Time: 5 hours 24 minutes (avg 16.4 MPH)
Flat tire count today: 0 Total flat tires for the ride: 6
The weather changed again this morning. I went to sleep last night with the rain fly for my tent half way off since it was a little warm and I wanted to have some cooler air flow through. About midnight, I woke up and my pillow and other things inside were a little damp. The dew outside was getting thick. I got up and put on the rain fly all the way. It was a good thing, since in the morning, the entire rain fly was soaking wet. We had very thick fog when we were getting started. The first several hours were spent riding in the fog. It was a little creepy at times when cars and trucks were coming from behind and in front of us and not being able to see them until the last moment.
We saw quite a few lakes today as well.
Later in the morning, I came across this sign. It is a good thing that I knew to continue straight on the road I was on, because I would have been very confused trying to figure out which way to go.
One of the things that signal us that we are approaching our next town is the storage facilities that we can usually see for two to three miles before we arrive. These are right along the train tracks. Most of these towns are pretty evenly spaced throughout the states and appear to be originally set up by the railroad companies many years ago.
As we road by the many corn fields this afternoon, we found one field that had some bicycles riding on top of it without riders on them. A little afternoon corn field fun broke up the monotony of the day’s ride.
A group of us stayed together most of the day today. It was a relatively flat ride today so there was not a lot of separation between the riders. As we approached New Ulm, we held a pretty good pace line for the final 20 miles. It made the time and miles go by quickly.
Finally, we are learning to not leave our bicycles unattended. Earlier on in the ride, we found two bikes up in a tree at one of our campsites. Another day, we woke up to about four bikes that had been shrink wrapped and toilet papered. Tonight, we found a bicycle on top of the vending machines. The sad thing is the owner of the bike is not nearly tall enough to be able to get the bike down. All in good fun.
Tomorrow is a rest day here in New Ulm. It is a German town with a lot going on. This weekend is their annual Bavarian Blast. It is supposed to be a real great thing to go and see. I will probably ride my bike into town to check it out.
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