From Heaven to Hell to Heaven...

 Backing up a few days here...Leaving Wood Lake, Ne, which is where I camped after Long Pine, I decided to take the roads less travelled to Merritt Reservoir. I headed west out on ranch roads. I had things mapped out pretty good and was looking at about 36 miles of backroads. The first road I hopped onto was the Ainsworth Canal service road. It was very rough but the scenery was just to die for. I sent that text to the blog saying it was training for Gravel Worlds which it was. I spent about 2 hours riding along the canal crossing cattle gates and windmills. About halfway through I had a decision to make. Continue on the Canal Road or take off on the ranch roads east. Turned out to be a bit of a torture session. All was fine for a while until one of the roads I found out from a confused-to-see-a-bicycle-out- here-rancher, was mostly gone and mostly deep sand. There began a hellish detour that ended with more like 55 miles for the day when I arrived at Merritt Reservoir. Temperatures were getting close to 100. By the Grace of God, hint hint, there was a Christian retreat going on at Merritt. I met up first with Tom and Deanna, both of Omaha, and I think they saw how terrible I looked and took pity on me! The nice folks along with the others there made me feel at home and fed me up nicely with bbq'd chicken and brisket with all the fixins. I'm truly grateful for that and it was really a life saver because I didn't have much energy left to set up camp and cook. All in all I didn't enjoy Merritt that much. Too many Speedboats and Winnibagos. I originally planned on staying two days there but decided to take the short trip over to Steer Creek the next day.