DAY 29

ROUTE:Topeka,KS to St. Joseph,MO	DISTANCE:89 miles	WINDS:Calm
WEATHER:Beeootiful and hot! :)	TERRAIN:Roller coasterish	CLIMBING:2300' (aggregate)

Sunday, July 4th. Happy 4th of July, everyone! We ABBers celebrated the 4th by wearing our red,white,and blue America By Bicycle jerseys today, and some went even further by dressing up their bikes or themselves! Okay, I'll admit that I had a pretty lame bike...the only thing I did was put some r,w,and b stars down the back forks. I TRIED, but Target didn't have a darned thing yesterday, and it was too late to try anywhere else. The folks that went all out obviously brought materials with them...you wouldn't believe how decked out several bikes were. Frank from Iowa and Dr.Dave from NY tied as winners of the contest, and their bikes looked great. Dr.Dave even wore red,white, and blue knee socks! Yikes! Anyway, we all had a lot of fun with it, and it made for some interesting stares from local folks. :) Today's ride was a lot like yesterday's with roller after roller after roller. This morning after breakfast (and can you believe they had GRITS on the breakfast bar?? I even got Bostonian Joyce to try 'em and she liked 'em. A convert!), I decided to take off as soon as I was ready, and I thought I was riding by myself. After about a mile I heard Bill behind me, and he and I rode together all morning. We COOKED. I don't know if it was the grits or what, but we rode really hard. John Walters was with us for a bit, and he said it best: It was bizarro day. We were riding at the front...we were riding with Tom from Iowa who is usually WAY ahead of us...we passed Jerry from Seattle who is rarely seen on the road...bizarro! Of course, the universe was back to normal when Dennis went flying by us as we were huffing and puffing up a long hill! Still, Bill and I were really moving...with no wind, we were riding at 20-25mph on the flats heading into the second SAG. Woohoo! Mason rode into the second SAG (mile 56) after we arrived, and we all decided it was time for...you guessed it!...FOOD. We were in the tiny town of Atchison, and since we didn't know what was ahead, we opted to eat at the Country Mart. Not WalMart, but a WalMart wannabe. We ate supermarket deli sandwiches that served a function but didn't really tickle the taste buds. :/ Almost as soon as we got back on the road, we saw a Subway, a KFC, and several other good options. Darn that Murphy. :) We left Kansas and rode into Missouri at mile 58, and we all took the obligatory photos at the state sign. The towns are starting to be closer together...a good thing when you're on a bike! Pretty soon after the last SAG at mile 70, the group (now consisting of me, Mason, Bill, Tim and Kathryn) were told by a passing truck that a rider in the back was tapping his helmet, which is a sign that the rider needs help from the SAG wagon. The only riders we saw behind us were fine, so I slowly rode on ahead thinking the rest would soon follow. Well, they didn't follow, so I took off. (Come to find out later that Ken had missed the SAG and was on the wrong road...a phone call to the SAG van got him back on track.) I rode the last 20 miles by myself, and you'll all be happy to know that I didn't ever get lost. I took a little different route to the hotel, but I was never lost! :) Tomorrow is a rest day, and I plan to do laundry since I have not one stitch of clean cycling clothing. We're making a bike shop run late in the morning, and I may try to catch a movie tomorrow afternoon. What I don't plan to do is get on that bike! Hope y'all had a great 4th and that you didn't burn down your neighborhoods with the fireworks! Catch you tomorrow! Go Lance!!

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