14/07/10 Clintonville - Galloway

The day start well, Patty and Tom make us their special receipy of oatmeals. Then, we leave and enjoy the wind that is pushing us.

Then things became more complicated when a very severe storm surprised us with strong winds and lightening everywhere. We were biking in a prairie. We took the first driveway we saw and asked the owner if we could stay at his place the time the storm pass its way. He put our bike in his shed and we went inside the house. We met his wife. Because that was a huge thunderstorm, we had plenty of time to talk with them. They were very open people. We talked about many things: eatable bad weeds, native people, petroleum monopole, etc. The man worked in a gold claim in Alaska went he was younger. It was really facinating hearing about all his stories.

Almost two hours after, we were back on our bike with a nice sun shining on us. But then, many cars stopped and told us to find a shelter because a bigger storm with tornados was coming. We biked fast, watching constantly the clouds. We arrived at Galloway less than 2 hours after leaving our hippie couple. In the sky, dark clouds were moving fast in all direction...in fact, the clouds were making a circle and it seemed that we were at the center. We made our minds and decided to find a shelter in the town. Since the only thing in the town open to public was a bar, we got in. The bar was called Jen's Tonic and we met the owner Jen. We spent the evening there. Outside, winds were terrible, uprooting trees and making rain pouring horizontally. There were lightenings every two seconds which, when looking through the windows, made me feel like if it was the day all night. People from the area where coming to the bar since there were power outages in the sector. Even in the bar, Jen had to light up candles after we lost electricity for few seconds. To pass the time, we drank pitchers of Miller beer and ate pizza while watching tv. Eventually, more than three inches of rain accumulated on the ground, which would have made our tent look more or less like a submarine. Jen offered us to sleep in her apartment just over the bar. So we put our bikes in the backstore, climbed the stairs and went to bed. Thank you Jen for your hospitality. We hope you will still have those kind of thunderstorms in the area since it looks to be good for your business. Distance: 55 km