Join me as I bike Sea to Sea

Distance Biked Today:  55.4 miles

Time Spent Biking:  3:44

Avg Speed:  14.7 mph

Max speed: 26.6 mph

Total Distance Biked: 2905 miles

After ending the day fighting horrendous traffic, I was nervous about biking today. But I am excited and encourage after having great food, great conversations at the film festival, clean laundry last night. Today, I am happy that we are leaving later as there is a send-off service at 8 (I slept in till about 7!), I am carrying the gps-tracking device today, we are going to be at a wonderful state park tonight overlooking beautiful Lake Michigan, it a shorter distance today, and we have a lunch stop.

I am biking with the Mark and Larry Stehouwer today. And they were helping someone with a bent wheel so we didn't end up leaving till about 9:30, whereas we're used to leaving at 7-7:30. Yikes! We needed to get going!

And I forgot to mention; we had french toast for breakfast! Here the wonderful kitchen volunteers that have traveled with us are cleaning up after breakfast. Even though they work hard they have a lot of fun during the day.

Trinity Christian College had a send-off service for us. Aaron Carpenter, a student here had words of thanks to Trinity and encouragement to us cyclists that 'this is only the beginning' of a chapter in our lives focusing on poverty which will continue long past when we reach Liberty State Park and stop cycling.

Bethel Christian Reformed Church had refreshments along the way right before we crossed into Indiana. I later found out that the gps that I was carrying ,so anyone could track the tour and see where we were, stopped working here. I didn't break it; I promise!

Second Christian Reformed Church had lunch for us. Just look at Brian Garrett's plate below. We had it all and plenty of it. And the welcome! Wow, were those some exciting kids. How could the not make you smile? Just watch the video below.

Yes, I know I parked in a handicap spot...

The "Welcome to Indiana" sign below has every single persons name written on it! Very impressive.

Ten miles towards the end of the route toady were on a bike path. I still had a lot on energy, so I sprinted a lot especially as there were no cars to worry about. Man I am getting fast!

I am very excited to see Lake Michigan and spend a night at a campground instead of a boring school. I everything about water plus I spend a lot of time each summer at Lake Michigan so riding to the lake will be a great end to the day.

A church baked dozens of dozens of sweet items for us and were using four picnic tables to hold it all. What a treat once we got to the park. Except I ate too much. So much good food! I wanted to try everyone, but didn't even come close.

At the park I went swimming with Mark and Josh. We had to hike over some big dunes to get to the lake but it was worth it. I was hoping to make it up to the top of one as the sun set, but I missed it because of our nightly peleton meeting. So I went up when it was dark and took this photo. The shutter was open for six seconds on this picture! If you look closely you can see downtown Chicago on the right.

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Distance Biked Today:  86.1 miles

Time Spent Biking:  6:06

Avg Speed:  14.4 mph

Max speed: 30.5 mph

Total Distance Biked: 2849 miles

It was exciting to have 37 miles of today's ride on a bike path. But it was a lot harder than I thought. The further we went South the harder and harder it was to stay on the path as it kept splitting, leaving us standing at unmarked splits trying to figure out what way to go. Eventually, I made it there. One group of people ended up going ten miles down the wrong path.

One person almost fell in front of me and caused a huge pile up. Luckily he didn't fall, and I braked quick enough to avoid running him over. Crisis averted.

We passed lots of little cafe's, so I decided to stop in one and have a quick sandwich. As I waited I caught a couple minutes of the Olympics. This few minutes has been the most that I've seen.

At the end of the path we climbed some stairs and the route merged with a road again. Going through a little crowded suburb, a bicycle cop decided to help escort riders through it. He would meet up with several riders and have them take up the lane and continue through red lights. He did this for group after group after group. It was great to have his support and protection. When I first saw him, I thought he was going to get after me for something, but we was only going to help.

Here's a video of some friends biking down the bike path. There is a long lead in, so you can skip the first few seconds.

I like bike paths because you get to bike off of busy road and in more secluded and peaceful areas.

I see a lot of signs everyday and some just stand out as very odd. Especially this one on a fence around a school playground outside of Chicago.

More encouragers along the way!

What's this? A Meijer? I must be getting closer to home!

The first half of the day was stressful trying to find the right way. The rest of the day, the traffic was horrible. Quite possible the worst traffic and the unsafest conditions for the whole tour. Not only were we on a busy rode, but the occasional drivers were rude and crowded us. Let's hope they get better. Also, we're very thankful to God that we were safe today. I know that he protected us immensely today.

Tonight we are staying at Trinity Christian College. We had a wonderful welcome along with many amenities, including free laundry. So, I did a load and updated this blog while I waited. But it looks like rain, so I had to couldn't let my clothes completely air dry outside. With the chance of rain, I found a nice spot inside and slept there, instead of setting up my tent.

You guessed it! We had Chicago deep dish pizza for dinner. We barely have had pizza on the tour so this was very welcomed.

And lets not forget the soft serve ice cream machine! Mark really knows how to make a sundae.

Lately we have had a lot less flats. This is attributed to the face that we are out of Goathead country now.

Trinity really understood why we are doing this tour. I am excited along with all the people that we meet that we're biking across the country and seeing amazing places. But this is secondary. This tour is about alleviating poverty. About raising awareness and funds for people that do not have the necessities to live because of uneven social structures. Trinity understood this as they showed through the film festival they had were three professors showed films relating to poverty and led discussions sparked by the films. I attended one about housing projects in the area that were torn down to make way for a new highway. I was extremely interested but also extremely tired, so I left early.

Thanks Trinity for your work!

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Distance Biked Today:   miles

Time Spent Biking: 

Avg Speed:   mph

Max speed:  mph

Total Distance Biked: miles

Today was a perfect day to find a coffee shop and hang around for a bit. Unfortunately I didn't find any, except one which ended up being closed.

About twenty miles in, just after where Julie, a sag wagon driver, was parked I turned a corner and a bug flew right in my mouth. I've had several hit my glasses, or helmet before, but his bug went right in my mouth. I promptly spit it out just after it stung me on the tongue. I don't know what it was but I believe it had to be a bee.

Delevan CRC had a lunch stop for us with ample food. I love stopping and relaxing, chatting with people from the area. Also, it was a great spot for a stop in the day as it was towards the end of the ride. So much so that I took a nap on the lawn.

We went by this beautiful lake, but I just had a nap so I figured I shouldn't stop again.

Today we crossed over into Illinois. The road wasn't major enough to have a welcome to Illinois sign so we made one.

Nope this isn't the Woodstock you're thinking about. I also caught up to Dave and Liz and enjoyed riding the last part of the day with them.

It felt great today and could have biked more, but I was still glad to get to Woodstock and set aside my bike for the night.

I switched over my back wheel tonight to the replacement one I got this last weekend. Larry helped me switch the cassette over and taught me some useful tricks.

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