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Published: June 29th 2018
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Today was a causal wake up for me since I was in the van today with Chris Benson after Amanda asked me to switch. I didn’t mind since I hadn’t driven with him yet. I took my time not rolling up my thermarest and got to cooler crew duties after rolling my bag down to the hall (trailer hitching troubles were going down hard this morning!). After labeling and dividing up much of the food, and finally designating bins & coolers for lunch and to go straight to the host in the trailer, we laid around a bit as we waited for the trailer to be hitched & packed.
Eventually we were able to enjoy some of the breakfast casserole (egg & saugsage!), warm cinnamon bread, fruit, & coffee. After getting seconds of the bread, cooler crew, NJ, and I helped pack up the left overs and bring the heavy coolers & bins downstairs to be loaded. After snagging some soap to help clean our dishes (or for a slip & slide one day ?), we met outside for a group photo, our route meeting, chant. It was only a 30 mile day so everyone was feeling pretty chill and ready to ride. Ann and I filmed the riders as they rolled out & bid our final farewells & chalk messages before pulling away for the day ahead.
After some confusing rerouting since the van couldn’t go on the trail (that had a dinosaur on it!!), we found their path and drove down the long, desolate road they were on for 27 of the 31 miles. We found a lunch spot that offered minimal shade and no bathrooms, but was better than a prison parking lot! Since it was a short day, no one really cared that we miscalculated the lunch stop to being at mile 14.5 instead of past the halfway mark. But what can I say, phone service wasn’t that great out there ??♀️
After some dancing, coke drinking, & string cheese eating, everyone rode on to finish their short day. We sprayed them down with some water guns as we passed them and drove on, talking about our previous trips & what our teammates are up to now. After the V&T got back on the road, we headed to the host where we unpacked the coolers & ate a proper lunch. The team played some silly large balloon game and inside wiffle ball.
Determined to get some work down (fundraising emails, Safety Nav reports, blog updates, to name a few), I walked up to Java Dave’s Cafe with Magpie where we were greeted by the kind barista and served a lovely blended peanut butter & mocha frappe with a banana mixed it—I made for a perfect combo & hit the spot! I was able to catch up on my Safety Nav reports, send some messges for fundraising (yes I’m still raising money for the trip!), send pictures to PBA for an alum feature they wrote on me, and do some more blogging. I wanted to do more and catch up completely, but I just don’t think that will happen while on the trip ?
Around 5 I order NJ her large latte with 4 shots of espresso and walked back for dinner, which consisted of sandwiches (chicken salad on a croissant for me!) and salad. We also went around unprompted (though started by NJ) and stated what we were grateful for. It was wonderful and I wish we did that kind of stuff more (in real life too!). We then had a team meeting about what the bike clinic would look like—I would head up the “Simon Says” Jana would organize a relay race, and Kristi would be in charge of an obstacle course of debris, to name a few.
We gathered our items and prepared for the masses that never came. So instead we did the obstacle course race, played “tyradactol” (funniest game I’ve never heard of!), played frisbee, filled up water balloons and threw them at the team (with the help of Jana & Sarah), and played kick ball with some the kids that came to the movie early. After folks went inside for the movie, more frisbee happened, followed by some bench sitting, which then migrated to the playground where we listened to music, sang along to some old school 00’s angst music & Grease, watched Magpie spin gracefully while others struggled on the rainbow go-round, & listening to Carly lose it with the most hysterical laugh! It was a perfect kick-off to summer and felt so quinessianal and like many summer nights I spent in NJ and for that I am grateful!
After the movie inside our host let out, we moved inside where everyone got ready for bed & I showered. After roaming through my bag while getting dressed, I sliced my finger nail accidentally on my razor—I do not recommend! I tried to post more on the blog before chatting with NJ for a quick minute before heading to bed. Going to bed at midnight with a 4am wake up call and 86 miles ahead of us...we’ll see how this goes...!
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