Long straight stretches today of immense land mass changing landscape and color. Beautiful weather and gorgeous sunshine. It feels so good to be feeling good again, and warm! And getting my energy back. One challenge with these long miles of open terrain and no vegetation to speak of, is not having anywhere to duck into/behind for a bathroom. I balance trying to stay well hydrated with that little fact.😅 I’ve held it for 40 miles at times, but today I had a wonderful surprise... a road construction crew had a porta potty, so I asked the flagman if I could use it and he said “go ahead." Oh yeah! Lander has been a great town. After we all had lunch together, I headed for one bike shop to poke around and Tom headed for another. I was bouncing my issue off the guys and one called a BOSCH-CERTIFIED TREK DEALER a few blocks away, told him my issue and sent me there; he told me this man is really a specialist. Incredibly, that is exactly what I've needed, just when I had given up. It turned out to be the same shop Tom was at, and this mechanic is methodical, no-nonsense, and meticulous. AqIf anybody can reason this through, I think he can and will. So Tom and I both spent the afternoon there. His bike was completed right at 6:00 closing, with mine running diagnostics. They open early and he will start in checking electrical connections, so I’m hoping to be on the road by mid morning either way. That’s good because tomorrow is longish and uphill with the wind whipping up from noon on. Anyhow, when I had absolutely no plans of giving it one more try on this trip, here I find myself in capable hands. I have the final photograph I wanted to share with you about the butterflies in Joplin. I often think of Dory saying, “Just keep swimmin, keep swimmin!“ Oh! I have a couple good quotes to share! A man at an overlook named Gary was asking about my trip. I had stopped to read the historical marker and look at the landscape and commented that reading those across the country was like going through a museum. He came out with… "Every step of our life is a museum." I liked that! Then our bike technician Rusty told me, "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, and stress never sped anything up." ♥️terri