Day 20 - 1,268 Miles To Date - Farmington, MO

Trying to catch up on blogs as I wait to take off on the bike towards St. Louis. On day 19, I drove the host van, which was probably a good choice as I saw the pain on everyone's face! (Of course I would have rather been out there with them.) I got up and ran with Jeff at 4:30, because we just can't take days off, I think it's an addiction. Host van is in charge of delivering bags to the host and finding food donations, at first I was a little nervous but it was so fun. Evan and I were able to get 30 sausage biscuits and hash browns from McDonald's, 5 pounds of homemade local BBQ with buns and sauce, KFC, subway, breadsticks, and tons of pizza. It was stressful but definitely a lot of fun and we were pretty successful I would say. We also got to take the bikes and vans on a ferry across the Ohio river which was super cool. I was excited yesterday to get back on the bike and say goodbye to the hat trick of centuries. The day started off pretty slow for everyone, the lack of sleep and mileage is finally catching up. I was honestly really tired for the first 40 miles or so and just went through the motions (I'm not sure why seeing as I drove the day before.) It was a really nice day so far though, compared to the boiling hot day before. After lunch I was feeling a little more energized and we were out of the long twenty mile stretch of cornfields. Lunch was at the state line and we got to cross the Mississippi River, which I don't think I've ever been to before. Yesterday also started all of the states I've never been to before, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, so I was a little more excited than the beginning of the ride. We continued to ride and it continued to get hotter outside. Everyone was definitely feeling the dehydration and heat beating down on them as we rode through no shade for a while. Eventually I realized my geography teachers in elementary school should have done a better job, because it was yesterday I realized Missouri does in fact have a mountain range. We went from 0 elevation to about 2,000 probably over the course of the last 30 miles. We climbed a hill into shady woods after the second to last water stop and then heard thunder. We knew we had to stop and put our bikes away from us because of lightning and we called the vans to pick us up. From this point on the day was really interesting. We dropped our bikes at a random person's house on the road we were on so we could meet up with the rest of the team down the road. (We asked nicely to leave our bikes of course.) After a lot of arguing about what to do because everyone was anxious about the storm and finishing the ride, we decided to shuttle everyone to the nearest shelter. I was in the first load and we drove about a mile down the road and Holden got out and knocked on the door. A man graciously let us stay on his porch as we waited out the storm and awaited the rest of our teammates. We definitely couldn't have continued riding because the lightning just got worse and worse. The man's name was Todd and he lived in the middle of this huge forest with his four dogs and wife, Donna. (We sat on the porch for two hours so we got to know them pretty well, they were super nice!) Eventually the vans dropped the bikes and clothes at the church about 45 minutes away and came back to pick all of us up. We had dinner around 9:30, showered, and went to bed - Erica let us sleep in til 6 this morning! The hosts were awesome and fed us taco salads, which was something different from what we usually have, and cereal and fruit for breakfast. We are now about to do a short 70 (never thought I'd say that) with more descent than ascent which will be nice. Again, maybe I'll edit as I remember more from yesterday, but it's always a blur since we have about 18 hour days.