Distance: 72.37 miles
Elevation gain: 356 feet
Avg speed: 14.1 mph
Max speed: 22.6 mph
Moving time: 5:08:53
First of all, for those of you who may have noticed the timestamp on this post - no, I have not lost my mind. I actually did NOT stay up late to write this. I always produce and post my video first, and THEN write my blog post. The WiFi in this hotel is extremely slow, however, so I went to bed sometime around 9, and when I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom I saw it had finally finished uploading. So here I am.
The word of the day is headwind! This ride would have ordinarily been an easy one as it wasn’t TOO long and was mainly downhill, but we had a relatively strong gusty wind today that was right in our faces, completely negating the advantage of that nearly constant gentle downhill.
On today's ride, we had yet another state line crossing and left Texas for Oklahoma. Of course, we saw a few stereotypical Texas sights along the way:
Around mile 50 we reached the state line, crossing into Oklahoma in the split town of Texhoma:
A couple additional pics I wanted to share from today’s ride:
One final thing I wanted to share tonight before going back to bed: my FedEx saga continues! You may recall that I recounted in an earlier post my horrible dealings with UPS and FedEx. Well, FedEx was supposed to pick up my package in Holbrook for shipment to Emporia for our next rest day. They were supposed to pick it up Monday. When I checked on my shipment Monday night though, it still wasn’t showing as having been picked up. So I called FedEx to check the status of my pickup, the automated system simply told me it was transferring me to a customer service rep. When it tried to transfer me though, I got a recording that the office was closed. So I called back on Tuesday, only to be told that the driver went to get my package and was told by the front desk that they had nothing for FedEx to pick up. (That part is not FedEx’s fault, just to be clear.) Turns out the package was in the manager’s office, so I’m guessing the person at the front desk just didn’t think to check with anyone else! Anyway, I spoke with the hotel manager, and let her know I would arrange another pickup for Wednesday. Well, while I was at dinner I got a call from the FedEx driver. He basically left me a voicemail telling me that the pickup was out of the way for him, and he would not be able to pick up my package and still be able to finish his route on time, so I would have to call to schedule another pickup. (I’m sorry, but wasn’t my pickup PART of your route for that day? For that matter, if you can’t pick it up that day, why not just go ahead and take some initiative and pick it up the next chance you get? Or do you get in trouble if you pick up late, but not if you fail to pick up at all?) So I call customer service to schedule another pickup for Thursday, and the rep took all of my information, only to have a technical glitch at the end! She told me that I would have to go online to schedule my pickup, even though I had just spent 11 minutes on the phone with her doing just that! Anyway, I now have my pickup scheduled for Thursday, and we arrive in Emporia on Monday (and leave Wednesday). So I’m HOPING that everything goes right today, and my ground shipment reaches Emporia in time! I’ve now lost three days thanks to the incompetence of one person or another. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for today’s pickup AND for the package to make it quickly through FedEx’s system - I really want to be DONE with this and just get the stuff I left in Holbrook!
Anyway, as you know, my blog just wouldn’t be complete without the day’s ride video:
Tomorrow (actually, later today at this point) we head into Liberal, Kansas for a visit to Dorothy’s house and the land of Oz - see you later!
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