Around 10pm last night, the rain started to come down, and boy did it ever come down! The thunder and lightning were right there along with it. I couldn't believe how loud the thunder was- I was actually really scared during the storm, even though I love thunderstorms. The fear of a tornado was what really did me in. After everyone said that a warm day like yesterday makes them worried for tornadoes, I was just paranoid. I clutched onto Joey because I was so scared. Not that it mattered, because neither of us were going to get any sleep while that thunder and lightning was going on. We were SO lucky to have found such a good place to camp tonight. It would have been even scarier had we been out in the open somewhere. The wind was already blowing pretty good, but we could have ended up in a puddle if the ground had started to flood a little from the amount of rain the storm put out. I don't know how I did, but after the thunder was very distant, I was able to fall asleep. The rain continued right til morning. It was going to be a wet, chilly day. As we were getting things packed this morning, a truck pulled into the carport we were camped under (it was big enough to fit a bunch of cars, plus our tent). An older man got out and said something to the effect of "so you have traveled all over and up to Alaska!?" I wonder if he was the one that called the sheriff to come check on us last night. If not, then he found out about us somehow. He unlocked the church and said that if we needed to use the restroom, we were very welcome to do so. What a great treat- now we didn't have to go way out into the woods in the rain! The best part is that I could wash my face with nice hot water! After unlocking the door, he got back in his truck and left. What a nice thing of him to do. Although it didn't feel that cold out this morning (probably in the 40s), it did feel cold after going inside the toasty warm church. Before we had left, we met the pastor and a few of the parishioners that had showed up for Sunday service. We thought about staying, but we knew that we had a lot of miles to do and that we were going to get wet no matter what. Also- we hoped to make it to Monticello so that we could have some cereal and milk for breakfast as we had only snacked on a granola bar this morning. It was tough to leave, but we had to do what we had to do. At first, it wasn't too bad riding in the rain- it sure was better than riding into the headwind yesterday. We made it about 5 miles or so before I saw Joey's rear pannier come flying off. I wasn't sure exactly what happened because he was a little too far ahead for me to get a real good look. When I pulled up, he showed me the GIGNORMOUS pothole that he had hit. Now this was not just any pothole; it was a monster. The road we were on was pretty smooth overall and had almost no potholes. This one that he hit was filled with water and was WAY deeper than either of us would have thought. Joey said that when he went in it, the water came up almost half way up the wheel-or at least high enough to pop his bag off. Not only did it pop his pannier off, but the worst part of it is that his back tire instantly when flat. Just what we needed- a flat tire in the rain! As we were standing there changing it, the rain went from normal rain fall to a downpour. A couple nice souls stopped to check if we needed any help, but since it was just a flat, we were ok. Before the flat, we were both relatively dry. Our feet were dry along with most of the rest of us. After fixing the flat however, we were both soaked to the bone. With that being said, we were then also freezing. Our day went from ok to not very good at all. We only had about 12 more miles to go before we could get somewhere we could go inside and warm up. With a little bit of a tail wind for a change, we moved along pretty well in the rain. Thank goodness for that tailwind because otherwise we would have been even colder than we already were, for longer. We got to the end of Route 35 and turned onto Route 425, which of course made me think of home (I grew up on rt. 425 back in Wilson, NY). Our first stop in the town of Monticello was McDonald's. It was so cold that we sat inside for quite a while trying to warm up. With our soaked clothes however, it was not a very successful mission. We thought that maybe today would be a good day for Pizza Hut buffet, that way we could be inside for a while longer. So, we looked up where the Pizza Hut was located and decided we would check it out. Before heading out, we made a quick stop at the Walmart that was right by McDonald's, to get a couple of our frozen dinners. I was shivering pretty bad by the time we got back on our bikes heading for Pizza Hut. We knew it was a shot in the dark if there would be buffet, but we saw 2 other Pizza Huts in this state that had the buffet Sun- Fri, so we figured it was worth a try. When we got there, there was no buffet at this one on Sunday's. Being a little bummed and freezing, we thought that we might just call it quits today and go to a hotel. We had checked the weather and it said that the next few days were supposed to be dry. So, we headed over to the Super 8 back near Wal-mart and decided to see how much a room would be. It was reasonable and we were both so cold and wet that it was worth it. We figured that it would be very helpful for tomorrow to get everything dried out. Tomorrow is supposed to be cold- but we can ride in the cold as long as we are dry. It took me a while to warm up, but when I finally did, I was so happy. I think it was a good decision to take the room. Although had we known we were only going to make it this far today, we would have went to church this morning. I was pretty disappointed at that. The main problem was getting that darn flat- dumb pothole! So, for the rest of the day, we relaxed. We ended up making the frozen dinners for lunch/dinner in the microwave, almost right away because we were so hungry from not really having breakfast. I typed my journals and talked to Kelly for quite a while as Joey enjoyed watching a little Sunday football. A little while later that day, Joey waked over to Walmart and got a couple snacks for us. All of our wet clothes and shoes got dried out nicely sitting on the heater in the room. Not the way that we expected to have our day go, but I guess it worked out ok. We only made it 17.10 miles today. Hopefully tomorrow will be a nice dry day with a good tailwind to get us nice and far.
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