Day 1 (Jason's Perspective): Today sucked. It was too long, and we rode into a headwind the last 40 miles of the day. I cramped up a few times from residual bachelor party dehydration. Oh yeah, and there was only gravel roads for about 4-5 miles. The good news though is multifold: 1) longest day is out of the way; 2) we ride north tomorrow which should eleviate some of the headwind; 3) and most all of the roads leading into Indianapolis are paved, which should make for a much smoother ride; 4) I am rehydrated and ready to roll.

Highlights:

Well, to stick with Costello's Pavement theme, we did pass two different Shany Lanes (everybody wants one).

We stopped at a gas station that had a plastic cooler advertising Crystal Clear Pepsi, which hasn't been made since 1994.

We found the people of small towns in Indiana were extremely helpful but hardly inquisitive about what we were doing (like they see people dressed like Brennan and I sporting mustaches all of the time). For example, here is a conversation that I had with a woman who was trying to get her dog away from us while we tried to figure out if there would ever be paved roads again.

Woman: Come here (insert cute dog name here). At which point the dog takes off toward us, not her, though in a pretty unthreatening way.

Me: He is fine. Can you tell me does this road become paved again any time soon?

Woman: Paved? No, you won't get back to paved roads for quite a while.

Me: What about if we turn off up there on 800?

Woman: Well that road is "chip sealed." It is like pavement.

Me: Okay that works for us. We had been riding on gravel for about 2 miles or so at this point. We proceed another half mile to 800 where we turned right only to find another gravel road. It turns out that "chip sealed" is a fancy synonym for gravel. We went another mile before real pavement resurfaced.

Til tomorrow loyal followers.