Another interesting night. It was about 4 am when Joey woke me up because the sprinklers had gone off on the other side of the yard from where we were camped. Luckily, we weren't getting wet, but we knew that wouldn't last long. Joey was certain we would be getting soaked really soon and suggested that maybe we should just pack up and start riding. I definitely did not like this idea, especially since I knew there was a possibility for me to get almost 4 hours more of sleep. So we got out of the tent to assess the situation. The sprinklers had already gone off in the section of the yard closer to the road around the corner from where we were. We decided that we would drag our tent and bikes over to that side since we were pretty positive those sprinklers wouldn't go off again tonight. I was really glad we moved because we got an extra 4 hours of sleep, didn't have to ride in the dark and not long after moving the sprinklers that were where our tent used to be went off. In the morning, we heard kids walking to school, we made our oatmeal and were on the road around 9. It was a little strange to us, but once school was in session, we noticed that there were gates across the road in front of the school at both ends. The first few miles of the ride today were into a head wind. Not long after that, we started to climb a pretty big hill that seemed to go on forever. It probably took us a little over an hour to reach the top. On the way down, we were going pretty quick. We entered a town called Virginia City and the speed limit changed to 35. I was speeding; only by 2 mph though! Then the speed dropped another 10mph and I passed a car that had passed me on the way down the hill. I was so excited that I got to pass a car even if I was breaking the law by going 10 over for about 3/4 of a mile. There were so many really neat, historic buildings on main street. We decided to get off our bikes and walk around a little bit. A lot of the buildings looked like they had been turned into little museums that had the door open so visitors could see how the buildings and old artifacts look inside. We knew we weren't very far from Nevada City, which was a ghost town, so we continued on down the hill so we could eat our lunch there. The ghost town was really neat! We were so hungry that we made a can of baked beans and had our mac and cheese too. While we were eating, the guy who runs the area came over to talk to us. He even showed us what the inside of one of the little cabins that you could rent looked like. After lunch, we were walking around looking at all of the buildings. There was a field trip there and they were getting an in-depth look at the rest of the town. The lady who runs the museum was nice enough to let us in so we could see everything since the doors were open for the kids, even though the museum wasn't technically open yet. It was so much fun walking around the rest of the town. We saw the old jail, fire house, barber shop, school, bar, saddle shop, and much more. It was so great that we got to go through it! Right after leaving Nevada City, we met 2 more guys touring! They were each doing separate tours, but had met each other about 3 days ago and have been riding together ever since. The first guy, Phillipe, was from Sweden. He was riding from Calgary to Arizona (maybe further, but I don't remember exactly). It sounded to us like he was following the Continental Divide Adventure Cycling Route. The other guy, Evan, is an ex-Navy Seal who is riding from Oregon to Virginia (he lives in Virginia City). Again, we were pretty excited to see people touring. We all stood there on either sides of the road for a while talking, but luckily there wasn't much traffic. The rest of our ride we had a mixture of head winds and tail winds. We rode into a little town called Sheridon, where they had an IGA grocery store, just like back home. Since we were planning to buy a package of cookies, we bought them there. As we were riding into town, we had been watching the storm clouds slowly move closer. We decided to wait for a little bit for the rain to stop before getting back on the road. Joe and I sat on the little swing outside the IGA and snacked on our cookies. It didn't take long for it to clear up, however, after we got about 4 miles outside of town, it started to rain again. The next town, Twin Bridges, was only about 9 miles away, so we didn't have too far to go. When we made it into town, we stopped at the library for a little bit since it didn't close for another hour. While there, it started to rain really hard and there was thunder and lightning. We had made it to town just in time! The cool thing about this town was there was a free bike camp that had a shower and everything, just for touring cyclists! We had never heard of or saw such a place before. Since we were still on an Adventure Cycling Route, I'm sure they get a lot of people touring through this area. As we were in the library, a guy, Robert, who was riding his bike around town came in to get out of the rain. He asked us about our travels and then offered to make us a cup of Expresso at his house if we were interested. Once the rain stopped, we rode down the street to his house. He made us each a great cup of hot chocolate and I enjoyed playing with his kitties: Paco and Tigrite. Since the weather was still yucky outside, he offered for us to stay in his spare room. The idea of a bed and not having to set up our tent is always wonderful, so we gladly accepted the offer! After our hot cocoa, Robert even took us out for dinner at a little restaurant in Sheridan. Joey and I both had amazing double cheeseburgers! When we got back to Robert's house, we made some brownies and then went to bed. Another amazing day on the road, an another day that just had so many surprises-- the best part of touring because you never know what your day is going to bring. We rode 43.77 miles today.