I started off the morning with a wonderful breakfast provided by my host family before they drove Patricia, Ashley and I back to the church to meet up with rest of the team to pack the vans and get ready to head out on our ride to Lincoln for the day. Even though we were only apart for one night, my teammates and I were excited to be back together again and to share stories of the the fun we had with our hosts. We had lots of guests join our dedication circle which made it extra special and meaningful. Patricia, Ashley and I dedicated our day's ride to Lolo because she is an amazing cancer survivor and the sweetest, kindest girl. We will definitely be thinking about her in our hard riding days ahead.
We headed out of Omaha on a really nice bike path which made it easy and safe to get out of the city. In typical 4K fashion, my team and I got lost before the first water stop and tacked on some extra miles. this seems to happen far too often - it probably doesn't help that I have an awful sense of direction! At the water stop, poor Chelsea got another nose bleed (her, Dan and Taylor have been having them a lot) and I captured some model pictures of her bloodiness (see below). Luckily I have not yet experienced a nose bleed on the bike but I have started to carry a pack of tissues just in case I or any of my other teammates get one!
Today's ride was a pretty uneventful 55 miles besides getting lost and having to re-route about 3 times. Also, we had some mad headwinds coming at us on one of the final roads into Lincoln. The sky was pretty cloudy and dark also and for a while we were nervous there may be a tornado since it seems that we are in that part of the country! Luckily it wasn't anything but some wind which slowed us just a bit. Dan also found a tumbleweed while we were fixing a flat which we all got really excited about. That's Nebraska for ya!
When we rolled into our host church in Lincoln, the van drivers had chalked us a cute welcome home sign that I captured in a picture below :). We were really relieved because we got in relatively early, around 3 pm, and actually had time to relax and get things done! I needed to get my hair cut so I headed to a salon and ended up chopping a ton of it off! It was just too hard to keep up with my long hair biking every day when it would turn into one huge knot so I decided to cut it short. I'm not sure if I like it yet but I bet I will when I start biking tomorrow and don't have a long ponytail hanging out of my helmet!
We headed out of Omaha on a really nice bike path which made it easy and safe to get out of the city. In typical 4K fashion, my team and I got lost before the first water stop and tacked on some extra miles. this seems to happen far too often - it probably doesn't help that I have an awful sense of direction! At the water stop, poor Chelsea got another nose bleed (her, Dan and Taylor have been having them a lot) and I captured some model pictures of her bloodiness (see below). Luckily I have not yet experienced a nose bleed on the bike but I have started to carry a pack of tissues just in case I or any of my other teammates get one!
Today's ride was a pretty uneventful 55 miles besides getting lost and having to re-route about 3 times. Also, we had some mad headwinds coming at us on one of the final roads into Lincoln. The sky was pretty cloudy and dark also and for a while we were nervous there may be a tornado since it seems that we are in that part of the country! Luckily it wasn't anything but some wind which slowed us just a bit. Dan also found a tumbleweed while we were fixing a flat which we all got really excited about. That's Nebraska for ya!
When we rolled into our host church in Lincoln, the van drivers had chalked us a cute welcome home sign that I captured in a picture below :). We were really relieved because we got in relatively early, around 3 pm, and actually had time to relax and get things done! I needed to get my hair cut so I headed to a salon and ended up chopping a ton of it off! It was just too hard to keep up with my long hair biking every day when it would turn into one huge knot so I decided to cut it short. I'm not sure if I like it yet but I bet I will when I start biking tomorrow and don't have a long ponytail hanging out of my helmet!