Tacos, great; 78 mile ride, not so

We passed the half-way mark Wednesday!
Iowans are a kind, warm caring people -- but they are liars. I can't tell you how many times we heard "this is the last hill, I promise," only to face another and another. It wasn't until the 55th hill that we realized they just told us that to keep us from quitting. And we came close to doing that several times today.
The 78 mile ride was really tough on us, physically and mentally. In fact, I lost it about the last mile. I'm surprised it took me that long to melt down; figured it would happen Tuesday. Paul was a great help getting me through it. He is suffering from seat and leg soreness. I've got seat issues too and now have numbness/weakness in my right hand from putting too much weight on my handlebars. We decided not to go to the Styxx concert Tuesday night and instead saw the chiropractor. Not sure it helped, but that might be what got us through Wednesday. We could hear the concert from our tent though and the fireworks were great!
Anyway, parts of Wednesday's ride were great (not the stinking headwinds, though). My two favorite parts of the ride were:
1) We were so slow that we rode in with the drunks. They party in each town we pass through and then haul at the end to make it to camp in time. It was entertaining, to say the least.
2) There was a huge downhill toward the end of the course. Nothing like racing 30+ MPH down a hill with a team of people as rock music is blasting. Reminded me of the Tour de France. OK, they don't do this with a boombox, but a girl can fantasize, right?
We continue to be amazed by the people on this ride. The unicyclist, a 20 year old guy from Kentucky, passed us today. I saw a one-armed man and tons of kids. That motivated us to keep going.
We've recently really enjoyed dinner with a farmer and soil scientist, both from Nebraska. Did you know you can buy a great house there for $40'K? We also chatted with two thirty somethings from Des Moines. One of which has his 11 year old son riding with him. All of these people have something in common: They can't believe we came all the way from Florida to do this ride. Truth be told, after Wednesday, neither can we.
The conversations with people are really interesting. They ride up next to you and start a conversation about anything! Part of the time you're pleased to have a riding buddy and the other half bothered because you can't talk AND bike up the hill. Eventually one of you says "have a nice ride," which is code word for "I'm outta here!" Our Gator paraphernalia has been a big source of discussion!
As we finished our ride, we passed through an Indian reservation-- the Mesawaki (spelling?) Tribe. I think they have a team riding. Anyhow, you could see their land was affected by the floods. We thought it looked like a FL swamp: trees in water. Tonight we ate at their booth: Indian tacos. So good. We watched them hand-make this bread that they fry and layer with taco toppings.
If we sound excited about the food, we are. Last night really marked the first time we enjoyed eating. We underestimated how hard it is to eat when you're not hungry. Though we do this at home, here you have to eat even when you're hot and sick to your stomach, because you need fuel. You wouldn't even believe the type/amount of food we've been eating each day!
Tomorrow (Thursday) is 73 miles of hills. Paul points out that we stink at figuring out (from the map) where the hills are. So we'll just take them as they come. For Paul, he passes the time getting up the hill by looking at the scenery. For me, I count turns of my pedals. For some reason that annoying Subway jingle, "five dollar...five dollar...five dollar footlongs" got me up the hills!