Thunder storms, kindness and turtles

We are now in the great state of Nebraska, truly the good life, as the sign displayed as we entered the state. Though there have been few towns, and the towns we have seen are small, we love Nebraska and its people, we think it would be swell to live in a place like this, its so simple, peaceful and calm. One thing I can say for sure about Nebraska is that it is green...and most likely will stay that way if the rain keeps up the way it has been since we got here. The first night it rained and as we rode the second day, it rained like i have never seen rain in my life! Imagine racing down a road completely at 30mph, soaked, with water dripping off your face and barely being able to see in front of you because the rain is falling so thick, and the only thing keeping you from getting hypothermia is the fact that you continue riding your bike! Well that was Eric's and my reality on the 4th of June. We rode that way for about 3 hours. There was only one town in front of us with a population of about 1000. We knew we had to pick between 2 choices: make it to Hemingford, or die a very cold, wet death on the side of the road. We chose life. Upon arriving in Hemingford, there was a great feeling of relief as we searched for the town's motel. We were quite disappointed once we stopped the kind and helpful police officer who told us there was no motel in their town...With despair welling inside of me i asked if there was a bed and breakfast or ANYTHING (the cold was setting in now that we were stopped and i was starting to shiver). She said she would make some calls and fortunately found a vacant bed and breakfast. The owners kindly agreed to give us a ride to their place in their truck since it was down a muddy dirt road. We arrived at the cozy little cottage to a happy welcome party, apparently we were the first people to have stayed at the Minich family's new, nearly finished cottages. We both had nice hot showers and a great nights sleep in the beautifully decorated cottage. Being warm and dry was a great feeling. We awoke the next day to cloudy skies and just as we were about to leave the rain started again. The kind owners told us we could stay as long as we liked. We ended up staying another night. The Minich family was so kind to us, they gave us a ride into the little town to get some groceries and showed us the towns Christmas Bible story boards that they had a large part in restoring. They actually let us stay with them free of charge as well- we feel so richly blessed by their kindness and charity, and we only wished we could have done something in return to show them how thankful we are. But i suppose that's how mercy works, its overwhelming but can't be paid back, just humbly accepted. Thank you Minich family. The next day was absolutely beautiful weather and we were so excited to get back out on the road, with our dry clothes and a good tail wind.
We hadn't gone more than 16miles when i looked down at my front wheel and felt that something was wrong, I reached for my brake to check it out when all of the sudden my entire front wheel fell off of my bike, shattering my front fender and sending me flying over the front handle bars, it all happened so terribly fast but i remember Eric (who was riding close behind me) crashing into my suddenly stationary bike then sliding belly first on the asphalt. Then all was still, I felt peaceful laying there on the asphalt watching my front wheel roll to the other side of the street. I wanted to stay for a while and just rest but i knew that passing cars would think I was dead if I didn't get up. Eric magically escaped with no injuries. I, on the other hand got some scrapes....on both my hands and knees, and messed up my jersey a good deal. But again I am thankful that Eric and I didn't get any bad injuries that would have put a stop to our living the dream. And though my fork got bent a little, my bike still rides well...not great, but well- it will do until we get to Omaha where we can get some serious work done on our bikes (tune up time!). A really nice young man pulled over and asked us if we were ok, (he said he knew we weren't just taking a rest when he saw that my bike didn't have a front wheel ) he gave us and our bikes a ride to the nearest town where we got my bike back into running order at the local auto shop. The wreck made Eric and I very hungry and magically a Chinese buffet appeared out of nowhere and we gorged ourselves on the $6.45 all you can eat lunch special, what a treat! Right before we left the town a lady approached us and asked us if we wanted to stay at her house that night! We only had traveled 20 miles that day and kindly declined, I only mention that because people's kindness is blowing our minds! The generosity of everyone makes us want to cry, it is so very overwhelming, but we are thankful for the opportunity we have had to see the greatness of the human race on our little adventure!
There have been a lot of turtles on the side of the road the past few days, a lot of them smashed, but a few live ones, which we always help to the other side of the road (including the one in the photo that tried to snap off my fingers!).
The highway we have been riding on sits right next to some very busy train tracks so for the past few days we have been awakened by loud train whistles and engines. But thats all part of the beauty of our adventure.
We ate lunch and napped on some grass yesterday before coming to Whitman, a small town that has a small branch of the church whose lawn we camped in last night. We went to a delightful meeting today, the people here are truly like a family, and now we are at one of the ranchers houses who kindly invited us over for dinner after church and we will stay here tonight too. Again peoples trust and generosity never ceases to amaze us! The Lord is truly watching over us and blessing us every step of the way.