The quick run towards Chicago

After completing my wish of seeing the Grand Canyon I realized I need to start towards Chicago. The day before sort of already was a travel east but it was more south-east than northeast which it should have been. I started from the Colorado town of Grand Junction . The previous day travel was not pleasant at all. More like excruciatingly hot. It felt like I was in a stove and the air just kept getting hotter and there was no way of getting out. The official temperature was 36°C but I think it was higher on that overheated tarmac. I was so hot I literally escaped to a little diner in Colorado where I indulged in ice cold lemonade. The heat was bad enough but the biking gear at that particular moment did not help much. The biking jeans are quite thick and lined with Kevlar. Then there are the biking boots. Can’t do much about either but to cook or stew, whichever your cooking preference. My feet and legs were also very very close to a very very hot engine and exhaust. Anyway, the next day was hopefully going to be a bit better. First of all the air was cooler in the morning but also I was starting the ascend crossing the Rocky mountains. Some really lovely scenerey ran pass my bike and I also saw the location of the FIS ski events in Vail, Colorado. However after descending on the other side my hopes that the air was cooler on the eastern side were quickly dashed. It was again back to the oven. The heat finally eased the day after, about 100 miles west of Omaha, Nebraska, when I drove into a severe storm system that lasted for a couple of hours. Managed to avoid one of the storms that was producing a tonne of lightning by going for lunch to Denny’s. The second storm I caught full on and I had to quickly escape off the motorway to hide under a tiny bit of roof of an abandoned shed. After that it was back to sunshine but this time without the oven-like ambience.

By the way, Nebraska not very impressive so anything was going to be an improvement and Iowa did not disappoint. Not that I have anything against Nebraska but most of the way there was a prevails long smell of pig feces that only got intermittently exchanged by the smell of cow feces.