Ash Grove and Marshfield

120 miles. Exhaustion.

Yesterday as we left town, a very rotund, shirtless man in blue jeans and suspenders shouted to us across 4 lanes of traffic, asking us where we were from. I don't know why, but I thought it was funny. He followed up with a "Good Luck" as we pedaled by.

A few miles later, we finally left Kansas, for the hills of Missouri. At the Missouri sign, we met up with a family from Long Island that we met 2 days earlier. One of the young boys took our photo and said they hoped to see us again; they were so adorable! We also met Rob, on the fast track to finish in 2-3 weeks.

In true cyclist form, we had a big lunch at the infamous Cookys Cafe, and ordered 4 slices of pie for dessert. Yum! My favorite was dutch blueberry, but we also had pecan, mocha, and peanut butter.

Missouri has some of the hardest hills I've ever climbed. We are working harder than we did climbing the Rockies, because we are either going up or down, there is no in between. The uphills are so incredibly steep, I can't even guess the percent of the grade. Basically, all we do now is climb; the downhills last only seconds, not minutes. My legs feel like jello and I am exhausted.
Since Oregon, we kept hearing about 2 girls that were just ahead of us. We finally met them today; Whitney and Promise are best friends from home, and are from all over the country. Shockingly and awesomely, Promise is 31 years old and only rode a bike for the first time 3 months ago. One drunken night for them resulted in deciding to bike cross country. I think that is super badass. And now Whitney is living a summer of sobriety and says this has been the best summer of her life.

McKinley and I got a hotel room to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Basically, we're in hog heaven, watching tv and drinking beer in our beds. I live for the Olympics! Yep, I'm a Dork, but so is McKinley; she is just as much a junkie as I am. For 2 weeks, the whole world unites, that is so neat!

Time to get serious about my Olympics watchung.