July 23, 2018
Springfield – Houston
140 km (87 miles)
1461 m (4792 feet) elevation
5:49 moving time
4734 km (2942 miles)

In yesterday’s entry we forgot to mention our little poison ivy incident. As most cyclists know it is sometimes necessary to go to the loo in the nature. It happens to be easier for the guys to take a leak than the women. As Monika was going for a wizz she accidentally sat on a poison ivy. Not to worry, no delicate parts were hurt or injured during the incident.

Monika not feeling great this morning (not poison ivy related) but instead of crying and not leaving the bed which is what Saemi would have done she got on the bike and powered through the illness. A couple of hours later she was feeling much better.

The landscape in Missouri is very beautiful but for cyclists it can be a misery. Some would describe the hills as rolling hills but we feel that there is no rolling. It is constantly up and down with grades sometimes above 10%. There are sharp turns and steep hills so driver visibility is not the best. On top of that there is no shoulder to ride on. The drivers are thankfully very considerate and give us plenty of room and slow down. If they are unsure about oncoming traffic because of limited visibility they slow down and drive behind us until they feel safe about overtaking us even though we ride single file on the edge of the road. Do I need to mention the difference between drivers in America and Iceland?

Had a our first dog incident today. A dog was in the middle of the street eating something when we approached. Saemi whistled in order not to surprise it. The dog started barking and approached us in an aggressive manner. Saemi stopped and shouted back which seemed to work. The owner soon came to bring the dog back.

The weather was wonderful today. It was rather cool and partly cloudy most of the day. We thought it might rain but it stayed dry but very humid.

We bought our self some light cover sleeping bags so today we visited the post office to send our ‘winter’ bags to our good friend in Washington, don’t think we will need the bags from now on 😁

Entering Houston there is a river access which we used to cool down after a good day on the bikes. Being typical Europeans we changed into our swimming trunks and bikini behind a tree instead of walking 200m to a changing room. The water was clean and cool and we met some interesting people there who are working at the carnival which happens to be in town. The photo of Monika shows how amazing our tanlines are.

Following is a sample nutrition for the day.

Morning: 3 sausages, 2 eggs, biscuit, orange juice, coffee.

Morning pitstop: Gatorade.

Brunch: 3 sausages, 2 eggs, hashbrowns, toast, 2 big glasses of coke, apple pie with ice cream.

Afternoon pitstop: Cliff bar. Jelly beans, ice cream, Taco Bell Freeze drink and Chicken nacho box.

Dinner: Pulled pork, smoked turkey, brisket, baked potato, cole slaw and 2 glasses of Coke.