We had an early night which was a good thing. At 5:00 this morning, the trash truck was picking up barrel after barrel across the street from the park where we were staying! It was noisy! We went back to sleep, but we did hear the Willow Tree Festival folks setting up the tents for vendors before 6:30. By 7:30, the guys were ready to go.
Not far out of town they spotted the historical marker for the Lone Willow tree which this festival is all about!
They rode on the trail for a while until it came to an abrupt halt! A gate indicating it was the end of the line. They were able to go through the gate, but had to walk their bikes up and down a culvert to get out to the highway.
The road started off with rolling hills – we are in the sandhills of Nebraska, after all.Soon, those hills were quite steep and the wind was coming at them about 15mph. Tobey said they even had to pedal to go downhill!
We stopped in Merriman for an early lunch and rest stop. It’s a tiny town with not much to offer except for a small city park off the main road.
It was another 24 miles to Cody and they told us to go ahead and they would meet us there. We stopped 12 miles down the road because the wind was so strong and the hills steeper and the temperature was about 94. We thought they needed a break! We stopped at the top of the hill and they were happy to see us.
After a short break they continued on to Cody, Nebraska. They rode 55.1 miles and had 1326’ elevation gain and 1702’ loss. That is a lot of up and down!
We are staying by the city park in Cody tonight. Marcia and I walked up to the top of the hill and were treated to a field of beautiful wildflowers and a lovely sunset.
Tomorrow – Valentine!
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