July 4

Day 27:

In honor of my first day with the gang, they decided that I should write the blog tonight. Here goes. Happy 4th of July everyone! We had a peaceful night at the airport Hilton and everyone slept in a bit (although Jake and Zach say 8:30 does not constitute “sleeping in”. However, we needed to get up and over to Varsity Bike & Transit to meet Sam who was opening up the shop just for us – they were closed for the holiday. A huge thank you to Sam for all the work he did getting the bikes repaired and my bike assembled. He also gave us some valuable info on routes to take out of the city of Minneapolis.

Being the holiday, the city was fairly quiet and we set out to put a few miles behind us and get to the suburbs. We stopped in Crystal, Minnesota, a suburb and had lunch at Perkins, a great restaurant similar to Friendly’s. The food was great and James, our waiter, was very interested in our adventure. When he told his boss about the trip, his boss sent him out to our table with a dozen beautiful muffins to have for breakfast tomorrow. They look yummy and we can’t wait to dig in. Thanks a bunch James and all the people at Perkins.

After waiting out a small rain storm at Perkins, we headed back out but did not get far before trouble started. Even after the wheel replacement, Jake’s wheel started wobbling once again after just 15 miles…very frustrating. We adjusted what we could, rode the last 11 miles, and landed at the Elk River AmericInn where we are now munching on some Dominos that was just delivered. Leave some for me kids. So, a total of 35 miles for the day, an easy one for everyone else but a good breaking in day for me. Hope to get more miles in tomorrow so we can get back to the 70 plus that they were logging before I joined the tour. Hoping for more flat roads and good weather tomorrow.

Carolyn

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