Monday night

After librarying in Eads, we went to their pool to use showers and/or swim. When we arrived none of the kids were actually in the pool, but about 20 of them were just standing around the sides of it. Once we jumped in, we found out why. FREEZING! It was such a weird dichotomy to be in the dry, hot, desert and jump into ice cold water. We didn't stay long, but we did have the pleasure of hearing the local kids (the most diverse group of kids I've ever seen hanging out together) have a rap-off (for lack of a better word). We thought that our new found pal Michael would join us, but he never surfaced, so we assumed that he had already pushed off to Haswell.

Never ones to miss the local cuisine, we stopped at their one open restaurant, the Ranch House, where we ran into another couple, probably in their 40s or 50s, Sharon and Mike, who were also heading west via their own routes including lots of rail trails like the Katy and the C&O out east. You can check their blog at www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/mikeandsharon08. Our paths seem to be going to diverge, but perhaps we will run into them later on the trail. They recommended the chicken fried steak and salad bar, and we very willingly ate as instructed. We were then reminded how hard it is to ride on a very full belly.

We set off about 6pm for Haswell and much of the heat of the day had already melted away. The wind however seemed to be changing and our next 20 miles proved a bit tougher than the previous 60. We saw our first squealing pigs in this stretch (2000 miles and not a pig in sight). Their quarters seemed to be amidst a junkyard of abandoned, rusting cars, with a teeny tiny house nestled back in the weeds. I am not sure if this would qualify them as free-range or not, but they seemed pretty happy. The sky was spectacular and weird. T-storms were predicted and off to our left we could see one forming. It looked like a giant tidal wave cloud that looked like it would crash on the road. We also saw a couple mule deer. A woman driving stopped to warn us of the low visibility, flash flooding, and winds up ahead. "Don't rush" getting there is what she said. So taking our time, and being cautious, although we weren't sure what exactly we would do in case of emergency, we proceeded now into the full wind, looking at the brilliant sky and searching around for shelter in case it was needed before we made it to Haswell.

We sort of missed the storm actually, just getting slightly wet and a little winded from the increasing altitude (about 4300, still low for where we're headed), but numerous emergency vehicles began passing us, and when we pulled into town, and found Michael, he told us that a brush fire had started from the lightning just over the way with flames about 100 feet in the air. It seemed like everyone from the neighboring towns rushed to fight this, we rode our bikes up to look and possibly volunteer our services, but fortunately for everyone (except the disaster oriented drama queens in us) they seemed to have gotten the fire under control. We sat watching the sun set behind the dark storm clouds from the Haswell cemetery while volunteer fire trucks finished up the the embers before returning to camp for a night spent in their city park next to the "Nation's Smallest Jail," presently unoccupied.