York to Lincoln 9/8/09

Not a bad little hump. I saddled up after a bowl of Life cereal a sticky bun and two cups of coffee. I packed 3/4s of water in my Camelpac and filled the two water bottles. I had left over skittles and some beef jerky. I put on my dance tights anticipating a cooler day. I was right about the coolness until I reached the other side of York, but then it became hotter than an oven.

I didn't see a soul the whole day, except for the people in their cars, vans, trucks and what have you (they decidedly don't have souls). A new kind of flower popped into view, this time periwinkle colored. I was blessed with largely clean and comfy paved shoulders.

When I reached the very very western outskirts of Lincoln, NE I was suddenly confronted with very steep hills! Way to break up the monotony at the end. My quads screamed with excitement or maybe it was with determination - anyhoo, they were hills and along with them came a wildlife preserve, and enormous hawk circling, a variety of trees, breezes, painted barns, and little creeks. I went up shifting down to 1 and down shifting up to 8. I stopped at the top of one hill reasoning that I would be able to see both people coming and going with out a problem (I had to pee... real bad). Turns out, everybody wanted to drive up and down that hill right then, so I fain eating skittles hoping that folks would stop driving around. None of this worked so I kept right on.

When I reached Lincoln, the shoulder was suddenly paved with a sandstone colored rock - I can only assume the color was chosen for the Corn Huskers. Cute, but created a lot of drag on my tires y'all. Well, getting into town wasn't tough and most residential side streets don't have stop signs. Lincoln seemed like a nice place to live, although people were noticeably more rushed. Amy checked me in at the Holiday Inn Express. She was very pleasant and was able to work me out a good deal.

I ended up staying in Lincoln a second day due to the rain. I took advantage and went to see the Sheldon Museum of Art. I was impressed by the beautiful University Campus and even more so by the small, almost replica of Lincoln Center that is the Sheldon Museum. They have a really nice collection of all kinds of pieces and were displaying the work of a contemporary Japanese artist. There was not enough room to show much at the museum, and I they didn't go out of their way on the plaques for the artwork; name date and title, nothing else.

Later that evening I returned to the hotel to watch the season finally of Dog the Bounty Hunter "Baby Lisa's Wedding." Too bad Leland was sick in this episode.