It was a frosty morning again this morning. Once we were up and going we packed up quickly and headed over to the gas station to see if they sold milk for our cereal. We were keeping our fingers crossed that they would have some tables inside that we could eat at, and were very happy to find out that they did. As we sat there eating our cereal, we had a chance to talk to a couple of the local guys that were there for breakfast. They were impressed with our trip and asked us quite a lot of questions. It's always funny when people joke around with each other about their friend joining us and them riding a bicycle. So many people think that they can't ride a bicycle, but the sad thing is that if they tried and rode it just short distances, it would be good for them. I really wish this country wasn't so car dependent, especially during warm weather. It was nice being able to eat inside and give the sun a chance to come out more. The wind was actually with us today! After breakfast we flew to the state border very quickly. Since the sun was at the right angle this time, we re-took our Missouri state picture since the other ones didn't come out very good before we left. We were in Arkansas!! This trip is still going SO fast. The road we had been riding on in Missouri and still in Arkansas, was considered the Trail of Tears historic trail. After only a few miles in Arkansas, the road turned into another roller coaster road. We passed a sign that said "steep crooked road, next 6 1/2 miles." That is definitely how it was. We meanderd up, down and around through part of the Ozark mountains. Lots of climbing really slowed us down today, but not nearly as much as it would have if the wind would have been against us. We finally got a good tail wind and we still couldn't use it fully to keep the pace up. We had our lunch break in the town of Elk Springs. This town was pretty much all along the narrow mountain road and was very stretched out. There were a crazy amount of hotels in town, and hardly any houses that we could see. It was pretty much just a tourist town. We stopped at the grocery store thinking that we might get something for lunch. Somehow we ended up just getting a half gallon of peppermint ice cream because it was on sale for only 2 bucks since the holidays were over. So, that was lunch. Despite it being a little cold out (but still not as cold as yesterday), it was a very yummy treat. We ate it at the table and chairs inside the warm laundry mat next door to the store. Before heading out of town, we made a quick stop to at McDonalds. Somehow a water bottle leaked in the tent last night and one of my gloves got soaked. Luckily I was able to dry it out with the hand dryer in the bathroom there. Just around a big curve we saw something that would have been much better for lunch- Pizza Hut! And, even though it was Sunday, this Pizza Hut happened to have buffet every day of the week, which is definitely not the norm. We were a little dissapointed, but at the same time, knew that there would most likely be other Pizza Huts in the next big towns since Elk Springs had one and it wasn't even that big of a town. After leaving Elk Springs, we had a pretty long downhill to the next town of Berryville, that wasn't too far away. We took a quick break there and got a couple things at Walmart before heading out of town. On the way out of town we saw something that we had heard about, but had never seen- a KFC buffet restaurant. All the climbing that we did today made us pretty tired. We passed through another town and crossed over a few more hills before we reached the town of Alpena. Originally we wanted to make it about 11 more miles further down the road, but it was already getting close to dark when we arrived in Alpena. We saw a church that had a few cars at it, so we headed in and asked if we might be able to set up our tent for the night. The pastor didn't have any problem with it and off we were to set up our tent. The people in the church were there for band practice- they had a full drum set, keyboard, singer and a guitarist. The pastor was the drummer and they all looked like they were having a great time making beautiful music. It would be a lot of fun to go to a church that had a full band like that. We made some mac and cheese for dinner and snacked on some really good cheese bread from Walmart before getting in or sleeping bags for the night. We ended up cooking in our tent to warm up a bit and it did the trick. Our tent was warm enough that we didn't completely freeze when we had to change into our regular clothes for the night. We are slowly moving south and can't wait to get where it's warm. We shouldn't have too many more nights that are in the 20s. Our miles totaled 50.97 today.
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