Texas, the land of road kill

I'm actually too tired to even go into too much detail, so here's a bullet list for now until I get the energy to write more:

• 9 people, 9 bikes, 2 vans with slogans ("Hellweek or Bust" and "Belgian on Board"), and a lot of luggage.
  
• Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma are not fun places to drive through in March.
• The state of Kansas must have some special deal with McDonalds...the Kansas Turnpike has very few exits, except for little exits similar to rest areas that only have a gas station and a McDonald's...and the occasional Krispy Kreme. Their state motto must be "Get super-sized in Kansas".
  
• Highlight of Day 1 of the road trip...Kansas City, which we saw by accident. I've been to the suburbs of KC, but this was my first time through the City...it was actually pretty cool.
• Texans on I-35 don't know how to drive. It's scary.
• While I'm sure everyone has a certain sense of pride for their state, Texans are REALLY proud of Texas...and it's former governer.
  
• Highlights of Day 2 of the road trip...green grass, warm weather, budding flowers and trees, and Texas Motor Speedway.
• It is NOT a good thing when your gas light comes on in the middle of no-where Texas...especially when the nearest town is 24 miles away and may only consist of one house.
  
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• There are a lot of large trucks in Texas.
  
• Day 3...our first day of riding. Observations and lessons: (a) 85 degrees and sunny, 62 miles of riding, beautiful route except for all the large road kill (see note about large trucks); (b) lots of ranches...I swear one had rams, and Marjie swears one had a zebra?; (c) I'm glad the Belgian is on our team...especially this particular Belgian (she's been a blast and I'm so glad she came along...she even sang us a Dutch song in the car when we got bored at about hour 11.5 of our first day on the road); (d) keeping up with Lieselot is hard; (e) Belgians don't think they need to wear sunscreen...Belgians learn the hard way; (f) only in Texas will the halfway point of your ride be some weird cowboy/biker (as in Harleys)/bar/concert-hall/dance-hall where you can only order meat--I had a hamburger mid-ride; (g) eating hamburgers mid-ride is NOT a good idea; (h) trying to keep up with Lieselot for 62 miles will make me bonk; (i) who knew that one of the best Italians meals I've ever had would be in Texas; (j) the first Velo Bella flat tire came at mile 3.8 on our first day of riding (bummer for Paula; and (k) loosing the keys to all three of your bike locks that you have securing 5 bikes to a van is a problem...and it turns out those kryptonite U locks are actually pretty secure and take a while to saw through (or so Angie tells me).
  
• Day 4...2nd day of riding...the day I really discovered why they call it "Hellweek": (a) ? degrees, humid, overcast, WINDY, and HILLY; (b) windy, hilly, 55 mile rides after a hard first day of riding sucks, (c) I was hurting, hungry, and crabby...the only thing that seemed to help was swearing at the wind (and poor Angie had to listen to it); (d) Ho-Ho's are good post-ride sugar boost...and I didn't even feel bad because I burned 2300 calories on the ride (according to my heart rate monitor anyway); (e)tomorrow I will do a shorter ride to recover from being dumb.
  
• Last minute travel planning leads to problems...very long story short, Angie and I will be flying home.
  
• Love the new bike.
• It's very relaxing to only have to worry about biking, eating, hot-tubbing (aka lukewarm-tubbing), drinking wine, and sleeping. Repeat.

More from Hellweek when I recover and stop trying to chase a Belgian around.

SS