Day 23 June 3rd

Fair Grove, MO to Pittsburg, KS 95 miles
Last night was the best nights sleep of the trip so far and i really needed it. Gail left before i woke up so i wasn't able to say goodbye and thank her but i had cereal with Tom and left by 8:15. It thunderstormed last night and i was really thankful to be inside. I've slept indoors 5 times and there has been a thunderstorm 3 of those times so I'm feeling pretty lucky in that respect. Plus its only rained once or twice while I've been in my tent.
The weather was great today. It was overcast and cool around 65 and a wind from the northeast that helped since I was going west. The road had a few climbs in the morning but nothing major and after lunch it was mostly flat or down hill. I met a man named Doug on the road who told me about a shortcut he was going to take that would cut out 10 miles of the trip. I was glad to give it a try since I was planning on doing over 100 miles. There's always something though and i ran into construction. I had to walk my bike through it and it was covered in mud by the time I got through. I used both of my water bottles cleaning it and it still looked terrible. I had to wait until i got to camp to clean the whole thing. For the brief time I was with Doug we ran into a man riding from KS to KY and doing the Trans Am in sections since he never had enough time to do the whole thing. Lunch was peanut butter and Gatorade outside a gas station along the shortcut. By the end of the day I was averaging over 15 mph and pretty happy with myself. I reached Pittsburg by 3:30 but no one seemed to know where the park I was trying to get to was. So I found another park and decided just to camp there. I saw another chinese buffet while I was searching through the town so I went there for dinner after everything was set up. I'm pretty tied after the long day so lets hope nothing bothers me in the middle of the night.