Thankfully I slept well and long, and in the morning enjoyed a MUCH needed shower. The shower stall was reminiscent of Auswich, but I was unfazed, feeling only the pleasure of being clean again. Well, sort of clean. The water was kinda weird....even after rinsing the soap off, my skin felt slimy. It went away after I dried, but it was...weird.

I geared myself and the bike and headed out. The wind was slightly less than before, but not much, and today would be east running, all day. I interrupted an apparent family reunion, complete with numerous new babies, at the local Gas 'n' Choke, then headed out on SR138, which parallels both I-76 and a pair of railroad tracks.

Now, I grew up in the city, and there's railroad tracks everywhere, but I had no idea you could have so much traffic on these things. They were within sight of me constantly, and I once counted 6 trains in thirty minutes! And out west, you can see the entire train at one time; there's just nothing to obstruct your view. It's amazing....these two tracks were like a train interstate! Most trains were carrying coal, from what I could determine. Some were going east, some were going west. Many times the engineers laid on the airhorns as I passed...just two lonely guys riding in the middle of nowhere, I suppose.

The wind continues...really, it never ends. Monotonous is such an inadequate word. Even the air is in a hurry to get out of this state. I can't blame it, really. These people REALLY need to plant some trees. At one point I see a phalanx of geese, trying to fly into the wind. It was pretty comical...they weren't going anywhere, just sat there hovering. In fact, the wind was winning. They'd swap places every so often, but were having a very difficult time keeping the formation. At one point one of them was sheered off by the wind and just kept going. Reminded me of Curtis.

Now, not only is it windy, it's getting kinda....chilly, too. Not that it'd be anything to worry about if the wind wasn't blowing sideways, but since it is, it's annoying. I stop and zip my Stich together, something I never do, since I was tired of wearing the jacket as a bra, constantly being blown up by the wind as it was. Much better.

I stop in lovely Julesberg, CO, one of about a hundred identical towns that straddle the rail line. As you enter the town, first there's a grain elevator, on the rail line. Then there's a gas station. Then some kind of car repair shop. Finally there's the single "main" street, followed by 2 or 3 streets running perpendicular to the rail line, with dilapidated houses.

I pull in and there's two places that say "FOOD" on the signs (both bars), so I grab the one with the sign that has the least peeling paint. Inside is a pleasant surprise...the place is quite nice, the waitress is wearing a tastefully short dress, and the food smells good. Before I can grab a seat the cook comes out (manager, I think) and starts asking questions about where I've been, where I'm going, what I'm riding. I tell him an ST1100, but I can see that doesn't register at all, so I hook a thumb over my shoulder and say, "It's right outside the door." Well, the entire place evacuated the premises to take a look. Much oohing and aahing ensues, even over a black one. Had I shown up on a silver, they might've given me the key to the city.

Lunch is ordered and served. The cook talks motorcycles some more. Tells me there's a guy who comes in who just hit a deer with his sportbike. No gear. No helmet. Said he'll be regrowing the majority of his skin for a while. I introduced the cook to the "Dumbass" concept. I figure, if I can seed this thing across the nation, maybe I'll do some Good. He said he'd do it next time he saw the guy. The waitress asks what I'm reading. I tell her Jules Vernes, "20K Under the Sea" and she tells me she liked that one. And I think she's not lying. My chicken fillet sammich has TWO fillets on it. I gobble, snap a pic of one of the more interesting decorative features of the place, and get back on the road.  On the way out of town I stop at an ATM. ATM's, like everything else, are slower in the west.

The landscape eventually went from the grassy nothingness of eastern Colorado to the farms of Nebraska. Here I learned why farmers farm in circles. There's this thing, it waters crops. It looks like a long-ass pipe with wheels every 20-ft or so, and I'd seen them before. What I didn't know is that one end is a pivot point, where the water is introduced, and the rest revolves around this point. Thus the circles. See, I didn't go to college for nothing. The funny thing was that although there were many manufacturers names on these things, the most popular was the Zimmatic. Who knew?

I see a lot of cows. I mean, a LOT of cows. At one point I pass a sign on the fence that says "Polled Herefordshires" and I wonder...do they bring those chicks who carry clipboards around the mall to them, or do the cows get weekends off to hang out at the food court? I may never know.

On the way through one of the dozens of aforementioned identical towns something huge, black, and multi-legged jumped out in front of me. I narrowly avoid hitting it, and my initial impression is that someone's pony's missing. Looking back I realize it was a black Great Dane. Ain't so great in my book, now.

In another town I look up and see a formation of what looks like WWII Corsairs crossing the road. Sure, why not. I pull over and get out the binocs, watching them as they perform rather inexpert aerial formation maneuvers, eventually circling and making a landing approach somewhere ahead of me. I take off and find the airport, and sure enough, they're WWII planes all right. But not Corsairs. A guy standing next to the fence tells me they're Russian fighters that're being sold today. $80K, each. I'm not in the market, but thanks. Besides, Russian fighters used vacuum tubes up until the 80's. I figure these probably have big rubberbands inside and the propeller has to be turned manually a bunch of times before takeoff to wind it up.

In Kearney, Nebraska, yet another one of the carbon-copy towns,  I saw a partially derailed train.  4 or 5 of the cars weren't on the tracks, leaning over pulling the rest of the connected cars with them. 2-3 guys were standing there with their hands in their pockets, probably getting ready to draw straws to see who had to call the home office. On the way out of this town, a cat dashed across my path, moving considerably slower than cats generally do, hampered by a rabbit almost as big as himself, hanging from his mouth. The rabbit didn't look happy.

After 1000 miles of constant wind, I passed a single windmill. This leads me to believe that as a race, we're pretty stupid.

At this point I jumped down to I-80 and hoofed it into Lincoln, Nebraska. The next day was going to be a longer one (~600 miles) and I knew there'd be no point in staying on the two-lanes in this part of the country anyway. I found a cheap hotel in Lincoln (I love hotels that put their rates on the roadside signs, so I don't have to get off the bike just to find out they charge too much). The clerk spoke English, the room was clean, the cable worked, and by now my modem dial string was debugged, so I even had email! On top of everything else, the wind was starting to die down, so my attitude was looking up at this point.

On the way into Lincoln I heard my V1 chirp...but I heard the V1 itself, not the speaker in my helmet. Subsequent investigation revealed a broken solder joint in the helmet wiring, so first thing tomorrow: find a soldering iron. I'm not driving across Illinois without a functional radar setup!