Day 34: almost a century…but not quite

Hey it’s Julia with another blog post. So this morning I had the joy of waking up to Dustin jamming out to his pop music as he got ready. This gave me the same vibes as that one dad or uncle in all of our lives that will wake up the whole house by singing some annoyingly peppy good morning song. It really baffles me as to how this man is able to have so much energy this early in the morning. I am lucky if I can even speak coherently, let alone sing along to Today’s Top Hits. 

As we were getting ready for the day, we actually had multiple early morning cyclists come and say hi to us and figure out why we were sleeping in a park. One women was very confused that it was even possible to camp in a park for free…we just continue to amaze. Another women also said a whole prayer out loud for us on our journey and asking God to protect us…. since they prayed for us, nows the perfect time to push the limits of ibuprofen doses, right?

Today’s ride was really nice because it was completely on a bike trail, so we finally didn’t have to worry about getting hit by any semis. However, we did have to deal with Dustin’s hat flying off of this bike and him proceeding to scurry to go get it. He broke our only rule: no going back. It was a pretty nice hat, so we will make an exception this one time, but that also meant I now had to carry this hat since I had room in my pannier. 

You might think that would be the only thing that Dustin would drop on this ride today. Well you would be wrong. He also dropped his phone while riding. It was the whole throw-catch-drop-catch-fumble-drop kind of phone drop. He even got a nice crack on his screen protector for good measure. 

We stopped in Osaki, MN for a nice lunch after going nonstop for 45miles. Some motorcyclists came up to us in the cafe to chat and share stories of traveling cross country (except they are obviously faster). Then another couple came up to us and I really started thinking “man people in Minnesota are super friendly,” but it actually ended up being Brian’s aunt and uncle! It was so lovely to meet them and they were so generous to treat us to our meal and even stocked us up on ice cold water on this brutally hot day. 

After lunch we just kept chugging along to Bowles, a nice 96 miles from where we started. I decided today I was gonna take full advantage of drafting off all of these boys to make this long day a little easier. Work smarter, not harder, am I right?

When we got into town for the night we set up our tents in another town park that is super nice with actual bathrooms and electricity. After yesterday’s park bathroom situation, I have never been more thankful for a flushable toilet. We met up with some other cyclists and chatted for a bit, made some dinner, helped clean the melted Starbursts out of Dustin’s food bag, and scared the socks off of Brian by sneaking up on his tent. I would call that a very productive evening. 

Tomorrow we are going to have a bit of a shorter day of 60miles because there is apparently an amazing farm to stay at as a cyclist and we obviously have to check it out! (Also it has showers, which our/my stinky dirty selves are in desperate need of).