Today we got up early and were ready to hit the cranks by 6:10 AM. Showers and lightning kept us waiting until 8:35 when we finally decided to take off even though there was still some light rain – but the lightning was gone. The first five miles were tough due to a strong head wind – 20 to 30 mph. Things just went down hill after that as we hit a section of road (it turned out to be 9.5 miles long) that 
had been prepared to be resurfaced with asphalt. The old surface had been ground off, leaving the road as rough as a washboard. It took us over two hours to cover the first 14.5 miles of the ride today.
The head wind did not subside until just before we stopped shortly after 5 PM (we are now in the central time zone). This may have been the worst 5 ½ hours I spent on a bike. Despite the constant head wind, we were lucky that the temperatures never left the 60s and the elevation dropped about 1,300 feet. We wound up averaging 15.3 mph, but it never felt like we were going that fast. We started the day with 30 miles in the bank and by the time we finished we had 5 miles left.
The terrain was pretty much the same as yesterday, but to tell you the truth, I did not even notice it. A dear friend of mine had a saying that summed up the 
way I felt we put our bikes up for the day…
“I feel like I have been shot at and missed, and shit at and hit!”
