On the Road, and The Owl

We left Lacrosse after a few days of rest and recovery from our 100 mile ride and had a very full day couple of days.  We were planning to stop in Ness City and made the day a short one so we could stay out of the heat but the tailwinds we found in our favor when we left the motel made us change our minds and press on.  The scenery was pretty much the same but the in spite of the winds helping us along we could tell we were on a steady incline.

This made me laugh.  Would someone please give these kids another building to tag?  lol

Creative signage.

Where old farm equipment goes to die.

Eastbounders from San Fran.  Most of the cyclists we meet seem to be coming from San Fran.  Doesn't anyone start in Oregon anymore?

Another cyclist from SF, this one named Brett.  Here is his blog:  http://brettdeboer.wordpress.com/

We met Dave and Carole in Ness City just after we'd eaten lunch.  They were stopping there for the day.  They both had on the Keen Commuter shoes we want.  :P

These people are doing GREAT things!!  You can read about Cyndy and Mike here:  IN IT TO END IT  When we saw their RV sitting on the side of the road we didn't expect Cyndy to come popping out and offer us Gatorades, ice cream, t-shirts, and a donation toward our cause!!  What an unexpected treat!  Thanks you two!  Keep up the amazing work you're doing!
We came across this abandoned church and stopped to take a break.  Ken heard a noise inside and went to investigate:

When we went inside we were shocked to see that an owl had gotten trapped inside.  He must have been living in the top part of the church and from what it looked like, fallen through the ceiling and was unable to get back up or get out.

The sounds we heard were the bird hitting the windows as it was trying to fly out.  So we wrestled the front door open and when it felt the breeze coming in, he flew outside, free once again.

See the open front door in the back?  That is where he finally flew out.  We hate to think about what would have happened to this poor creature had we not stopped here.  There is nothing around for miles so a cyclist was probably his only hope.  When he flew out several small birds started to bother him but we watched for awhile and saw him land safely in some trees.  For the next several miles we talked about what it was like to be so close to such a bird.  A very interesting experience, that's for sure.