Day 32: Grand Island, NE to Kearney, NE

• Team distance: 43.68 mi
• Team elevation: 416 ft
• Dedication: Paula and our hosts
• Van group: Maggie and Mike
• Host: Holy Lutheran Church

Today our team had a nice gentle return to our normal schedule and routine. I was in the water van today so I’m now going on a week without riding a full day, which kind of sucks, but I’m also grateful for the rest! Plus I was in the van with Maggie again so I can’t complain :)

The team only had to cover 40 miles today and it was super flat with very few turns. So, other than chalking the route out of our host this morning and into our host this evening and setting up one water stop we really didn’t have a whole lot to do. We took advantage of the downtime to reorganize the water van while we waited for the team at the water stop. I did hit a bird with the van, which was mildly traumatic.

We got to the host before noon, which was a first, and unloaded things before eating lunch. After that we took advantage of our free afternoon and walked to a nearby pool. They had a crazy water slide called the Hanson Hurricane that was so fun but also a little violent? Some of the guys went down with a lot of force and I was genuinely scared they were going to flip over the edge. Maggie made a very earnest friend (a 10-year-old boy) who wanted to make sure we saw him going down the slide, too. It was nice to relax by the pool but it got very overcast and was actually a little chilly so we didn’t stay long.

We had an incredible dinner provided by our host– even our vegans, vegetarians, and gluten frees were more than satisfied, which doesn’t happen very often! After dinner we sat down with the runners to do a little icebreaker/team bonding activity to introduce ourselves and get to know them a little better.

I have somehow amassed a huge pile of dirty clothes even though our AirBnB in Omaha had laundry. I typically hand wash my ride gear at the end of each day but had too much to do by hand today, and I really didn’t want to shove a bag of damp clothes in my duffle tomorrow morning. So, I rallied a group to go to a laundromat. I also pulled off a side trip to Dairy Queen while our clothes were drying :)

One last outing for the day: earlier some of the team found a sign marking the halfway point between Frisco, CA, and Boston, MA. Bailey, Maggie, Bethany, Jake, and I ran out to get a picture with the sign before sundown. I’m not sure it’s super accurate in terms of marking the halfway point for our trip but it was still cool– we’re close!

Until tomorrow,

Lauren