Phase 3, Day 4. North Platte - Kearney, NE

106 miles and a very nice day for riding. Until today I had never ridden 100 miles on dead flat road before, always some sort of climb to slow things down, nor have I ever  covered 100 miles in under 5 hours. A first for me.

Followed the Lincoln Highway most of the way. Lincoln Highway was once the primary road through here but now Interstate 80 runs parallel so nearly all the traffic heads that way instead.  Good for a cyclist.

Only a lover of geography would be excited about crossing the 100th Meridian. I was excited. 

Gothenburg, "The Pony Express Capital of Nebraska" and about my halfway point today, is the home to a real life Pony Express station (hut) and my first real encounter with an actual Pony Express site other than an historic road sign or pile of rocks.  What a thrill.  It was so fun to finally see an actual station where the riders would stop to change horses or riders, preserved of course and upgraded from dirt floor to brick and all the rest, but I enjoyed talking to the nice woman volunteering there.  

Funny, I saw a dude riding a very nice Lemond road bike through town and thought what an odd place  to see such a fancy bike. I stopped to ask him for directions to the museum and turns out Larry is the new local airport manager and just moved here from Durango, CO.  That would explain the nice bike. We talked about bikes and airports but I was anxious to see the museum so soon got bored with the airplane talk and pressed on.   Larry gave me a hot tip about avoiding the closed road ahead so I took his recommended 8 mile detour....with all the other cars and trucks and with no riding shoulder. Pretty sketchy riding for 30 minutes.

An original (if well preserved) Pony Express station. Gothenburgh, NE

At about mile 70 came across Armond Young walking along the road.  Armond is walking from New York City to Santa Monica pier. He has already walked the other way across the country and now is heading back to California raising awareness, and money it seems, for 9/11 firefighter's families and has walked 7900 miles so far. A noble and dedicated cause for sure.  Armond is only carrying an enormous totem full of signed American flags, the "most signed thing in the world" he claims with 520,000 signatures. 520,001 now.  He was particularly proud that Merle Haggard had signed too. You can find Armond's Facebook page and lots of other links to his amazing story if you Google his name.  Armond and I had a nice time talking about adventure.

Armond Young has a lot of energy. 

The fun thing about riding here is because it's so flat you can see the next town's grain silo from many miles away. This was a fun game for me as the road, as nice as it is, was a bit monotonous.  Still fun, but monotonous.  More trains to wave at and I think I'm clear of rattlesnake country as I haven't seen one since yesterday.

Tomorrow the bike and I say goodby to the Platte River, our companion for many hundreds of miles, and head southeast as the Pony Express riders did who then picked up the Little Blue River.  One problem though....other than I-80 and the old roads that followed the Platte River most roads here are nearly all north/south or east/west..I want to go diagonally which will require a 10 mile zig followed by a 10 mile zag...again and again.

Tomorrow a 90 mile zig-zag to Nelson, NE, just north of the Kansas border.