It was great to be able to sleep in a real bed with air conditioning last night. After Sunday morning meeting, we had lunch with Chuck, Joel, and Dale, before Chuck dropped us off again in Carbondale. We have now completed the ninth section of maps. The route took us through the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge.
Today was a light day as a thunderstorm moved in and it began to rain. We set up camp early at the Ferne Clyffe State Park, just south of Goreville.
We crossed the Mississippi River and into my home state of Illinois this afternoon! 
However, it is Friday evening of Memorial Day weekend, and there was a lot of traffic. On top of that, my rear light stopped working. We finally arrived in Farmington just after 11:00 pm where we set up camp in the city park. It was a harrowing experience, but we are here nonetheless.
Today was a great day. This morning we met a rider who just graduated from Indiana University. There was a tower that we stopped to climb and enjoy the view.
In the afternoon, we stopped to check out Alley Mill in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.
Today is the first time that I rode over 80 miles without really feeling tired. There are several private campgrounds in Eminence. This is the first time we have stayed at a private campground in a while, and this one leaves a lot to be desired. I think there are actually more bugs inside the shower building than outside.
center of town. Hopefully there won't be much traffic at the town's main intersection, which is right in front of the Courthouse. We had difficulty falling asleep in the heat, so we went across the street and hung out in the post office lobby for a little while to try and cool down.
All of a sudden there is no more shoulder as the white line on the road disappeared when we entered Missouri. The hills are continuing to increase as we approach the Ozarks.
The roads here in Missouri are identified by numbers instead of letters, and I saw one sign today with my brother Mikael's initials on it. It is amazing what a shower, a good night's sleep in a real bed, clean clothes, and a home cooked meal can do for one's morale. It is almost as good as a day off! Despite the late start this morning, we rode over 70 miles and tonight we are camped in the city park in Ash Grove. 
It is a nice park and we have access to the showers in the pool locker rooms. I am getting spoiled... this is now two nights in a row where I have been able to take a shower! One of the bridges on the route just outside of Ash Grove was closed. Thankfully we were able to talk to some of the locals and find a way around without taking the official detour which would have led us several miles out of the way. Tomorrow we will meet my Grandparents for lunch in Fairgrove.
We met our second group of west-bound cyclists later in the afternoon. There were two girls from Holland and a gentleman from England who were biking the TransAm and a younger guy riding from New York to Los Angeles. He told me about a bike seat called Brooks that I am going to need to look into. It is an old-school leather seat that is supposedly unbelievably comfortable. The wind is supposed to blow from West to East, but we faced head winds again today. Despite the wind, we were able to ride more than 100 miles, so now we are definitely ahead of schedule. 
We made it to Cross Timbers State Park where there are four different camping areas. We saw the turn off for the first camp site, but we decided to ride to the second. Once we got everything set up, we learned from the only other campers here that the first camp site we passed is the only one with showers! One of the girls I used to work with at the Grand Canyon is from Kansas. Holli told us to look her up since the trail goes right through her home town of Pittsburg. We are hoping to be able to make it to her house tomorrow. 
during the middle of the day than we did last night in our tents in Nickerson. We are hoping to catch up on some of the sleep that we missed. There was a graduation ceremony here in the city park, but things are starting to calm down now.
By 6:00 that evening, the temperature was still in the 90s. We left Larned a little after 7:30. Just after the sun set, I got my first flat tire. It was an interesting experience attempting to fix it in the dark. It didn't take very long for the novelty of riding at night to wear off. We arrived in Nickerson at about 12:40 in the morning and set up camp at the city park. 
Unfortunately, I erased today's stats from my computer while working on my flat tire, but Shayne's computer indicated that we rode close to 130 miles total.
Today we rode from Tribune to Ness City. Along the way we crossed into the Central Time Zone. While there isn't much scenery in Kansas, this state has the best roads so far. Plus there isn't very much traffic. Since there isn't much to look at, I have been using the mile markers to check the accuracy of my computer, and it looks like I am about 3/100th of a mile off. 
About sixteen miles outside of Ness City, I broke a spoke. This is the first time that anything has gone wrong with my bike. Thankfully, there was a rest area with trees so we were able to repair it in the shade.
Tonight we are camped at the city park here in Ness City. There was a drain in the floor of the bathroom here at the park, so I took a quasi-shower using my water bottle. It felt divine as this is the first "shower" I have had since Sunday in Breckenridge.
We met a lady when we stopped to eat a snack in Arlington this morning. She was very helpful and gave us a map put together by city and county officials in eastern Colorado that listed the services available in the towns ahead. There has been a severe drought in this area of the country, and several of the cities are almost modern ghost towns. We crossed into Kansas in the late afternoon. Unfortunately, there wasn't a big "Welcome to Kansas" sign there to greet us. Tonight we are camped at the city park in Tribune. Today we set a new distance record of 114 miles.
The last ten miles from Breckenridge to Hoosier Pass were exhilarating! Of course, it probably had something to do with the thought of the downhill waiting on the other side. We made it to the top within an hour and a half.
Tonight we are camped at the Pioneer Park in Florence. Two more 100 mile days, and we should be in Kansas.
