DAY 3 - 59.9 miles, 1,068 elevation

I forgot to mention before that Rick's lips were also sunburnt...much worse than mine. His lower lip was so swollen and fat that I started laughing at how funny he looked until I was in tears. He kept pretending to talk as if he had one of those dental novacaine injections. That set me off for another round of giggles. Anyway, I was really looking forward to today because of the support vehicle, plus we'll be staying in a hotel tonight. Hooray! Towing 60 lb of luggage is really not easy and as much as I like showering in a truck, a private hotel room is so much better. We started the day relatively early at around 7am. The reason for starting earlier and earlier is because the temperatures have been in the low 90s and the humidity levels are atrocious (somewhere in the mid-70s). Today's weather is supposed to be 94F with a heat index of about 102. It only gets worse when you factor in the heat coming off of the hot black asphalt. So off we went. Rick said we might be able to meet Pete at the first town of Britt, so I pedaled as hard as I could to get there. It was sweltering, but I kept pushing it thinking about unloading the luggage. Oops, we missed them, so it was off to the meeting town of Garner. This was still pretty far away, and I was wilting from the heat. I had to drink water every 15 minutes and I looked forward to passing any house with a kid on the front lawn willing to hose us down. When we finally made it to Garner, I was thinking, all right, I made it without suffering from heat stroke. We stopped short of the main town to try to reach Pete and to cool off a bit. We sat in the grass for a while enjoying ice cold lemonade and a banana. Rick was able to reach Pete. He told me that Pete was in the park area and that he had biked from the overnight town of Clear Lake to Garner. It took about 10 minutes for me to realize, hey wait a second, if Pete biked to Garner, there is no support vehicle to carry my freaking luggage. I was so mad, I was ready to push Rick in front of all the oncoming bicyclists. He actually knew about all of this in advance, since Pete texted him to let him know where he was. But, he wanted to keep me motivated. So, he claims he never lied to me. He just never gave me all of the facts. Really, if I weren't so darn tired, I could have killed him. When we met up with Pete, I felt a little better. The dynamics change when you're in a group as opposed to just being with your spouse. So onward we went to the final town of Clear Lake. I still thought I was dying from heat stroke, but we made it. When I finally got to the hotel, I took a very, very long cold shower. I felt like a brand new person after that. We ate dinner with Pete, his wife, and another couple, Dean and Carol, and then we headed over to the Expo & Beer Garden area. It was still a very humid night and you could see flashes of lightning all around, but no rain. We sat on a couple of benches to listen to a band sing cover songs from the Spin Doctors, but instead, there was a delay, and we were treated to a spectacular fireworks show over the lake. I forgot about Rick's omissions that day, and put my head on his shoulder and held his hand as we watched all the brilliant lights flash over us. When the fireworks were over, we decided we were all pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow is supposed to be the easiest day of the tour. It's just a little over 50 miles and it's mostly downhill. Weather reports say that a nasty storm will pass overnight leaving us with cooler, less humid air. I won't be riding tomorrow. I'll be driving the support vehicle to the next overnight town of Charles City. I'm not going to complain. I could use a break. My legs are really sore and my rear is beginning to ache, but at least it's not nearly as bad as last year. Plus, my sunburn is slowly getting better, so rest is a good thing.