Knowing the energy that I had yesterday, I hopped in a group with Dan & Albrecht hoping to get some good riding in. About 4 hills in, I was beat (partially because I kept sprinting up the hills thinking they would eventually end). We lost Albrecht to the joy of napping at first lunch and headed on. Sometime between first and second lunch, my brakes started rubbing and I had no idea and nearly broke down because I didn't understand why everything felt so hard. Finally, Dan pointed it out to me and we got moving just in time for another flat. Yippee.
We got to second lunch in a town called Dinosaur where we met up with the SC2SC route. It was cool to see 60ish of us in one place, but also extremely overwhelming when all I wanted was food, sleep, and to never move my legs again.
I forgot to eat at second lunch, and then we headed on to the Utah state line on a pretty solid downhill. Dan found the perfect tumbleweed. 
About 10 miles from host (about 80 miles into the day) I started crashing hard, but refused to admit it or stop. I yelled at Dan (with the small amount of voice I have), I slowed down to about half the pace we had been going, and tried to force myself to drink water but learned that I'm a terrible salesman. It was kind of embarrassing because a group of riders from the other team passed us and I couldn't make myself say anything and I was going so, freaking, slow. But they shouted encouraging words and seemed to know what was up (even though they had about 19 more miles than us today). I love Bike & Build. I then played a game with myself to not lose sight of the other folks' safety triangles. I kept it up until the last mile, where they may have turned off. We then rode through sprinklers, silently admired all the dinosaur themed stuff in the town, and pulled into the host. I didn't even make it all the way to the parking lot before I layed down in the shade, half cuddling my bicycle, and fell asleep in the driveway.
Eventually I made it inside to a sweet package from my mom, a shower, and a bunch of pizza. After napping, eating, cold medicine and slurpee retrieval, we headed out to fraternize with the riders on the other route in town. We played them in pool and lost, compared leader stories with their leaders, and had an overall good time.
Came back, ate more, took NyQuil, slept. Tomorrow's only 40 miles, but apparently we have somewhere near 4000 feet of climbing. I might die.
Peace, love, and DayQuil y'all.
Hang in there, Laura. Stay hydrated. Eat. You are doing this thing. The West is overwhelming, even when there's no exhaustion or flat tires. You are amazing.
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