I know my last entry was yesterday, but we have internet access and a suprising amount of stuff has happened in the last 24 hours. After we got back to the lake I skipped swimming in favor of dinner with the OZ bicycle club (who are awesome- especially the Snyders) and when I arrived back Andy, his wife, Gretchen, and I went out on Pirate Mark's catamaran. I'd never been on a catamaran (a sailing contraption,) and it dark and storms were on the horizons. It was awesome, the lake, Lake Cheney is rated one of the top ten in the nation for sailing. Well, there we are, sailing along and I casually ask Mark if there's anything he needs help with and then he hands me the blue line (the rope he told us to be sure not to touch getting into the boat BECAUSE IT WOULD TIP US OVER) and I held on to it until my knuckles were white. But apparently I did an okay job because we did not tip over.

So after a shower I headed to my tent to pass out. I didn't even hear the others come in. Then. at 2am. Bredt comes into the tent and is speaking to Libby very adamately but I had one earplug in and was exhausted so I just rolled back over. And then I saw Libby frantically grabbing things and shoving them into her bag. I asked what was going on, it had been super windy but I was too tired to care, and Libby said apparently the storm was getting serious. Like potential tornado serious. So I flung my things into a bag and grabbed the sleeping bag and headed for shelter. It was insane, our tents were bowed down completely to the ground, but because we'd been inside we hadn't noticed. Outside people were running and yelling and there was virtually no light so there were flashlight beams scattered about everywhere. After we figured out we had some time we managed to take down all the tents and put all of the things in either the van, car or trailer in a matter of minutes (it was beautiful.) We took shelter for the rest of the night in the yacht clubhouse. Three tornados were confirmed to have touched down on the other side of town, but luckily it was just rain for us.

This morning after unpacking and repacking some of us headed down to the Snyder's to ride back out to the lake before heading on to Pratt, KS. We rode out to a slightly stormy horizon... and then, 10 miles or so down the road, it rained. It rained and the wind blew so hard we had to break up our pacelines so that if we swept over by the wind we wouldn't take out a teammate or two. The rain was stinging and the wind just plain scary. We found shelter in a farmhouse with a family that let us put our bikes in the chicken coop and warmed us with coffee and towels. This trip would never be possible without the generousity and kindness of individuals like these. I feel like now we've seen the real Kansas, the one where storms develop in an instant, and people care about strangers.

We made it back to the campgrounds and headed on to Pratt, and our lunch reststop was directly in front of an abandoned red school house. I was at a broken window on the side trying to convince a teammate to join me when I saw Brett in the bell tower on the second floor, turns out the door was open. The place was facinating; littered with old school books, toys, and a beautiful curtained stage in the small auditorium.

Our next turn had us in the headwind for the rest of the day, although Joy and Misty here at Pratt Community College say today wasn't even a windy day... which leads me to worry.

Tonight we're staying here in the dorms and I'm looking forward to a real bed. Tomorrow we're riding on to Dodge.