Day 22 June 2nd

Houston to Fair Grove 80 miles
I decided to take today a little easy an only do about 80 miles and sleeping until 8. I was pretty tired after the last few days and the library didn't open until 9 so there was no rush in the morning. I ran into Danny at the library. He made it to Houston and stayed in a hotel. I checked my email and such and said bye to Danny and was ready to hit the road by 11. There were a few hills along the way but it was the heat that made the day hard. I never saw how high the temperature got but i was sweating a lot and the sweat was visible on my shirt. I wore the same shirt as yesterday, the Red Rockets jersey, since it stands out the most out of all my shirts which was good for the turns and hills. But now there were two days worth of sweat baked into it and it actually was painful by the end of the day.
There were about 6 major climbs so it wasn't nearly as bad as the last few days and i knew that the final 10 miles would be pretty much down hill to Fair Grove. Lunch was in Hartville where i got a double cheese burger with fries and a pitcher of water. But most of the day was uneventful. I didn't meet any bikers along the way and the scenery was pretty repetitive. But i was glad that it was a net down hill day for a change. I called the Gourley's after lunch. They are the people that Shawn told me about the day before. I talked to Tom and he said he would definitely be home by the time I would get there and he gave me directions. I got to their house just after 6 and his wife Gail got home a few minutes after me. After a shower and putting my laundry in we sat down for some alfredo and salad. They had me laughing so much about their stories about other bikers and their hippy lives that my cheeks were tired from smiling by the time i went to bed. They also told me about how a recent storm trashed their town. The hail did enough damage that they had to replace their brand new roof on their house along with some car windows. It left some people with out power for 10 days. But they told me that the hail storms usually are never that bad and only last for about 15 minutes so I should be able to take cover under a tree if I get caught in one but lets hope it doesn't come to that. I'm really looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight though.