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Published: August 29th 2014
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HOW NOT TO WRITE A TRAVEL BLOG ... ... For Dummies
We have decided to contact Custom Publishing, the publishers of the For Dummies series, as we believe we may be onto something here!
It's a good thing we are continuing on with the theme of not including much about the places we are visiting because I'm out of words for how to describe a whole State's worth of farms, agriculture, fields, cattle, rolling hills, sheep, horses, tractors, thunderclouds, and rain, mostly spanning Nebraska. It was our longest day both in terms of butts in the seat and hours spent on the road, starting out in the dark at 5:30 am this morning, where I discovered my high beams aren't working, finishing 11 hours and 730 kms later here in Valentine, Nebraska where our welcoming committee is once again torrential rain, black thunderclouds and a magnificent fork and sheet lightning show, each strike lighting up our darkened hotel room.
OK that's it for the travel portion. Now I'm going to bore you with the environmental elements of today's trip.
I knew we had a long long day ahead of us, so I chose for the first
time on this journey to ride "plugged in" and figured out how to listen to my iphone tunes. Anyway a few years ago, I asked my girls if they would download some tunes onto my phone because when it comes to Apple, I'm completely i-nept. I recall the day I asked them to help me out, requesting lots of disco. They looked at me with quizzical expressions, eyebrows raised. I wondered if they knew what I meant by disco, and I thought they wondered if I realized I had actually said that out loud. For the record, I'm not ashamed, embarrassed, or too old to admit that I LOVE DISCO!! There, I said it!!!! It's the only stuff you can dance to without looking like a stiff-elbowed Barbie doll. So I proceeded to defend my choices, describing to them the mechanics of a disco beat's emphasis landing on the second beat, with lots of cymbal brushing, and then I relinquished my phone for a few hours. So today I got to listen to their selections for the first time. The first track was all bagpipes. OK, they're just trying to wind me up, those little rascals. The second track, I
had absolutely no idea who it was. I had to look it up tonight on the phone (that took a while), and discovered it was a band called Rage Against the Machine. Exactly. Who???? 7 years too late and I had an explanation for Grade 9. I even wondered if I would enjoy it more if I had popped a wheelie of the little round e-imprinted type. Guess I will be wondering for a long time. It did improve. I got some Neil Young (suitable impressed, considering that Sally, or was it Emma at music bingo, asked Ian if he had heard of Led Zeppelin and were they around in his era? She had to buy that round!) I did get lots of upbeat tunes, but no ABBA. Or BeeGees. You didn't know, did you. If I could find 3 like-minded friends, I would dig out my jump suit, don my fake blond wig, and brave my first Karaoke, pretending to be someone I'm not and belting out Dancing Queen at the top of my lungs. How did I get off track and what was I initially talking about? Oh yes, environment. The tunes helped immensely. I rode faster, I
didn't care too much about how loud the bike was because I couldn't hear it, and I wasn't too worried about missing much in the way of scenery. Thanks girls, for an eclectic array of music that kept me going throughout the day.
Wind. We were bombarded with the wind again today, and my whole body aches from leaning into it all the time, fighting to keep the bike in the lane, struggling to stop my head snapping back at times from the gusts. Are you silently thinking "Stop wingeing about the wind, stop telling us about it all the time". No? Oh, it's me thinking it. I admit, I have talked about it too much. So, time to suck it up princess, the world is a windy place, get over it!
Cold. How do you go from 40 degrees two days ago to 17 this morning with absolutely no transition period? The heavy jacket was zipped up to the neck, all the vents closed off. Half an hour into the ride, I turned on my heated grips. Another half hour further, and I was shivering. On came my fleece. Half an hour further, and we both pulled
on rain pants this time just in the nick of time. Half an hour later, the rain pants were off, fleece off, jacket replaced with mesh jacket. An hour later, we were in more rain, but didn't bother to stop to add layers. The temperature only reached 27. I know I complained about the heat, but today I miss it. High maintenance eh??
We just watched the news this morning and are they talking about hurricane warnings for the Gulf Coast already
Dust, bugs, roadworks, gravel, milled road surfaces - lots of these too.
Well I've managed to bore myself in the process of writing this, so I will sign off. We get to have a little sleep-in tomorrow, before we rush off to our next homeward-bound destination.
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