Today is a planned short ride (or “day off” by someone’s standards), so we splurged for a real hotel and slept in.  Even with a glorious late morning start,  the overcast had kept the temperatures cool yet humid; unfamiliar from the past four weeks.  Rain was not in the forecast, but the sky told a different story.  For miles we watched the rain and lighting off our shoulder and enjoyed the overcast and flat road, but not the wind in our face.  Just short of our halfway mark for the day, we rolled into Stanton and consulted Bob on our route from here.  He confirmed our suspicions; we were headed for a gravel road.  Bob offered to put our bikes in his horse trailer parked across the street and take us wherever we wanted to go, but we declined.  As much as we had really liked the flat route we had chosen the night before, the looks of the long stretch of gravel was not appealing.  So we climbed up and out of the pretty Elkhorn Valley and back to the hilly route we had tried so hard to avoid.   The hills gave us a good workoutpassed plenty of healthy corps; we were definitely in Huskers country (corn is ten feet tall).  The new route was filled with trucks and pretty golden butterflies; a very interesting contrast.  Happy to be off the busy road and checked in by two.

We had to bike into town for dinner, but after only 38 miles for the day, we still had legs left.  We say goodnight with two sayings we saw this afternoon, make sure to read below the beer logo.

 We are doing our best!