Monday 7-30 Day 36

Start: Valapriso, IN
End: Kendalville, IN
Scheduled: 111.2
Actual: 115.88

The ride starts out like any other, make lunch, have breakfast and hit the road. I head out with Iron Mike, Jerome and Rodney. We take a nice little tour around the perimeter of the campus and end up where we started from! The cue sheets need to be updated a bit. Then it is out of the city and into rural Indiania.

The Terrian is much like WI, but a little flatter, lots of smaller farms, with wooded areas in between them. The roads have lots of twists and turns but are very well maintained and smooth, so they add a lot of character to the ride. Weather is good, sunny, and not to hot in the morning, we have been avoiding the oppresive heat and humidity that last years riders went through.

Our first rest stop has been set up by Larry, a former Big Rider. What a spread. Sweet rolls, melons, fruits, coffee, milk. A veritable bonquet. More than enough to feed a small army, which we have the appetite of. Larry is so enthusiastic about this ride yet! Plus we meet Kevin who is signed up to do the ride next year. We offer him lots of encouragment, and talk a bit about fund raising.

After the break, Mike, Jodi and I head out through Amish country. Lots of great scenery and I find out that we are much faster than horse and buggy. At least when they're just trotting. The kids even have they're own little carts pulled by ponies.

We switch from CST to EST about 10:30 so we loose an hour. We roll into camp about 5:45 and tonight we are making sandwichs in camp, so I had told Polly that if she got corn on the cob, I would cook it so we would have something warm, and also cause we had been seeing nothing but corn since MN and we should really try it. So I boiled about 6 dozen ears, and roasted 2 dozen. For those that tried it, it was a big hit, but we ended up throwing out a bunch, which made me feel bad. So by the time I did all this and got the cooking area cleaned it was 10:30!

Today I was wearing Brack's jersey. Since he was hurt and couldn't continue to ride, the rest of us riders have been taking turns wearing his and Jean Anne's jersey.

Tomorrow is only 70 miles, piece of cake, and we go into Ohio, so crickett will be coming along.

As I write my journal, fireflys are landing on the outside of my tent. perhaps attracted by my LED head lamp.