Thursday, August 1, 2013

Day 52: south bend

The 93 mile ride to south bend was the longest ride we had left... which is a weird feeling. The ride today was alright though. I rode with Chris and Brooks, and we all did fine, but were really only pushing the pace the last half after lunch. The first half we had a lot of city riding through some not great parts of Chicago and Indiana. Some of the roads looked like war zones too. The second half was smooth sailing though and we really picked up the pace and finished towards the front after being in back all day.
Lunch was definitely unique today as well. 45 miles in we stopped at Indiana dunes state park (or something like that). a sponsor brought subs to the beach on lake Michigan and we had the chance to enjoy the beach for about an hour. The water felt like an ice bath because of how cold and windy it was today, but I was also only in the water for a few minutes. There were some sand dunes and paths through the woods we went walking up and on. It was probably a better workout hiking the dunes than riding the bike. But once we got to the top, we would sprint down the dune. About 6 of us ran down and Chris followed behind with his go pro filming the action and capturing Saurabh's fall. That was an awesome lunch even though it wore out the legs a bit for the rest of the ride.
We stayed at a brand new high school called Saint Joseph's. Very nice school. We had to hurry up to get to dinner at a Knights of Columbus though. My aunt Marilyn, uncle Bob, and cousins Amanda and Courtney as well as Courtney's young kids came to dinner. It was nice having family there, especially since my contact with the outside world has been extremely limited. I haven't seen those guys in probably five years either, so it was nice to see everyone again.
Then, following dinner Colin's mom treated the team to ice cream at a local, old-fashion ice cream place. I split a large banana split with Michael Walton. We had been talking about banana splits for a long time, so we went in on one together. It was fantastic too. The waitress also dropped a strawberry shake with chucks of banana in it right behind my seat outside. The styrofoam cup broke, but I managed to salvage some and dump it into our banana split tray. Also, I may have eaten a banana slice off of the ground (it was sitting on top of the ice cream at least). I was about to do it on a dare when some stranger walks by and offers me a dollar to do it. No hesitation from there.
The only other thing we did that night was tour Notre Dame's campus. Brooks, Derek, Roth, and I drove over and walked around campus. We saw "touchdown Jesus," some amazing buildings from about 1870, and the football stadium. It was fun walking around campus even though it was rainy and getting dark.
Saurabh, Michael W, and myself
Derek, Brooks, and I at Notre Dame

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