Lincoln to Fairbury: An uneventful Nebraska day

Today we rode 72 miles from Lincoln to Fairbury, NE.

There's not much to say about today because it was pretty straightforward. We were on trails for about 45 miles, which was a little frustrating because one of the trails was 33 miles of crushed limestone. Crushed limestone is not ideal as there's obviously a lot of rolling resistance, but we've been on trails with it plenty of times, and though they're not the most fun they are fine. However, on this one the pieces seemed to be larger and there was a slight uphill (what we call a "false flat") for 20 miles. We felt like we were putting in so much effort and not getting anywhere.

Dave climbing a downed tree on the trail.

At our lunch stop we were in Beatrice, NE and were next to a museum that was thrilled to have us coming through. They called the local news and we got interviewed and got our picture taken. We're getting used to being celebrities ;)

Everyone was tired at the lunch stop and we were tempted to lay on the concrete and take a nap, but we forced ourselves to get back on the bikes and keep moving.

Gavin couldn't find a knife so he used a piece of cardboard from the pizza box to cut his muffin. Creative solutions?

We then had 27 miles on NE-136 West, which I really liked because it was flat, and there was a really big, clear shoulder. We kept a really solid pace of 17-19 mph. Yay for nicely paved roads!!!

The van-unloading assembly line. This happens every day to get all 25 duffels, 25 backpacks and other miscellaneous items out of the van efficiently!

Our host today, and our hosts for the next 4 days, are 10+ year 4K hosts. This means they love us and are very accustomed to our needs. We have heard great things about our Nebraska hosts and we are really excited to meet them. 

You may notice that our route through Nebraska is rather southern and in theory we should be taking a much more northerly route if we're going to Portland. The reason for this is because when the Portland ride began, they took part of the original San Francisco route in order to grab these great hosts in Nebraska. 

Our host in Fairbury, Grace Lutheran Church, has indeed been amazing!!! They know exactly what we need and have made us feel so comfortable and welcome. When we arrived they had tarps down for us to put our bikes on, as well as trays of cookies and cold water. We also got interviewed for the local news again!

Members of the church came in to shuttle us to the Health & Wellness center to take showers.

In order to comply we had to roll up the sleeves on our jerseys.

Then we had a potluck dinner, with the most food I've seen all trip!!!!! There were probably at least 20 different dishes and everything was delicious. Quite a few church members joined us for dinner and we got to talk to them and introduce ourselves and why we're doing this trip.

Post-dinner Settlers of Catan game

The 4K van with a rainbow in the Wal Mart parking lot. We made a Wal Mart run after dinner because we probably won't see another Wal Mart for a week.

I am currently exhausted from a lack of sleep and we have a century tomorrow! Until next time!

*Note this was posted a few days after! I have new posts on Franklin & Arapahoe, which will be coming up tomorrow.