Day Nineteen- Done (Over 1445 miles)

August 8th-

I woke up in Friend looking forward to another day of riding. My body was a little sore, but my tent was dry. So, I was happy.

I rode feverishly toward Sutton, which is a larger font on the map, thus I figured I could get internet access there. I was right. There happened to be a hotel on the outskirts of town that had free WiFi. How convenient! I sat there and typed while eating lunch for the better part of two hours. It was refreshing in comparison to the heat and wind that were pouring and blowing East.

After posting a couple blogs and talking to a local, I went to the gas station and filled up my water bottles in the bathroom sink (I realized it's not worth spending money on filling up my water bottles. Wasted some money early on in the trip doing that).

I headed West intending to run into a town or two between Sutton and Hastings (about 30 some miles), but no such luck. There are no gas stations on Highway 6 between those two towns. That's free information for you, that I wish I had before.

I stopped by a farm house just off the road when I saw a truck pulling out. I asked the man in the truck if I could get some water from his spicket. He said it was okay. So, I filled up my bottles and my gullet and rode on into Hastings.

I arrived there around 6 pm and the sun was blazing. I went to the local grocery store and bought about 10 lbs of food for $10. They had a lot of sales going on that day. I took the food and ate some of it outside the store.

After I was fed up, I decided to relax at a deserted building's cement loading dock for about an hour to let the sun calm down. When it did, I rode for awhile before realizing that the drivers weren't seeing me because of the low sun. I stopped off at a restaurant for a little while waiting for the sun to fall a little more. It did. I rode.

I didn't go very far because I found a school just to the West of Hastings that looked like a nice, safe place to sleep for the night. I checked the perimeter for scoundrels and found none. I set up my tent far enough away from the ant pile I distrubed when I got there. I didn't lock the bike to the tent tonight. I don't think I needed to.

(My average mile per hour for the trip so far is 11.9 MPH)

Daily Lesson: You don't miss your water 'til the well runs dry.

Donate to help eradicate Polio (and put the Polio team out of a job) at http://www.rotary.org/en/endpolio/Pages/ridefault.aspx

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