Day Ten

It would be another long day of working the pedals and trying to ignore the dinosaur, the Mega-sore-ass. Again the morning winds were light. Again they picked up as the sun climbed into a high overcast. Highway 30 angles slightly towards the southeast making the winds even more direct against us. The scenery would be a carbon copy of the previous day, and a precursor of the following day. Yet, we were making notable progress and would be one third of the way through Nebraska by the end of the day. Nebraska was the most daunting state on the trip. Its lack of terrain, its distance and the unrelenting headwinds challenged our spirits. But we were up to it. It was only ten days into this thing, and we were feeling strong and determined.

Our trek on this day would take us through a couple of notable locations. The first was Gothenburg. This location was a famous part of the pony express that ran for a couple of years shortly before the railroads were completed across the nation. Then we would pass through Cozad, which is where the 100^th Meridian passes through. It was here that John Cozad traveled to the end of the rail line, purchased 40,000 acres of land and began a settlement, named after him. It was likely that the native peoples were not wild about the idea. All across Nebraska (and the country) there stands monuments to early settlers. Most all of them chronicle massacres of natives lead by ’brave’ soldiers and settlers. The Indians are always represented as the bad guys.

We managed to average 12.4 mph, not bad considering the conditions. At the end of the day we began to pace each other. One would ride hard in front and the other would draft the leader. We each would pace a mile then trade off. We were able to average nearly 18 mph with this technique. It took its toll. The harder riding exhausted us, but we did make a bunch of miles. As we approached Lexington we began to look for a place to camp. Again the flat terrain offered little privacy and few spots to hide from the world. We traveled slightly past Lexington and came upon a cemetery with a large row of cypress trees. It seemed peaceful and quiet (no kidding). We located ourselves behind the barrier of trees on a huge lawn and set up camp. We played some Frisbee and ate dinner. It was Father’s Day and Austin had managed to secretly buy Dad a card.

The winds died down and the sunset peacefully. We slept well. In the morning we found that the cemetery had an outhouse. There was running water nearby so we had all the luxuries of camping.