Day 18: Lincoln

Just finished having lunch (at the pizza hut buffet, of course) and I am now sitting in the city park.

When I left Hill City, yesterday, it was 104 degrees. A local commented, "You picked a hell of a day to be biking!" About, an hour later the storm started, dropping the temperature about 2007 degrees and making it a great day to be biking. It was pouring rain, with a strong tail wind. It felt better than any pool, I even took of my helmet, so my hair could get washed. I thought about stopping and pulling out my soap, bit didn't want to open my waterproof bag in the rain, or interrupt the great riding.

I was going along the northern edge of a severe thunderstorm, and several towns had their storm/tornado alarms going off. As I got to Natoma (10 miles passed my goal for the day), I was getting pretty close to the storm and could see an amazing amount of lightening flashes and figured I better not push my luck any farther, and find some shelter for the night incase the winds shifted and the storm hit me.

Well before dark, I stopped to setup camp in a baseball field dugout just outside of Natoma. I watched the lightening storm rage for quite a while before I fell asleep. It was pretty amazing that there could be so much lightening over such a long period with out the local atmosphere reaching electrical equilibrium.

When I got up this morning it was a nice cool overcast day, which made for an easy ride to Lincoln. The sun didn't burn through the clouds until close to 11, and the forecasted high today is only 91...much better than the low 100s the last few days!