Day Five: Crash and Burn

We started the day in Pratt, Kansas, by far the best Time Station. It was at the McDs where we got free food and the inside was adorned with various RAAM t-shirts. It was the first time on the course where we were welcomed into the town for what we were doing. But the fuzzy feeling was short lived. Mike showed up, his pocketful of opinions overfloweth. His limited knowledge of situations coupled with his irrational solutions picked on my sleepy last half nerve. I was sick of him wasting valuable sleep time analyzing why things were done they way they were. He was about to lecture poor Mark for the 1,504th time, which was amazingly the same distance we had just travelled, when I put my foot down. I finally raised my voice and said no; Mark was going to sleep. Mike agreed but still handed out ridiculous tasks. Again we had to take a time out to do laundry. At this point we had three functioning crew members and he wanted to take one with him. He gave Matt the Mechanic the incomplete grocery list. I was biting my lip in half at this ineffective chore list as I stewed in my silent tantrum. I gathered my maturity after discussing plans of hijacking another team to get the hell home with my mom who agreed ten fold. I approached Mike with a better scenerio and he went for it. We completed our tasks, skipped a time station, and met up with everyone in El Dorado (long a). We moved onto Yates Center, Kansas where I thought I would dehydrate. I should have been sleeping, but I couldn't even sit in the sweltering RV. I had ice dripping down my neck sitting in the shade of the Phillips 66. We were awaiting the arrival of Robin, who crashed when she pulled on her cleats and they gave way. She popped back on the bike and rolled into the gas station bloody and bruised, quite the trooper. In Fort Scott she whispered that she was done with Kansas.