Kiki Bikes Across America

Friday, June 19th  – Eminence, MO to Hartville, MO

I got up at 5:30 this morning, left camp at 6:45-7:00 and started biking to Houston. The guys were going to leave whenever they usually do and then meet me in Houston most likely. I was trying to get here to see a chiropractor as my back’s killing me already again… I have an appointment at 2pm here in Houston and hopefully that’ll help. I am trying to see if 2 visits in one week will help with getting my back in alignment and fix things better. I may try for another appointment in Pittsburg, Kansas on Monday.

Arrowhead Campground in Eminence, MO

The ride here was tiresome – especially the portion from Eminence to Summersville, seemed like a couple good sized hills and I was dripping wet with sweat! I thought I’d end up being slower riding by myself, but my average thus far has been around 10.9 mph, which is better than our average yesterday. So I guess I didn’t do too horrible for riding by myself. I got a voicemail from the doctor saying he had a 10:15 appointment, but I couldtimen’t get here in time. It was 43 miles from Eminence to Houston, and I seemed to have headwinds the entire way and the road sucked…lots of truck traffic. Everytime an oncoming truck came, I felt like I was going to blow off the road and my solar panel would flip up and catch the wind from the truck. It wasn’t fun. I did stop a few times when I felt like taking photos which was nice – I actually used my SLR too, woohoo! I washed a couple things this morning with cold water and hung them on the back of my bike to dry while biking – and they’re dry:) If I had time now, I’d wash my jersey but I doubt I’ll have time… it’s blazing hot again today.. probably 90 or so.

Riding in the Ozarks in Missouri

Anyway, gotta pack up (sitting here at the public library) – I just wanted to get some updates online as well as the GPS tracks uploaded… they’re up to date to this very second and will be out of date as soon as I’m done with my chiropractor visit:)

In the Ozarks still

Additional edit as of 10pm:
So we arrived to Hartville tonight which was nice – today was our second longest day of our journey. Our first day was 88 miles, today was 83 miles. We also had a fair number of hills and a few steep climbs this morning.

Anyway, in Houston I saw Dr. Womack, a chiropractor. He was very friendly and cool and I am hoping his adjustments will help me and I’m hoping to be able to go to another chiropractor in Pittsburg, Kansas on Monday and hope that by making more frequent adjustments, I may be better off. We’ll see. It’s definitely not cheap and adding up relatively fast, but I’d rather get the chiropractor visits and the relief of pain for a little while than not. The pain is pretty excrutiating and really affects my riding … the 4-5 days I didn’t have any pain were great. I rode so much better and enjoyed it a lot more. Now I just have to make it another 2/3rds of the way across the country hopefully with less pain. So far my best chiropractor visit with good post-chiropractor results has been the one from Berea, Kentucky.

A glimpse of Missouri countryside

I am hoping the adjustment I had today will help, but I’ll only know in a day or two when I see how my back feels. After I finished up at the chiropractor’s, I went and found Chris and George at KFCs and then I ran to Walmart to get cash back and gatorade and an ice cream sandwich. Met back up with the guys and we headed out for our last 38 miles around 3:30 today. It wasn’t too bad of terrain – just rolling hills, nothing too hard or anything. But it was near the end of the day and nonetheless a little tiresome, I guess. We stopped in Bendavis to refill water (the convenience store was closed since 5pm had passed), but luckily a hose was out front, so we refilled with that. We then had 23 miles to go until we reached Hartville. Somehow, today (even though it wasn’t quite as hot or humid as the past two days), I put away 8 water bottles (24 ounces each), plus 48 ounces of additional liquid (gatorade and more water)… and barely had to pee today. DAMN is all I have to say. How can I drink so much and sweat out so much? Maybe that’ll give you an idea of what kind of weather we’re dealing with… it’s really hot, but at least this afternoon anyway (not really this morning) had more dry heat than humidity.

A Missouri farm

So we arrived around 7:30pm or shortly after to Hartville, set up camp in front of the Courthouse (allowed camping here), cleaned off a bit in the bathrooms…and went to dinner at this restaurant down the hill. I had pork BBQ and a massive thing of salad (various types of salads) and then we went to Subway and each got a chocolate chip cookie.. Mine was the best though because I always have them microwave it slightly:) I sat inside Subway until they closed at 10pm typing up the rest of this stuff, transferring photos, and all of that good stuff.

Now I’m inside the tent typing the rest and using the wireless from the public library (also inside the same building as the courthouse and police department). How convenient is that?

Another long day ahead for tomorrow – 79 miles… so guess I better get a little shut eye.

GPS Stats:
82.3 miles
07:36 moving time
42.6 max speed
10.8 avg speed

Computer Stats:
83.57 miles
07:30:52 moving time
11.1 avg speed
44.0 max speed

Snake count: 2
Dog chases: 1 (yeah, I stopped to drink water and I think the people didn’t like that, so they let out their three dogs to chase me)… I luckily escaped. Just as I stopped carrying my Dog Pepper Spray in my handlebar bag (since we’re out of Kentucky, less dogs), but there are still a few…