Day forty-six. Chicago to Lake Village, IN

Crossed into a other state today. We are on a roll. Still the same time zone. Probably tomorrow we'll lose another hour and be on Eastern time. Only 62 miles today and really flat so we all got in by 2:00. Too bad the camp ground we're staying at has nothing but a place to set up our tents and a place to shower. This would have been a good time to stay at a nicer campground. Some of them have pools,  it no such luck at this one.
I had bought a couple bottles of wine maybe two weeks ago and decided today was a good day to open one. As I was looking for the wine in the truck I found four cantaloupe that were ripe and needed to be cut up. So I set up a table, found the meat knife a d meat cutter board and cut up the four cantaloupe. I also found my wine. It didn't take long for the cantaloupe to be finished. With 18 hu ver people anything that gets put out goes pretty quickly.
Dinner crew is now busy making dinner. They do a really good job. I am enjoying my cot in my tent. Kim's partner, Vicky ride with us for ten days and flew home yesterday. Kim asked if I wanted to use  the fold up cot until the end of the trip. Yes, of course. I used it for the first time last night and slept very well. I think I could take a nap right now.

The que sheets are getting a bit more complicated esp right out of urban areas. The past few days the que sheets were not quite accurate, but fortunately people  were able to figure it out and get us on the path. I've been biking with Kim and with GPS we seem to be able to figure it out even without the group.

A couple of new people have joined our group - Howard who did the ride last year and Judy, who is riding for about a week. I enjoy having the three teens with us. The add some nice energy. Ilan made a wonderful fire which is still burning strong.

Everyone is very busy at the moment. The clean up team is cleaning up, others are covering up the bikes because it is suppose to rain tonight, which reminds me to find my stakes and put the in.

And now I will just enjoy the fire.

Day forty-five Chicago

Went to sleep at 9:00; slept until 8:15. In a comfortable bed on a Monday night. This may not seem like a big deal to most people reading this blog, but it is. And I still felt like taking a nap this afternoon.
Jill and I took a leisurely walk to a book store this morning so I could buy "The Enneagram Made Easy". I thought it would be fun for each of the riders ( if they wanted to) figure out what number on the Enneagram  personality type they are. Kim is also familiar with Enneagrams and so we try to figure out who is what number.  We'll see if anyone will actually do it.
After our walk we went to breakfast, ate outside, got the usual breakfast food, but so pleasant being with Jill. She had a 3:00 flight to we went downtown together and from there she took the subway to the airport, while I did a little exploring in Chicago. I found the Cultural Center building which use to be the library and explored that. I realize that I like buildings more than museums, or at least that's how I felt today. They also had a very cool exhibit on Happiness.
I'm back at Bonnie's place waiting for the Hazon group to get bacuk from the organic farm they were visiting today. I called Danielle to find out when they'd be back and she said that they had just left the farm and it would take about 1 1/2 hours to drive back. I am sooo glad that I opted out of going.  Three hours of driving to visit another organic farm!!!!
  I need to wait until they get back because the synagogue is locked, but I'm very comfortable here. Some of the group is going to a Cubs game tonight, but others will be back, getting to bed early, ready to start another day of riding.
We are definitely in the home stretch now.  Only two weeks and two days left. Not sure about the others, but I am counting the days. Nine weeks of biking is a long time.

Day forty-four Glencoe to Chicago

We (the group) are staying at Kam  Isaiah Israel in Hyde Park, right across the street from Obama's house. There are two security guards 24/7 when no one is there. We were suppose to walk around to the back of the building to get in, but they let us through near the front "just this one time". Jill and I aren't even staying there, but needed to pick up some clothes. We are staying with Jill's friend Bonnie, who is house sitting for a house in Hyde Park. And I have a real bed.
It's great to be with Jill. She met me on the Lake Side Bike Trail around noon, walked my bike to Bonnie's place, walked to the synagogue for my stuff and by that time we were both hungry. We found a great restaurant  where we spent the next two hours eating and catching up.
I am now showered and relaxing on my bed. A bed in the middle of the week.
I think this evening we'll pick up some food and a bottle of wine and have a relaxing dinner in, but we'll definitely go out for breakfast tomorrow morning. I love breakfast out.
Last night we slept in this very fancy smancy synagogue in Glencoe, IL. We still had to sleep on the floor and make our own coffee in the morning,  and be driven five miles away to take showers, but they did provide dinner.
I didn't realize, but Garth told us in the morning that the police came last night around midnight because they saw a van they didn't recognize parked in the back.  Glencoe is a very ritzy area - but it was very nice to bike around.
This morning's ride was wonderful. Mostly along Lake Michigan. And the weather has been made to order. And yet, I'm very glad to have a day off from riding tomorrow.
Rest time is over. Going downstairs to be with Jill and Bonnie.

Day forty-three

Sunday is always a long day and today was no exception. We did 82 miles but it was relatively flat and very cool which makes it nice for biking, esp. for me. We got in around 6:00, needed to be driven to showers which were 5 miles away, came back to the synagogue where we are sleeping, ate dinner, spent time after dinner in meetings, emptied the coolers into the refrigerator and now I am ready to go to sleep.
We have a really easy day tomorrow, just 32 miles and than we have off  on Tuesday. Jill is meeting me tomorrow around noon and we'll spend Monday noon until Tuesday noon together. I'm very excited to see her.
That's it for today. Too tired to write anymore.

Day forty-two Shabbat Milwaukee

A completely relaxing day. I got up at 11:15 and felt very well rested. The house was empty except for their two shnoodle dogs. Coffee was made and waiting for me.  I spent the next hour or so checking e-mails, even responding to a few. Beth came home around 1:00 and we chatted a bit, faced time with Eytan who showed me how he likes to roll the marbles down the marble thing ( which we've had since our kids were his age) and went across the street to visit with Suzy and Butch Conen.
What a small world.
Came back to host family and went downstairs to reorganize my stuff. It had gotten rearranged last weekend when I needed to take everything out of one of my panniers to put clothes into it for the weekend in St. Paul since I could easily attach it to my bike. It's usually packed with stuff I might need or will never need but mistakenly took and it just gets left on the truck.
Soon we'll leave to have dinner with the Hazon group. I think it's at the synagogue but it might be at a pond. Adrienne will know, but at the moment she's asleep.
For a change I didn't have much to eat. Actually it was a very nice change. Looking forward to dinner.

Day forty-one. Mukwonago to Milwaukee

Breakfast thank god was not with those adorable little campers because we need to eat at 5:30 to be out and ready to leave by 6:30. I make better coffee, but it was OK. Our ride today was great. Friday is always a fairly short day and this one was only 44 miles of nice rolling hills for the first half and mostly flat the rest of the way. Plus it was overcast most of the day. At mile 35 we stopped for a tour of Growing Power, a place were they farm fish and use the high nitrogen fish water to grow vegetables
It's a very cool concept.
It started pouring almost as soon as our tour began, and continued to rain at the end of the tour, so with only six miles to go I saw no reason to get soaked, esp since we would need to sit in wet clothing until our hosts picked us up around 4:00 and we would get to the synagogue by 1:00; so I put my bike on the can for the last six miles. I must say though that I felt really strong even going up his today. I think my calf muscles are finally getting the hang of using clips. I know we just finished our sixth week of biking, and I've been using the clips,  but it's taken me a while to fully develop my calf muscles to be able to use them affectively.  So I think today was that day. It's kind of too bad it took so long because the next two weeks will be mostly flat, but our last week will be back to climbing.
Tonight and tomorrow night we are staying with host families. I lucked out with a great family plus great arrangement. We ( Adrienne and I) have the whole finished basement, with our own bathroom, use of the washer/dryer, T V, and I have a very comfortable bed which I already used to take a nap.

So I was talking to Beth, our hostess, and mentioned that I knew one family in Milwaukee, whose brother lives next door to us in Hull - Butch and Suzy Conen. So Beth says "they live directly across the street".  We'll go say hello tomorrow.

I think I'll watch a little TV and hopefully sleep late tomorrow morning. On second thought I think I'll just go to sleep and hopefully sleep late tomorrow morning.


 G

Day forty Madison to Mukwonago

Tonight we get to stay at Bnei Brith Beber Camp. The nice part is that they are preparing dinner and breakfast for us, but we still sleep on the floor. Also the room we are sleeping in is going to be used tonight for the camp talent show so not only can we not go to sleep until after it's over, but we can't even set up our sleeping area. It will be a late night.

How wrong I was about dinner. We ate with 4000  noisy campers. Well maybe it was only 400 but it seemed like 4000. It was the most unrelaxing dinner  we've had so far. Can't wait til breakfast.

Also the showers were far from the entrance plus it was up 20 stairs and than down 72 steps. At least I found a way around most of the steps.

I did find a couch outside the dinner area. I wonder if I can sleep here. Maybe I should just lie down on it and see if anyone says anything.

Biking went well. I was the sweep today and I biked with Kim. We learned that we both like the TV show "the Big Bang Theory" and also she's pretty into Enneagrams. We also talked about a lot of other things since it takes awhile to bike 70 miles, but those were the highlights.

I wish I could go to bed right now.