Day 35, Sunday, May 25


Papillion, Nebraska to Schuyler, Nebraska

We ended the fifth week of the tour with possibly the best day of cycling we have had. 

We got up at 5:30 and packed up our bikes. As always, we like to get ready to go before we allow ourselves to have coffee. So when we were ready to go we had breakfast with Jim, our Warm Showers host. Meg was still recovering from her half marathon and 2.5 hour bicycle ride the day before, so she relaxed on the couch. I think Jim would have ridden some way out of town with us, but they had plans to chill all day with the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600.

With that it was time to say goodbye to the best Warms Showers hosts we could hope for. 

Papillion is south of Omaha, so we needed a way through the city. Fortunately there is a great trail system along many of the creeks in the city, so we took the West Papio Trail north.

We could have taken it almost 20 miles. However, the app I use for planning routes is next to useless. At some point it decided to leave the trail and go through some residential neighborhoods. I expect it may have been a little shorter but any decent cycling app should just keep you on the trail. The one advantage was that we did go by a Dunkin', which would not have happened if we stayed in the trail.

Our first goal for the day was Fremont. There was a campground there and it would be about 47 miles for the day. We decided to go there and see how we felt. Hopefully we would want to go further. 

After a few miles of gently rolling hills, we got on state highway 36, heading west. We had a mile-long descent that went quickly. After that it was long and flat and straight, and we chewed up the miles. It didn't hurt that the wind was from the east.

When 36 ended at the Platte River, we turned northwest and headed five miles into Fremont. We decided we could not stop that early in the day, so we kept heading west toward Schuyler, 30 some miles away, where we knew there was a city campground. 

We took US 30 between Fremont and Schuyler. We have discovered that in Nebraska the US and state highways have extremely wide shoulders. The land is flat and the sightlines for cars is good. We feel relatively safe on the roads, much more so than the county roads in Missouri. 

The miles flew by and soon we were in Schuyler. It was one of our longer days, but certainly one of our easiest. Now, if the roads stay that flat, and the wind stays in the east, we will be fine.




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