so these are all pictures from the 15th… very early. At about one in the morning in Jefferson City, MO, Andy and I ventured to find the first place Race Across America biker. We ended up biking a couple of miles, found where his crew was, and we got to speak with them about how the race was going and learn about Jure Robic… the racer. Sometimes I found it hard to understand their Slovene language - Robic is from the country of Slovenia. The crew consisted of a cook, medic, navigator, and a few others who drove the RV and van around. They were working on his super nice bike when we got there. Robic was taking his one hour nap, in the RV, for that DAY. At that point he had been racing for over 5 and 1/2 days but he had slept maybe 4 hours. Strategy was for him to start the race in the west by cycling non stop for 48 hours and then getting 1 hour of sleep every day - crazy, but impressive. We left before he woke up and waited for him to pass us across the street from our host site. At about 3 AM he passed us, much slower (understandably) than any of us would climb a hill, as Andy and i cheered him on. My camera died as i tried to take a video and Andy’s close ups were blurred… Funny thing was when we cheered him on and he looked at us and said “alright” in a totally out it, in need of sleep, cycling voice. the two hours of sleep i got that night was totally worth it. on 6/15 at 1:52AM in Jefferson city - when we saw him - he was at 1894 miles. He has now gone over 2800 miles and is about to be in Cumberland, MD. he still has a large lead
2 and a half hours after seeing him we woke up and biked to Sedalia, MO. we got poured on and many drivers cussed us out for being on a bike… that’s okay cause we are bikers, not ignorant drivers with a two word vocabulary that start with F and D. no pictures because of the rain and uninteresting highway we were on mainly.
After Sedalia we biked into Kansas City, MO - yes Missouri. no pictures for this long 101 mile, rolling hill, hot bike ride but it wasn’t that bad and it was fun. We had two lunches because it was over a ninety mile day plus it was over 90 degrees. A couple of us even stopped at sonic 11 miles out from our destination to use our free cherry limeade coups we got in Washington, MO…. yuummmy. I biked around random places near our destination to tack on 5 miles to make sure i rode a century, as most people did. luckily my chain broke when i was crossing an intersection leaving McDonalds on my 100th mile. i walked/coasted back to the host site since it was close. my night consisted of a tummy ache following with a face in the trash can for a couple of minutes so I was stuck staying up late trying to rehydrate. Must of been something i ate :/ Another girl also had the same situation.
Today we had a build day in Kansas City. We split up into two groups: One for the porch deconstruction/rebuilding and one for the door/window frame construction and wall building. I stayed in the shaded warehouse to build walls with Bob the builder and the yellow lab puppy which i should of pet more because it was so darn cute. The day consisted of nailing, lifting, eating hamburgers, nailing, lifting. I was tired from my rough night but I enjoyed it nonetheless. the last 45 minutes consisted of a competition of who could get the last four nails in without bending them. Hardest piece of Pine ever! Tomorrow we get to build here again woohoo!
lengthy. I like short and sweet better.
