We woke to rain this morning.  It was cold and blustery, and the rain fell moderately hard, so we were glad we decided to take a rest day and stay inside.

Today was supposed to be a rest day, but we had little rest.  Shortly after enjoying the hotel breakfast, Doc noticed a dripping noise.  We assumed it was just a leaky shower, and it was coming from the bathroom.  But it was coming from the ceiling!  Then it got worse, and another leak developed in the bathroom ceiling.  Then it started leaking inside our room.  I couldn't find the manager, but I found the maid and she called the manager.  In the meantime, we were getting a bit of a shower inside our room, so we started moving all our stuff into the hall.  The manager was located and I told him that the room above us must have overflowed the bath - as it turned out, apparently some kid in the room upstairs did something like that by stopping up the toilet and flooded that room and ours.  

We got moved to another room, of course, but the excitement interfered with our plans today.  Our plan today was to plan today - we spent most of the day working out our jumps to complete this journey and being certain we could do it in the time allotted.   We can, if nothing goes badly wrong.  Our current concern is adverse weather conditions that will make things more challenging.  Tomorrow the high will be 64 and we will have a headwind for the approximately 62 mile journey to Fargo.  Then just 2 days later, when we have a 73-mile day with very limited services, the high is forecast to be 94!   So we are going to have to start waking earlier, cause the heat can be dangerous, especially when you have an adverse wind as well. 

We are over halfway now, and it may be a while before we take our next rest day, so I rotated the tires on my bike.  The rear tire carries more load and so the tread wears faster.  It's a bit scary to rotate the tires, cause we haven't had a flat yet and you hate to mess with something that is working.  Removing the tires and tubes and reinstalling them makes for the possibility that you could have done something wrong - such as happens when the tube gets pinched between the tire and rim and you get a "pinch" flat.  I tried to be careful, but there's always a little doubt.  I guess we'll see soon enough.   Doc is much lighter than me, and his bike and gear is also much lighter, so he has no need to rotate his tires.

Okay, we need to go eat and get ready for tomorrow.  Just for grins, amateur video follows.  Things are changing for us now as we venture into the plains - it's both exciting and a little frightening.  I hope you have a little excitement in your life - but not too much.  Good night all...