It rained overnight while we were all snug in the motel. I think we decided to start at 10:00 am when the rain was over. We could have gone a little earlier, but by the time we had breakfast at Bendi's and arranged for the police escort over the bridge, it was about 10:00 am. The Clarendon Mayor, Jim, came by Bendi's to say hello. It turned out he paid our bills. Thanks, Mayor Jim, for the meal and the escort. We pushed off with the police escort over the Big White River Bridge. It is much too narrow to go alone. The escort got us out 1.5 or 2 miles to where the road widened and then we set out on our own. We knew it would be windy, and it was very windy. We weren't sure that we would make it past Stuttgart but we'd see what we could do. We pulled over at Ulm (a little town) and got behind a church building for a few minutes and it was such a relief, like in the eye of the storm.

We made it to Stuttgart and went into town for lunch at a run down little lunch room with a hot buffet. We had great food and probably doubled their business for the day. A good thought. The wind was either head on or slightly to our right again as we got back on the hwy. to England. Kenny had to leave the ride for a dr. appointment, but John called him and made arrangements to stay in a hunting friend's mother's backyard in England, Joanne. We fought our way to Humnoke in the wind, I think about 25 mph. Maybe gusting more. While resting there, John came up with the idea of a double pace-line. It is hard to explain so I messed up a few times, but in the formation, the last 2 people had quite a bit of relief from the wind, until it was their turn to pull for 1/2 mile. I normally, don't like a pace line for long, but we kept in formation all the way to England, but only at 9-10 mph and kept us both together and from being completely exhausted.

England: Joanne's house was on the north end of town, our way out the next day. We had dinner at the drive up place that I didn't know was still open on the hwy coming in to town from the north.They had good burgers, ice cream, etc. Joanne made us 2 pecan pies that we of course ate and ate some again for breakfast.  Her own son told Kenny that she doesn't make them any more! The road did provide, again. We had a nice night with our tents pitched on the grass in the backyard.