Popular Bluff to Union City, TN 105 miles
It is truly amazing how the terrain can go from being so hilly to almost perfectly flat in such a short distance. A good portion of today's 103 mile ride was through the the farm lands of Missouri. Our first sign that we were entering the real south were the very large cotton fields, which were being harvested. The majority of the group formed a pace line that enabled us to vastly improve on yesterday's 14.5 mph average speed and it helped battle the 15 mph southerly winds. At the 88 mile mark we reached the mighty Mississippi River, which we were going to cross on a ferry. However, due to funding shortages, the ferry was not operating and the closes bridge was 35 miles away. Therefore, we loaded up the van and made the hour and half trip over the river and ended up in Kentucky where we would have landed if the ferry was in operation. Fortunately, it was only 15 miles to our Union City, TN hotel.