Just whistle while you work
Just hum a merry tune
Just do your best and take a rest and sing yourself a song
Have you ever gotten a song into your head and you just can’t get rid of it? Our ride 
today was 117 miles long and the weather forecast called for stiff headwinds and rain. I planned to not worry about speed but to slip into an easy gear and set a sustainable pace. How do you know if a pace is sustainable? My rule of thumb is simple: if I can sing a song while riding at a given pace, then the pace is sustainable. So I sang a song. Interestingly, the only song that came to mind was the theme from Green Acres — so I sang it all day long. Even though Green Acres was one of the great TV shows of all time, I’d really like to get the theme song out of my head. Can anyone suggest an alternative?
Today was the first truly miserable weather day we’ve had on the trip. Our route was very straightforward: 60 miles due east, 20 miles north, then 40 miles east again. The
Guess which way we were going
wind was blowing directly from the east so we had 100 miles of headwinds. It’s OK if you can find the right gear and hunker down. The complicating factor was the rain which came down in sheets almost all day long. With the wind, the rain turned horizontal and smacked you right in the face. I had on good rain gear so I stayed warm and reasonably dry but if Green Acres didn’t drive me nuts, the wind and rain certainly should have. Finally, after a long series of rolling hills, I spotted the Missouri River and rolled down into Pierre, the capital of South Dakota. As with all the other rivers we’ve seen, the Missouri seems close to flood stage. In fact, our hotel — about ¼ mile from the river — is already sandbagged.
I set one new personal best on the road today:
Longest day (3) — it wasn’t my longest day in terms of distance but it was in terms of time in the saddle: 9 hours, 3 minutes, 11 seconds.
Day’s distance: 117.9 miles (189.7 km)
Average speed: 13.4 mph (21.6 kph)
Day’s climb: 3,000 feet (914.4 meters)
Total distance: 1,845.9 miles (2,970.6 km)