Day 52: Friday, May 26

We met more west bound riders this morning: a couple from England and a newlywed couple on their honeymoon. We stopped for lunch in Ellington where the locals told us that we are almost out of the Ozarks. It is funny since we had only been riding for a little more than three hours. It took us three days to cross the Rockies, and three hours to cross the Ozarks.

With the heat and the humidity, we decided to take a break at the library in Ellington. In hindsight, that break probably was the wisest decision. We are hoping to meet one of our friends, Joel, in Southern Illinois on Sunday. To stay on schedule, I was hoping to make it Farmington by tonight. We were about seventeen miles from Farmington as the sun was setting. We decided to push on in the dark. 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.