Day 15: Aberdeen-Benson

This morning there was something typical Dutch at breakfast. Mary, one of the local people from Minneapolis, had brought chocolate sprinkles. Not that it was very helpful beating the tiredness from this morning, because the first two hours I could not get warmed up. I want to go back to sleep! To few hours in the night. My heart rate monitor also agreed I was kind of dead, because it stopped functioning. But after eating a Clif Gel, a bar and a gum I started to feel a bit better.

Traffic. I've been pulled over for the second time by the sheriff. Mark (from the SAG team) parked his car on the shoulder of US-12 to clean up some stuff that was laying there. So to go around him I had to take the lane and go into traffic. Fortunately there was a stretch with no rumble strips. But to get back on the shoulder wasn't that easy. I was doing around 37 km/h and there was no opening. The car that stayed behind me wouldn't want to overtake me and that didn't make me feel any less pushed. Once I got below 30 km/h going uphill I took my chance and went over the rumble strips. That's when the car followed and turned on the familiar red/blue lights. Mister sheriff wanted to let me know that I could best drive on the shoulder. Ehhh, I was planning to. I wasn't the only one that has been stopped by this guy. At least five other riders had the same experience.

What I notice is that most small towns have their own water tower. Makes sense because this is the most efficient way to keep the water pressurized. Maybe I'll take a picture of one of those soon. Communication with the people back home had been upgraded compared to the old day's. In the old days you used a phone booth to get in touch with family. Today everyone had a cell phone or is using Skype or FaceTime to make free calls to home. Soon I'd like to chat up with friends and family.

I think I mentioned in a previous message that things here are bigger than in our country. They transport big things on the road like it's business as usual. Today we had to wait because two houses had to pass a small bridge.

Once we arrived in Benson we were welcomed by the City Manager. As we had no showers in the part where we stayed we could use the swimming pool next door for free. Very nice, with a water slide and a (low) diving board. The City Manager also mentioned that Benson was well known for retrieving energy from turkey shit.

Lastly Slo Joe wanted to know how I write all these messages. Using a iPad, phone or something. I'm using my new MacBook Pro with a big screen and normal sized keyboard to write. I also write in Dutch and English so it's handy to get a side by side view. Photo's I upload with SFTP to the home directory of my VPS which I then move to the right location. I do this because my CMS want's to shrink the pictures I'm uploading. For internet connection I depend on the WiFi that might be present on the camp ground. Sometimes I get to borrow Mike's 3G stick. He also wandered how the GPS tracks work. These have been created with the help of people who have knowledge of the local roads. Everyone with a GPS device (I have a Garmin Oregon 550) can put them on their device and look how they should ride.

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