Today was another brutal day, though 2 hours shorter than yesterday: temp 95, heat index 105, head and crosswinds (12 mph into the wind, 15-16 in the cross winds). At least into the winds,pacelines worked well and we were on rural roads, so could echelon in the crosswinds. It was brutal (worse heat conditions than the last 2 days, though shorter), and with people already beat up and tired, the sag vans filled up fast.

I was reduced to putting 10-12 ice cubes in my shorts, and a couple more under a cap under my helmet before leaving each break spot. Then, when possible stopping at quick stop stores between the breaks.

Yesterday the land was flat, flat, flat. Today it was flat, flat, and then a stream or river valley cut 50-100 feet into the flatlands. Made it more interesting. Not much in the line of trees on the flatlands (telephone poles don't count), but cottonwoods in the valleys. Crops seem to be all corn and beans. So much of it that one begins to understand how we feed 300 million people - miles and miles and miles of crops (ready for making people fat on high fructose corn syrup, I guess). Fewer cattle hereabouts.

And big, really big farm machines.

Lots of old abandoned and run down farmsteads (look close in the 2nd picture). It appears that the little house on the prairie has now been replaced by the vinyl (siding) house on the prairie - plenty of those.

And Lutheran churches - with no evidence of anywhere for parishioners to live - just a church in the middle of the prairie with nothing around it for miles.

The river bridges are the Missouri River yesterday.

7.8 hours in the saddle, 185 km (115 miles), 23.5 km/hr = 14.6 mph, heart rate 88 at 128 watts 3390 kilojoules, 485 meter climbing.