Revolution! Power to the People!

Well, not really a "revolution," exactly, but the people are speaking
up and exerting influence on important decisions. Thursday night, for
example, responding to local info about the planned route (a
purportedly dangerous section due to heavy traffic and decrepit
shoulder), and a possible better alternate (less traffic, recently
paved), we riders were able to convince Steve and Michael to take the
van and a couple of riders out in the evening to drive those parts of
the route. Based on that assessment we ended up on the original
planned route anyway, which did have 7-8 miles of big ugly. (Jerry
took the other route and said it was fine. Shorter by a few miles, too.)

It's perfectly fine to go "off route," BTW -- you just have to accept
the fact that there won't be a "sweep" riding behind you, or the van
coming by on its daily traverse of the same route the bikers are
riding that day. Any trouble you run into is a little more trouble, in
other words, but trouble is pretty rare.

Then last night, after another brutally hot day (upper 90s-low 100s)
on the road, as we were sitting in our ugly Lesterville MO campground
(loud RV-ers, heavy bouquet of skunk in the air, cramped tent space a
zillion miles from the bathrooms, showers, and water), having our
daily "map meeting," sweating like pigs due to the heat and humidity,
we voted unanimously to spend down some of our substantial
"pad" (excess available funds due to spending less than budgeted so
far on food/lodging) by buying motel accommodations -- and the a/c
that goes with them -- for the next couple of nights. The heat
advisory for the St Louis area is supposed to end, last I checked, on
Monday, so the hope is that things may cool down a little in a few
days. (But probably not.)

We're also responding to the excessive heat by getting an earlier
start on the day. This morning we moved the start of the breakfast
eating and lunch prep hour from 6:00-7:00 back to 5:30-6:30. Everyone
was eager for more cool-of-the-morning saddle time, so by the time
Hugh and I left camp, a little before 7, virtually everyone else was
gone. As a result, the first 3 hours or so of riding were very
pleasant -- cool, almost, with a pretty heavy cloud cover. But by
about 10 the clouds had burned off, and the heat really cranked up
again.

Speaking of again, we're back in mountains again -- the Ozarks, in
central (?) MO -- with lots and lots of steep climbs (and steep
descents, altho not quite as steep as the climbs). The afternoon heat
just sucks the energy out of you, making the climbs even more
difficult -- and adding difficulty is really not what you want to do,
as they're plenty difficult to begin with. We've got 3 more days in
these mountains -- which are quite beautiful, BTW; I shouldn't be
using all my pixels to whine about them -- before a long mostly
downhill ride into Pittsburg KS ("the Pittsburg of Kansas"), our next
layover stop.

(Sent from my iPhone)