the other hand had plenty to talk to him about, she lived in Germany for a few years, but she mainly lectured him about not having his helmet on. I cracked up that he was getting lectured and probably didn't understand most of what she was saying! Good luck German dude!

I believe you are all caught up. Once my bike is fixed I'll post about that.

Sasq

Oh I thought of a funny way to look at what Jerry did for us, he donated to the Beds For Butts Fund! Haha.