No pictures today, for reasons that will become clearer below.

I had a migraine when I went to sleep and took a Maxalt. It never quite went away, but I slept ok. It was forecast to rain most of the night and next day, and it started at  about 1:30 a.m. I woke up about 5:30 to pretty hard rain and started getting my stuff inside the tent ready. I ate some kind of super-sweet cereal, a banana and a bowl of plain instant oatmeal for breakfast. The rain let up and I quickly packed my tent, loaded the bags on the truck. I left about 8:00 riding along. I wanted to get in early as it was my turn to cook (with JF). The rain was steady but not too hard. The temperature was in the fifties.

 I wore rain pants and rain jacket, old uninsulated shoe covers, and full-finger gloves. I wore a pair of the Perlizumi Pro shorts and the long-sleeve Canari shirt. I was not cold when riding, but was when I stopped. I put on the front PDW fender and it worked well. Not having the back one wasn't a major problem, though my back was covered with grit and dirt.

 About 40 miles of the ride as on US Route 27. The traffic on it was steady and included lots of trucks going very fast (at least 60 mph). The shoulder was wide and there was a rumble-strip carved into the road at the white line. I felt o.k., but there as tightness in the left back of my leg about the knee. I'm not sure if it was hamstring or ITB. I was worried that it would get worse over the days. I tried to concentrate on spinning and pedaling circles and that helped. At the town of Mayo, about halfway, I decided to stop to get some ibuprofen. There was a Subway and I got a half meatball sub because it was hot. It tasted great. I also filled a water bottle.

It wasn't raining hard so I got back on the road and started to ride. After bout 5 miles it started to rain very hard and there was a headwind. To make it worse, salt was dripping in my eyes and for a while I could only look through one eye. There were big trucks roaring down the road at at least 60, but there was nowhere to pull off. I was praying and thinking I was going to be road kill. I pulled off on a side road or driveway to try to fix things. I first tried taking of my sweatband, thinking it was saturated with sweat from previous days riding. That didn't help. I sprayed my face with water from my bottle, and that didn't help either. I decided it must have been coming from the liner of my helmet. So, I sprayed that off and squeezed it out. That seemed to help. It also helped that the rain slowed down, I hit some new pavement, and the headwind turned into a tailwind.  I got a notice from my Karoo that the battery in my Varia (radar/rear light) was low. I turned on my Light and Motion helmet-mounted headlamp to aid visibility.

My Karoo tells me the distance to the next turn, and at the start of 27 it said 36 miles. Making that turn was the star I was following. When I finally got there the turn was onto a mud road. There was no way to ride down it. I was trying to use my phone, but the rain splashing on the screen made it so I couldn't even unlock it.

 I was starting to despair when I got a text from Arlen saying to stay straight on Route 27. That lifted my spirits. The GPS rerouted and I kept going down 27. A couple of times it tried to reroute me onto the mud road, but I just kept going. I finally came to a paved road, but wasn't sure what to do. I started going straight toward Perry, but then looked at the text on my phone and it said to turn on that road. I turned around and a dog started chasing me. I sprinted into the tailwind that I had been enjoying and escaped. It wasn't that much farther to camp and I made it. As soon as I stopped riding I started shivering. The day had been a great test of how waterproof my bike and electronics is. There were no problems. The shoe covers are old and didn't keep me dry, but it did keep the dirt off my shoes.

We stayed in Perry KOA and it was very nice. I helped unload the van so I could get my stuff. I put out my tent so it could dry and started charging my electronics. I took a nice hot shower and rinsed off my clothes. I then set up my tent and put my stuff in it. JF arrived about 3:00 and got a shower, etc. While he was doing that I went to do laundry. Unfortunately, I misplaced some of my stuff and didn't get it started very early. I asked BW to take it out when it was done.

It was my first time to cook on the trip. AH took us shopping. We had decided to make chicken soup. AH had made al list of some things we needed for breakfast and lunch. JF shopped for dinner and I shopped for breakfast and lunch. We ended up spending about $255, above the $220 target. Arlen wasn't worried.

We got back from shopping about 10 until 5, which is when appetizers are supposed to be served. JF set up the appetizers (grapes and pears) while I started water boiling. The soup turned out well and we got lots of compliments. We were lucky that the KOA had kitchen building that we used for cooking and eating. It misted during dinner, and I had not completely zipped the door to my vestibule, so some of my stuff got wet.

We didn't finish cooking before the 7:00 map meeting. At the meeting we decided to stay in hotel the next night because the weather forecast was for a low below freezing. The downside is that our 68 and 77 mile rides because a 58 and 87 mile rides, the latter leaving in very cold temperatures.

After the map meeting we finished cleaning up. I went to dry my stuff about 8:30. I wanted to work on this journal, so got my laptop and went to the clubhouse. Unfortunately, I got involved in an interesting discussion about politics with BW, BF, and JE. We left about 10:00. It took me a while to organize my stuff for the morning, which was important since I had to cook. I didn't get to sleep until around 11:30.