Day 35: A short day 👉🏼👈🏼

We all woke up alive this morning - so that’s a positive. Well… except for Brian… because I scared his soul out of his body last night before bed. He said he heard me walk up to his tent but I don’t believe him considering how badly he jumped. Anyway - as you can probably tell it’s Dustin again because who else would do that?

Today we decided to do a short day of 60 miles so we can stay in the most amazing place on earth - according to this random guy named Mike. So we set out around 9:30 after Julia and I had a thorough discussion on what the best muffin flavor is - she thinks it’s blueberry - but that honestly is the most basic thing I’ve ever heard - cran orange or lemon poppyseed is my squeeze. Anyway - we set out thinking everything would be great considering how few miles it would be - but like all things that seem to good to be true - it was too good to be true. We got off the trail about one mile into the ride and was immediately assaulted by 20 mph head winds - which is really funny because going west to east we should be having mostly tail winds, but that’s only happened for two days of this entire trip so far 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

After 23 miles we had to take a break because it was so difficult (normally we go 30+ miles between breaks). We stopped at a gas station and I bought this cool Gatorade that had protein in it - and let me tell you, if you want something to suck all the water out of your mouth and make you feel like you haven’t drank anything since your 10th birthday party than have I got a drink for you - luckily I also bought a quart of chocolate milk and that fixed everything. Well kinda - this was me after chugging both the milk and the Gatorade: 

If that’s not a man inches from his breaking point I don’t know what is. So after that we kept going and I was in front breaking the wind again for the others - but then Leo thought I was going to slow so he went in front of me, a few minutes in he realized I was slow because the wind was actually a brick wall and decided to gift me the lead again - thanks Leo! After another 20 or so miles we stopped again and three of us decided to buy some gas station chicken alfredo - we really are testing the limits of potential food poisoning - but hey it was actually pretty good and I’m not throwing up yet! 

After lunch we kept on going and after a few miles I was getting pretty upset about the wind - Leo began the age old saying, “when life gives you lemons,” only for me to respond with, “you squirt the juice in your own eyes.” MOOD 

Anyway, 60 miles finally came to an end and we got to the most amazing place on earth according to some random guy named Mike - and for once on this trip - it wasn’t a lie! A very nice man named Don set up a bike hostel in his barn that can house up to 30 cyclists and has a kitchen and shower and bathroom! He even sells food at cost so we can all have a cheap meal to eat: it really is amazing:

After rolling in I showered and washed my the shorts I’ve been wearing for 4 days in the shower with me - don’t worry I took them off to wash them - for some reason Julia was concerned that I would just keep them on… I don’t know. It was nice to be clean again for the first time in awhile, after that I ate some food and headed out to play some frisbee golf with Julia because there is a ‘hole’ 18 hole course right on the farm! 

7 holes in I was beating Julia so bad that she ‘accidentally’ lost her frisbee in some tall grass… Brian also came by during our match just in time for Julia to sucker him into helping her find the frisbee - interesting choice given that Brian is color blind and can’t tell red and green apart (the frisbee was red… and the grass? Obviously green). 

They never ended up finding it so we went back to the cabin so I could stand on the first place podium and pop a bottle of champagne (sorry it’s f1 race weekend y’all).

Anyway - today was a tough day - and I’m hoping that we will at some point get some tail winds because it has been really brutal lately… tomorrow we HAVE to do 95 miles because we are trying to get to Brian’s aunt and uncles place - it’s still daunting despite us regularly doing 90 mile days now, but I always love the illusion of choice and tomorrow I won’t have it - so we’ll see how that goes. Come back tomorrow to see how we got on!

P.S. for Callista - I hope you enjoyed the blog since you are reading more carefully (every 3 days anyway 😜)