Day 3 Outside Mile City to Volberg

127km 6pm to midnight (though team four would want me to clarify 5:35pm to 11:25pm)

Salamanders and frogs and rabbits oh my!

We had a fantastic surprise today. We bumped into team one having their post ride meal. I was so happy to see them. I missed my Mo! And I got to chat with Mike briefly and tell him how much we missed him. When we went to get groceries we got a little payback from team four. The fake spray painted our van and made a threat or two. I was told they were laughing when they did it so I felt less guilty about the whole vinegar in the rain thing.

We started our ride about 45km north of Mile City and took over for a very wind weary team two (25 min early). It was my first night ride and I was feeling very anxious after bonking so hard the day before. (sorry I should clarify that bonking means to 'hit the wall') Poor Scott got two flats off the start and went into the RV to change them. We got and amazing sunset with dear running along side of us. There was massive displays of lightening in the south. We got into a great wind blocking echelon and just screamed through the first 27km. Tripping through Mile City downtown on a Friday night was pretty cool. We had a quick and cranky transition (10 people in a RV is about 4 too many). As we headed south out of town we looked up and saw the American flag full out and blowing in our direction! Sweet, sweet tailwind. Until the rain came. It was pretty wet for most of our ride, but our spirits were up and I was holding on pretty strong and ecstatic that I was still feeling strong! In fact the rain stopped about 10km from where we were to transition with team four.

I was feeling so happy with my ride, it was such a high. For the first time I didn't feel like I was going to let my team down. Ann and I pulled for most of the pouring rain and managed to drop the boys a few times. I would have been happy to finish to midnight but we don't want to eat into someones turn and one of our teammates was feeling pretty bad and so the team as a whole decided to stop there.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll get to ride through a bit of Wyoming before we head into Nebraska. Its my goal to ride through every state.

Next ride midnight to six am!