The humidity dropped overnight. Hallelujah! We woke up early to get on the road at 6:30a. We rolled west from Houston MO, mostly downhill, and had a lovely morning. We didn’t stop for rest, bathroom or anything until 35 miles in. That’s a record! What an easy 35 miles. We stopped when Jacob saw a sign that said “PIE”. 9a Jacob had a piece of peanut butter pie, I had some eggs and a clif bar. The food was great, but the smoky breakfast room was not. Cough cough…”Let’s get outa here, Jacob! We got 76 miles left today.”
As we rode down the lovely deserted road (no motorists for miles and miles), a white pickup truck blows by too close and the passenger flips us off out the window. Seriously, MO?!? I said “they must hate their lives or something”…Jacob said “their parents must have been run over by bicyclists”.
The miles after that ticked by quickly and easily.

At another rest stop I couldn’t find Jacob for a while. I assumed he was taking a nap somewhere around the gas station. Turns out he met Ken, an east bound solo cyclist going from Idaho to key west fl. Cooool. He has also biked from Alaska to Idaho. Super cooool.
Later on down the road, around mile 80, Jacob thought “man I could use a cold drink”. Then we see an SUV pull over ahead of us, take two ice cold bottles of water out his back seat cooler and flag us down. Gary lives in Kansas City and was helping his brother install a new roof on his home in Fair Grove MO over the weekend. He told us about a competitive cyclist who also grew up in Fair Grove and competed with the old Jelly Belly team. Nice, generous guy.
101 miles were very smooth, but I’ve found that no matter how far we go in a day, the last 10 miles are always hard.
We made it to Ash Grove and found the city park where cyclists are allowed to camp. We took elephant showers …really good water pressure…and started to cook dinner at the pavilion. Matt sent me a screen shot of Ash Grove MO pin pointed on a map of the whole US. We are almost halfway across!
Then a cop came by and gave us the key to the house next door. Seriously. We finished cooking inside and slept on cots in A/C. Yay Ash Grove! Goodnight!