Distance: 95 miles
Conditions: Bumpy roads, slight crosswind
Terrain: Rolling hills
Yesterday was Saurabh's (one of the cyclists) birthday. His family came to lodging to surprise him for it. Today at circle up we were told that his family would be providing snacks for us at mile 76. Thus, instead of a rack point, we had a snack point. That was all that we looked forward to all day. I rode with Derek and Matt Dosimo. We kept a steady pace the whole day and spent about half of the ride just throwing out things we hate and then venting about it. I.E. spiders, or the way some people wear hats - just stupid conversation really. Then again, the stupid conversation is exactly what gets you through the long day.
I also took part in the bun challenge. In order to complete the challenge I started at one crew stop and had to eat a bag of six hoagie buns by the time I got to the next crew stop. I rode 10 miles, bag of buns in hand, and chowed down on them as I rode. By bun #6 my mouth was dry and I had the hiccups like none other. However, I completed the challenge in time and it made time go by a little faster while doing so. We actually had some cool scenery today as well. We rode by a lot of wind turbines and even through the birth place of John Wayne. At mile 76 we hit snack point. However, we were pleasantly surprised with pizza! We expected "snacks" to be pretzels or something but pizza was fantastic. After snack point we caught a tailwind and finished the ride swiftly.
No friendship visit today, but when I got to lodging I was fortunate enough to have some free time. My girlfriend Kelli and her mom both showed up and had brought three trays of rice krispies. Now that's a great gift to a cyclist. The guys demolished about a tray and a half in the span of 20 minutes. Kelli and her mom took me out to ice cream (icing on the cake to my indulgences for the day) and we got to catch up on things. I loved getting to see them both and spend even just an hour and a half with them.
After I got back to lodging and Kelli and her mom returned home, the team headed out to Dave Addox's home. Dave has been sponsoring meals for us for a day now. We're extremely lucky to have him. We had dinner with a few Pi Alphas and looked through Dave's old JOH photo albums from '00 and '01. It was super weird to see how much things have changed but also how similar they are.
After dinner a few of us got together and thought of some more challenges to make the time in the nothingness pass. Now I'm going to bed early, and I can't wait to get 7 hours of sleep!
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