The post in which I try to tell you all about the last 4 days

Last Saturday we had a build day in Dayton. We spent the day hanging drywall. I had never done that before so it was fun to learn something new. I got to use power tools so it was even better. I got to actually hang some dry wall and cut some so I experienced the entire process. After our build day was over John Michael came to hang out and meet some Bike&Builders. We went with some other riders to a sushi/tai food place and had pad tai as usual. After we walked through this folk festival they were having in Dayton on the way to watch some fireworks. The Dayton Habitat chapter we worked with that day had secured us a good place to watch the fireworks. We watched from a lumber yard parking lot that we needed a secret password to get into. The fireworks were really good. They were certainly on par with the Boston fireworks and were only lacking the Boston Pops.

The nex morning John Michael woke up bright and early to see us off at 6:30 with our police escort. Four police cruisers showed up to escort us out of the city. It was a really amazing experience not having to stop at red lights for a whole 8 miles and being able to ride in the middle of the road without having to worry about cars. Next we got on a nice bike trail for about 12 miles so we were able to stay in a big pack. After that we split up to complete our first century ride. It was a long hot day and I didn't make it into the host until about 5:00. When we got there we had hose showers outside also our first of the trip, but we were all so hot it actually felt really nice. I definitely had my ups and downs during the century ride, but at the end I felt alright. I was really tired, but I felt alright.

The next day we had another long day of 86 miles. I only made it to lunch at mile 40 because I haven't been sleeping all that well on the trip. I spent the rest of the day in the van napping. I'm working on the sleeping thing and hopefully will be sleeping through the night soon. In the meantime my goal is to get as much sleep as possible whenever I can.

The next day we had another 80 miles and crossed into Illinois and crossed into central time. I enjoyed parts of the ride particularly the morning when I was playing games with my riding partner Brittany. After lunch we had a stretch of about 20 miles where we had a really nice tail wind and all zipped along at 20 mph. After we turned west again we found a nasty head wind for the last 15 miles. About 10 miles out we were able to see the Gilman (our destination) water tower. I think that was one of the flattest and straightest roads I have ever been on. We finally reached our destination at about 1:30 central time which wasn't so bad for having gone 80 miles.

Yesterday we had a short 45 miles and got to sleep in until 6:00 instead of having to wake up at 5:00 as we had the past three days. We flew right out of town and reached Pontiac by 11:00. It was a very enjoyable ride and we all went out to eat at a restaurant in town and pretty much took over the entire place. Pontiac is a very cute town with lots of little shops. Today we have a day off and I'm planning on visiting the route 66 museum and the swiging bridges.

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Location:Mohave Dr,Pontiac,United States