Holiday Inn Express hotels are awesome. Even this one, which was pretty mediocre by their typical standard, was nice. The beds and pillows are excellent, the furniture is nice and new, the TV is great, the shower and bathroom have good soaps and plenty of towels, the service is great and the included breakfasts have the most options of the best food we've found at any hotels where we've stayed. This one had been remodeled though, and they did a shoddy job in places, like leaving the old scratched doors and old bathroom tiles and grout. We were annoyed that this was the most expensive one we've stayed at and yet was the one that was in the worst condition and had a pretty mediocre breakfast, but we did sleep well and leave full anyway. We had planned a relaxing morning in the hotel before embarking on a short ride day of 47 miles to Ash Grove, an afternoon ride considered ok today because of relatively mild 75-degree weather with little humidity. Well, I'm dumb. Why didn't I check my FRONT TIRE last night when I was going to all the trouble replacing the back tire?? This morning I did check, and guess what, there is one spot on the front tire's sidewall that has threads exposed and tearing as well. That tire is ALSO unsafe to ride through these hills. SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got a late 12:00 checkout approved and I rode back to Walmart, got another of the awful tires that thankfully fit my bike, now having purchased two of the three they had in stock, and came back to the hotel and mounted it on my bike. What a hassle, but thank god I checked before we left. I also used Vanesa's new, fancy Google Pixel 6 Pro phone to photograph the tire defects so I can make a warranty claim to the company that manufactures them. I paid $80/tire for them and to have them fall apart this way just isn't normal (I had a pair of the same tires that lasted 3000-4000 miles and I threw them away just before this trip, with the tread worn out but the sidewalls in perfect condition, whereas these tires are falling apart on the sidewalls at 1400 miles while the tread on the back tire is about 50% worn and the front is about 30% worn; not normal, not acceptable) so hopefully they'll warranty them for me. So we took off on what was expected to be a fairly easy ride to Ash Grove, and it did start out that way, but it took only a few minutes to realize that, OH MY GOD ARE THESE TIRES AWFUL. I felt like I was riding through quicksand, like my tires are made of half-chewed bubble gum, and like my bike is significantly heavier and rolling slower. And guess what? It is both. I lagged behind Vanesa all day long on downhills, flats, and uphills. I was putting out noticeably more effort to ride than on any other day ever. Again, thankfully I'm actually riding, not stuck in a town with a non-functioning bike, but I HAVE to get rid of these tires as soon as possible. There is no way I will ride to Oregon on these tires. No. Way. The first half of the ride was flattish but the second half showed more Ozarkian qualities and it was a lot of steep ups and downs once again and we rolled into Ash Grove a bit later than expected. But we were super pleasantly surprised to be greeted outside of City Hall by Melissa Mau, who manages the cyclist hostel in the park; she was working late and saw us arrive and came out with a warm welcome. Ash Grove is a cute, little town, with a historic downtown that had a thriving Mexican joint called Mama Loca's Cafe which we decided to reward ourselves with for dinner and we were not disappointed. "Mama Loca" Dolores could not have been kinder, and she volunteered to keep our bikes in her storage area inside the empty building next door to the restaurant so we didn't have to worry about them being locked outside on the sidewalk where we couldn't see them while we were eating. The food was delicious! Service was a bit slow but it WAS a Friday night, and the place was sooooo busy, literally every single table in this big, old, historic restaurant dining room was occupied. We ate every morsel and then made our way over to the city park, along a gorgeous street with big, old, gorgeous homes. The house that we were staying in in the park was nice enough but actually much more minimally-appointed than some other cyclist hostels we've stayed in. Vanesa slept on the only couch and I rolled out my sleeping pad on the floor because the Coleman cots they had were not nearly as comforable as my air pad. There was a kitchen but had nothing in it (many other places have coffee and creamer for cyclists). There was a shower but no towels and almost no soap (we found a tiny hotel bar, thankfully). So we were grateful for being indoors with a bathroom and a roof, but it wasn't really much better than camping outside under a church pavilion's roof. It was super hot inside and the AC didn't cool the house, so we opened all the windows and it cooled down in a few hours, and in the middle of the night I got up and shut the windows. We each slept in our clothes but without a sleeping bag because a bag would've been way too hot. We set the alarm early so we could get a head start on the riding day, both because we planned a 70+ mile long riding day and because this Ash Grove house was not a comfortable place to linger. Sleep was decent but I woke up uncomfortable 30 minutes before the alarm went off at 430 a.m. and so we got up and got on the road by 5:30.