Saturdays are generally my favorite day to ride. However, today was quite chilly and we had snow on the ground from last night. We waited until it was in the high 30s, around 11:30am and headed out. Fortunately, Sam, Nicole, Elizabeth and Matt had gotten us fleeces for the trip. We have been wearing them generally just with our street clothes in the evenings. But today we pulled them out for the ride which made it tolerable. Before we hit the road biking, we noticed an antique store was open that Dale and Marie had spied yesterday and had been disappointed it was closed. They had a fun 20 minutes checking it out but alas no purchases. We then rode from west of Strong AR to El Dorado, AR continuing on Route 82. Although there was the usual traffic, the nice wide shoulder makes it very manageable. We were surprised to go from relatively flat riding back to rolling hills and some had headwinds. Both conditions contributed to a little slower ride. It was a shorter day riding as we ran into some roadwork and had an appointment at a bike shop in Monroe, LA at 4pm, an hour and a half away. It is hard to find bike shops in the rural parts of the states. Dale was sad as it was his last day riding for this visit and he also wanted to go further.

We arrived at Blue Bikes at 4pm. The owner, Shannon, generally closes at 2pm but agreed to stay open until 4pm for us. We needed to replace our supply of tubes given our flat experiences over the last two weeks. We also wanted Shannon to give a quick look at all the bikes since we have been on the road four weeks now. Generally, they were in good shape although Dale’s bike needed some alignment after the MS bridge expansion joint hit. We truly appreciated Shannon’s flexibility, expertise and time. In the end, he only charged us for the equipment and not the servicing of our bikes. He also gave us a great recommendation for dinner which we followed up on. Dale got the seafood nachos which Shannon said was his favorite item on the menu. We got him a gift card at the restaurant which we dropped in the mail to express our appreciation.