Title sounds epic huh?

We'll get to that part soon.

14 of us decided to sleep outside on the football field of Buffalo High School. One gym wasn't air conditioned and the other was air conditioned but dome shaped. The dome shape made really bass-y sounds reverberate for about 10 seconds. That's pretty irritating. It was a really cool and breezy night so outside felt perfect. A full moon sporadically showed itself through the clouds. We could see lightning off in the distance but we didn't think much of it. This was our third night in Oklahoma and lightning seemed pretty normal. Also you can see for miles and miles in Buffalo so we were pretty confident about staying dry and safe that night. The football coach came out to set the sprinklers as we were going to bed. You have to water lawns at night because it dries too quickly during the day. He made sure they wouldn't hit us AND assured us the storm wasn't headed our way. How wrong he was....

A dog stole Ivan's sleeping bag liner as we were setting up our "camp". It ran around with it for a few minutes before dumping it in a sand pit.

After 3 hours of sleep, we were all awoken by a drops on our face. We all instantly knew it meant rain so we rain inside and woke all the people sleeping in the dome gym. Sorry!

In the morning the storm still hadn't passed so we got to sleep an extra 45 minutes until it had cleared up. We moseyed over to the church where they served us cinnamon rolls and breakfast burritos. Egg, cheese, sausage, bacon and potato.... Delicious.

I rode sweep today so the first 40 miles were pretty relaxed. At the 40 mile rest stop I met up with the lead group. They sat around while everybody ate and left. We knew we could catch the others so we sat around for another 30 minutes. As we chatted about the days ride and the trip dark clouds started forming over head without us noticing. We heard a rumble of thunder, shot each other worried glances and without a word got on our bikes and pedaled off to get out of harms way. This I call 'racing lightning'. I think the others would call it 'racing rain'. Incase you don't know me very well I'm really scared of lightning. Well, only when I'm outside. I like the sound of it when I'm safe inside but when I'm the tallest thing around in the middle of a Kansas plateau it's pretty scary to hear ripping thunder noises.

OH we're in Kansas now. I forgot. It's pretty much like Oklahoma, just more really smelly livestock.

Back to the story... Luckily we were a group of fast riders. We warmed up for a mile then pushed it hard to get out of the storm. We knew were headed toward clearer skies but we couldn't tell if the storm would follow us. About half a mile into the ride a crack of thunder sounded right in front of us. It was probably the second or third loudest thunder I have ever heard. Pretty scary to me.

But we're safe. I never actually saw a lightning bolt but the others did. It barely rained on us so we got lucky.

We're staying at another Methodist church here in Dodge City. There's only one room with a wireless signal. It's a tiny vestibule with one little couch. We got to take showers in a fire station. First time I've ever been to a fire station.

Some kids from the nursery came to look at our bikes. They were 1 and 2 years old so I don't think they really understood what was going on. I showed them how to turn my pedal backwards and see all the gears etc move. They really enjoyed that. They enjoyed it even more when they touched my chain and their hands got all greasy and black. (Sorry nursery workers! Especially the one who is cooking us spaghetti as I type this! )

Wow I just wrote a lot.

I get to drive tomorrow. I'm a little worried. I have no idea what to do. I'll let you know how it goes.