Sunday, July 8, 2007

June 29th: Dunlap, IA to Fremont, NE

We awoke in Dunlap even earlier than we usually do - my alarm was set for 4:30 a.m. - in order to avoid the heavy truck traffic on US 30, which comprised the first ten miles of our day. The traffic wasn't too bad, and we were off of 30 by 8 a.m. After a long day of riding, we arrived in Fremont, where we were greeted like royalty with delicious Gatorade and inflatable mattresses. Before many of us began a marathon nap session, we picked up our mail drop goodies, and stuffed ourselves with brownies, dried fruit, and Liz's mother's absolutely deadly Seven Layer bars. Rob even received a mysterious package from a man we recently met who is kayaking across the United States.

After logging some solid napping hours, we awoke to a huge and beautiful potluck dinner served by the amazing people at the Salem Lutheran Church in Fremont. We all ate huge quantities of delicious fried chicken, casseroles, fruit salad, and dessert. We were all (not for the first time on this trip) ridiculously full.

Not long after stuffing ourselves, Pastor Mike ushered us outside, where we filled our van and the church's bus, and drove to Omaha, where KC and the Sunshine Band were putting on a free outdoor concert. There were 50,000 people in attendance, but thanks to some calls by Brian's dad, Al Allen (who is clearly a media mogul of some kind), we were ushered all the way through the crowd, straight to the front like rock stars. We proceeded to rock out to some of KC's greatest hits, including "Get Down Tonight", "Shake Your Booty", and "That's the Way I Like It," until we were dripping with sweat (again) and our legs ached (again). Lindsay and I were especially in pain during the chorus of "Get Down Tonight", as "getting down" over and over again required our already aching quads to do more work than they wanted to. But KC played on, and so we danced.

After the concert, we drove back to Fremont, totally tuckered out. It was a most excellent day.

-Jessalee Landfried

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And that was a most excellent blog post! I hope you danced like no one was watching! I so admire the spunk of you and your HBC buddies. I will not embarrass you by writing whose parent I am, but I would like to say, "I love you both!"

Al Allen said...

Delighted to hear that all went well in Fremont/Omaha on the 29th! I would like to point out 100% of the credit for making it happen belongs not to me, but to Lori Tilman and Pastor Mike of Salem Lutheran Church in Fremont, and the generous spirit and leadership of Steve Kline of Leslie Kline Lukas & Associates in Omaha, representing the annual "Bank of the West Celebrates America" event.
Keep going, gang! We're all proud of you!

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