68 miles
I spent the night next to a pavilion in the city park with 8 or 9 other cyclists. Jimmy and Jeff were there along with a large group that was headed west with a motorhome as a sag wagon.
It rained again last night and the sky was still a bit sketchy looking, so I headed into downtown to grab breakfast instead of hitting the road right away. I had heard about the pies at Cooky's Cafe from people back in Pittsburg, 30 miles away. The dutch blackberry pie was fantastic. The rest of breakfast was meh.
It was drizzling when I left and I headed back to the park to wait it out and discovered the sticker below. Every day or two I see one of these robot stickers, which Mike and Austin, who I camped with a few days ago, are sticking them everywhere as they head west.
I eventually headed out around 9:30, after a series of thunderstorms had passed. It still rained on me a few miles out. :(
Along the way I found the little guy below. I have become a bit of a rescuer of turtles. There is one in the road every 5 miles or so and if conditions allow it I pick them up and move them off the road. So far I have not seen any live armadillos, just the two dimensional variety that are coplanar with the road.
The terrain is getting much hillier. The picture below was taken maybe 15 miles into the day and is typical of the rest of the day. I would climb a steep grade for 200 or 300 vertical feet only to immediately drop back down then do it again. It makes it very hard to establish a good rhythm.
I had my first few dog incidents today. The worst was when 3 sizable dogs all came at me at the same time with very little warning. The pepper spray has been moved from the bottom of the inside of my handlebar bag to the underside of a brake lever. So far stopping and shouting "stop", "stay", etc has worked and I hope not to have to use the spray but I also don't want to end up heading home early due to a dog bite either.
Instead of snow level indicators they have flood level indicators around here, something I have never seen before.
Johnny 5 is alive! No disassemble! Maybe the heat and insane humidity here are getting to my brain but that is what I saw while looking at this gas pump in Everton. If you don't get the reference then it is time to catch up on 1980s movies.
It was a day of "groves". I rode through Ash Grove and Walnut Grove before eventually setting up for the night in Fair Grove. Next to the city park I found this historic flour mill building, which was built in 1883 and operated until 1969.
Jimmy and Jeff showed up about an hour after me again and we spent some time griping about the dogs and hills over some beer.
The shower building in the park was padlocked for some reason but I found a nearby water spigot and garden hose and had one of the colder showers of my life before heading to bed.
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