country road take me home!

Today we were planning on getting up early and getting in as many miles as we could before lunch since we were crashing early and it was suppose to be hot, but that didn't happen. I woke up at 5.30 to go to the bathroom and I couldn't see the baseball field that was 25 feet away because it was so foggy! All I could hear was trucks on the highway and I knew that it would be way too unsafe to attempt a go in this weather, so I went back to sleep and didn't wake Kelly until 7. When we finally got up it was a little clearer. We could actually see the hwy but it was still pretty dense. When we were about ready to get going Milt pulled up in his truck and asked how the night went and we spoke for a couple more minutes and he gave us $20 for breakfast. So we thanked him for all his hospitality and we desided it would probably be safer if we waited a little bit longer so we went to the Sunburg Dinner and ate. When we walked in the place was filled with familiar faces. All the folks from the baseball game were there having coffee and no one even not even the people we didn't know staired. I guess news spreads quickly in small towns and everyone already knew all about us. After breakfast we hit the road and hoped that the overcast skies lasted all day. It was a plesent ride even though the air was heavy with mist and there was no more then a white line to ride on. We were both feeling fresh this morning and you could see it in our riding. We were pacing much faster then normal. We covered the 18 miles to Benson in just over an hour. In Benson we stopped and used the restroom and discussed our options for eating since there was only one small town between where we were and Ortonville, which was 35 miles away. We decided to stop at this gas station just outside of Danvers. At the truck stop/Oil supply company we chatted with some of the employees and enjoyed a sandwich and coffe cake while we told them some stories of our adventures to date. After our break we hit the road, hoping the shoulder would improve, unfortunately it didn't, but about 18 miles out side of Ortonville we met our second traveler. Her name was Beth and she was traveling alone from Seattle to Minneapolis. We told her about our trip and that she was only about 170miles from Minneapolis and she was very excited. We spoke a bit longer about our trips and then we were back on the road. By this time the cloud cover had pretty much completely left and we were really feeling the heat now. I think the temperature was increasing with every passing minute. Finally we had reached Ortonville and we saw a familiar and exciting sight, Dairy Queen! We stopped in and got our usual blizzard and sat in the airconditioned shade of the booth and tried to recover for the rest of our journey since we were still 11 miles from Milbank where we had decided our destination for the day would be. When we got back on our bikes it was almost painful to sit on the seat it was so hot but my butt quickly adjusted but the last 11 miles were by far the most trying. Kelly fell behind and looked like she was going to die from the heat, I found the only way to deal with it was to drink as much water as I could and distract my mind with random song singing. When we finally got to Milbank we popped into the first resturant we could find and got out of the heat. After a very drawn out dinner, we spent the next couple hours in the library to let the temperature hopefully drop a bit before we made our way to our camping spot. Thanks again for your continued support!