Day 8 (last day of riding and tour wrap up)
Stats not available - computer reset somehow.

I just bought my bike computer, and it's already broken! Here's a hint: never buy Trek Sensor speedometers. They break a lot. I've had 3 of them break on me.

The storm that blew through last night only lightly pelted us with rain. Just after I wrote in my journal last night, the wind picked up and we saw a massive, violent storm just north of Hazen. A man said we were welcome to camp in the school if we wanted. We decided against it, despite warnings of hail and heavy rain. It looked like the storm was heading straight east, and it did. I was thankful for that storm, however, because it caused the sweltering temperature to drop like a rock. As a result, I finally got to sleep.

We got up at 5:00 a.m. again. The Hazen campground had several groups of trees to provide shade. We got our luggage early enough yesterday to get our tent set up in the middle of the trees - for the shade. In the morning, however, we struggled to be as quiet as possible. We were completely surrounded by tents, all in very close proximity to our own. I know I must have woke at least one person, as I tripped over some tent lines that were invisible in the near darkness.

The ride was rather uneventful today. I did see the Garrison Dam, power plant, and intake structure. While stopped there to take some pictures, Mark Clements (not sure of the last name) pedaled up. I'd been biking with him several of the days and we'd gotten to know one another a small bit. After admiring the sunrise and the dam for a bit, we rode together for a while and chatted once again. He, like so many people on the tour, is convinced that Jesse, with some training on form and a new bicycle, could be the fastest biker in the state. Mark is convinced that Jesse could make a living as a professional cyclist. I suppose anything is possible. I wondered if Jesse would enjoy that as a career.

After a while, I started to pull away from Mark. I only saw him one other time at a rest stop where we turned onto highway 83 for the last 14 miles.

The last fourteen miles I fought a headwind, but it was bearable. I rode into Garrison a while later and then met up with Jesse who, as usual, had been there for an hour and half. We were too early for the spaghetti meal, so we decided to bike the last three miles of the tour back out to Fort Stevenson State Park and load our bikes into my pickup.

I thought, surely I could keep up with Jesse for a short three miles. At the very least, I thought I would be able to keep sight of him for those three miles. I was very wrong. I tried my hardest, but he quickly disappeared over the horizon.

At Fort Stevenson, we ran into a friend from school, Jared, who had been camping and fishing with his family.

After helping unload the luggage trucks, we packed our luggage and bikes into my truck and headed back to Garrison for spaghetti.