The Sahara Desert

I think we should have gotten a clue on how our day was going to go by our first site leaving the lodge. To our right waiting in a tree was a buzzard, waiting for a chance to devour some fresh road kill. To our right, several more with even more flying in. Perhaps they were telling us something about our condition in the next few hours.

Our 2nd clue should have been all the folks talking about the "loop" and the turn they were taking to bypass said loop. No, unfortunately neither clue was enough for us.

The country-side of Indiana is so similar to Ohio, with the corn fields, soybeans and rolling hills (not to mention the sections at 17+%). Glimpses of rivers and swamps, you could imagine being in Ohio quite easily. Go to the East and Pennsylvania is quite different, but west, Indiana is Ohio in a different time zone (well some of the time anyway).

You can be excused for thinking it is flat, much like we though Kansas was flat until we drove through it on our way to Colorado. Let me tell you, Indiana is flat like Southern Ohio is flat. At one point the three of us were climbing when I pointed out an obstacle, which turned out to be a turtle. Since Heidi could catch up I begged her to save it -- all that work and it was just an empty shell (kind of like me right now!)

And yet another characteristic that our westernly neighbor shares with us is humidity and heat index. Today we registered 102 degrees with a heat index perhaps in the 110's. At 6:00 pm in Bloomington the index was at 98 degrees. It was Sahara Hot as rider Dana mentioned -- well Sahara with humidity.

And the aforementioned "loop". Well it looks like only about 8-10 of the 40 of us even attempted. Heidi of course thinks their RAINSTORM jersey's should be taken away ceremoniously but Jen pointed out it only says 630 miles not how you GET those miles. The loop was absolutely beautiful and brutal. And the heat made it so much easier to get through. Thanks to a knee-high pantyhose stuffed with ice down my jersey I was able to get through.

To put the loop in perspective -- yesterday we climbed 4100 feet in 102 miles and thought it was a pretty tough day. Today we covered about 3600 feet of climbing in a little over 40 miles. That is some tough work.

Inside the Covered Bridge

We haven't killed each other yet which is a good sign. Tomorrow is 104 or so miles but we're looking at a decrease in the amount of climbing with hopefully a subtle down hill towards Terre Haute. Jim and Heidi seem remarkably fresh which is making me wonder why I'm always out front pulling -- hm I'm seeing a conspiracy here. To get back at her I made Heidi ride a big hill in her big chain ring, which didn't seem like a big deal to her at all (while I was suffering in my littlest gear!).

So 425 miles down and 272 to go.