Day 23 (May 18) - Casper, WY

Today as usual, we woke, ate the hotel's free breakfast x 4, and took off from Valentine, NE on the bikes. Compared to the last two days' 30-40 mph headwinds, today's 5 mph was super. I rode the Guru and set out on a blistering pace. At 50 miles, near the settlement - that's a better word than "town" - of Eli, NE, Eric caught up with me in the car and, as planned, we started the rest day early and in motorized style on our way to Casper, WY. Along the way, we passed numerous, long trains with car after car after car carrying coal towards the east. At one point, we measured one of the slower-moving trains and found it to be over 1.3 miles long....probably closer to 1.5 miles if you factor in that it was moving towards us. We'll post the video this evening!

Now for the drive: Purists will say that we cut out 260 miles and will not have officially biked across the country. Well, I'm not a purist and am very glad we picked up and moved the rest day to another new state on the new-state-list. In fact, up until today's drive, I've been mostly underwhelmed (or as Eric called it 'non-whelmed') with the bicycling and the magnitude of this endeavor. This afternoon as we hurtled across the vast sand dunes and empty hills of western Nebraska, the enormity of pedaling across the country began to sink in. I think after a good rest day tomorrow, we'll be ready to confront and savor the Rockies, the Cascades, and whatever other speed bumps are ahead.