Day 33: Kearney, NE to Arapahoe, NE

• Distance: 65.92 mi
• Elevation: 1,358 ft
• Dedication: Bo Oliver, TJ Allen, and Jeremy Pope
• Ride group: Bryce, Julia, Jack, and Tori
• Host: First United Methodist Church

Today was my first full ride in so so long and it felt great! It was a little weird to be back, honestly, but the team crushed our 65-miler and the ease of it quickly reminded me of our routine pre-COVID.

Today’s dedication story was for Bo Oliver, who was engaged to my teammate Bailey when he passed in 2016. As you can imagine, a lot of tears were shed during the dedication circle. Many of us added the BoStrong Foundation’s logo in temporary tattoo form to our usual Sharpie dedications. Bailey amazes me with her strength and courage– she absolutely crushed today’s ride coming off of a serious knee injury in honor of Bo.

The roads in Nebraska have unfortunately not been very kind to us. We’ve gotten a few more flats since our record 9-flat day, and although the shoulders we’ve been riding on have been wide they have also been super bumpy and along relatively trafficky roads. Today we were hitting bumps every two seconds (literally) and some of them were very jarring. I’ve been having some issues with numbness in some of my fingers and toes and today did not help, but I’m getting better at constantly moving my hands around and wiggling my toes while I’m riding.

Our second water stop today was very fun! We were at a small playground in an even smaller town (Atlanta, Nebraska, population 90, which I later learned was home to over 3,000 Nazi German POWs during WWII…) that had a merry-go-round, swings, and a large monster truck we posed for pictures with. There were some kids riding around on golf carts and dirt bikes the entire time we were there; Eli (who is very, very tall) talked one of them into letting him use their bike and took it for a joyride. We were all cracking up at him hitting a jump on a child-sized bike.

After lunch my team slowed down quite a bit as we encountered the hilliest part of our day. I was feeling very good because I had such fresh legs but it’s so important to go as fast as your slowest rider on the 4K. I was the slowest rider more than once when I unknowingly had COVID so it’s a rule I’m happy to follow. No riders left behind!

Our host for the night was supposed to be a campground and we hung out there for a while to shower and eat lunch. A few people took the initiative to call some local churches just to see if they would be willing to host us, and miraculously someone said yes very quickly! We’re now staying at the First United Methodist Church, which used to host 4K every year but seemingly wasn’t contacted this year due to staff turnover at both the church and Ulman over the years. We had already secured our dinner for the evening but they were so kind to us and provided us with snacks, as well as breakfast for tomorrow.

I went out with a few others to explore Arapahoe. We went to a neat old grocery store, where I found a pint of Moose Tracks ice cream and quickly ate it all with a plastic fork (#4KOK). I also stopped by Long Dogs Distilling with a small group, which was a very small but impressive local distiller. We had donated burgers at the host for dinner and I took some alone time to decompress, journal, blog, and catch up on Stranger Things. I’m hoping to turn in early because I’m exhausted and we have a long day tomorrow– 92 miles to Benkelman!

Until then,

Lauren