drive bike bus drive drive bike drive

The bike tour was, all in all, great. The first day Ben, Jesse, Dad and I opted to ride the extra 25 mile loop taking our daily total up to 100 miles. Most of the people who ride the "century" are really hot shit bikers who leave at the break of dawn and sail through the ride at 25mph without breaking a sweat. We were good enough riders, holding strong amidst the regular 75 milers, but deciding at the last minute to do the extra loop set us back, and when we returned to the regular route at the lunch stop, it was almost completely shut down and there were only a handful of riders there. This was then the case at every rest stop for the rest of the day. We were tireder, after riding extra long, but the lack of momentum you usually have from being amidst a bunch of people doing this thing together made it extra tough.

The food at Whitewater was HORRIBLE. It's dorm food, so what can you expect, but it seemed far worse than other years. Bummer. Showered, slept.

Sunday morning, right after we choked down cold eggs and cardboard waffles, it started to rain. It rained and rained, hard big buckets of rain, for the first 40 miles. They were trying to keep riders off the road at one point, holding folks up at the rest stops. Some people, including Ben and me, kept going anyway, since it was impossible for us to get any wetter and just standing around getting cold at this rest stop with no indoor shelter didn't seem like any fun. Riding in the rain was kind of fun actually. As Ben said, there are few opportunities when you really get to be in the rain and be totally soaked with no pressing engagements or places to go. Eventually they let the folks at the rest stops go, which meant that everyone got to lunch at the same time and there was a huge line of dripping riders waiting in the windy chilly air to go into an air conditioned building. I was freezing. Teeth chattering, blue fingers. It was a bad scene. Tons of people quit and decided to sag to Madison; it was really a disappointing morning. When we got back on the road, it was super windy. That was the hardest part. But we warmed up, and the sun came out, and by the time we crossed the finish line that afternoon it was sunny and nice. 175 miles in two days! Not bad. We bussed back to Milwaukee, and then drove back to Chicago, and then finally could collapse in our bed at home.

Monday I had to teach WW. I was pretty stiff, and had a hard time on the Very Tall/Very Small song with my quads, but it went well and then I got to rest a bit. This is the last week of classes, and two of the moms in my Monday 6-12 month class gave me a really nice card and a gift certificate to Borders for $50! In the card it said that they were both elementary school teachers and they were impressed with how I ran the class and had a lot of fun. It was so nice. I was flattered. Talked on the phone with Meara all night and remembered that we are kindred spirits in some ways, which rules.

Tuesday Evanston classes, then back to the city to work my Tues night desk shift. It was graduation for the classes, so the night started at the school and progressed to the Tripoli bar up the street, and involved a bottle of wine, Fat Tires and a shot of Jameson from my old guitar teacher.

Wednesday I awoke feeling remarkably chipper and had a great, very busy day at the desk. Ate a jillion free bagels. Dinner was Santullo's pizza with Ben, and then we went to see Little Miss Sunshine downtown. A funny, well-made movie about lovable losers. We went to an earlier show, and afterwards the theater next to us was just about to start Talladega nights, so we snuck in for the double feature. It was the first time I ever did that. It was really exciting and I was really thrilled until the movie started and I remembered that I hate car racing. Still had funny bits though.

As soon as I get off work today I am driving back up to Milwaukee to see the DITTY BOPS with Katie!! I am bursting with excitement. The thing is: I love the Ditty Bops. And they played in Chicago, AT the venue where I work every day, in the midst of their bike tour across the country, on Saturday night, when I was a sore, crumpled heap of twitchy muscles in Whitewater. I left them a little gift package at work though. For the bike tour I made these great homemade power bars for my teammates, and so I left a few for Abby and Amanda with a letter and a comic strip I drew imitating their Rumble Strips, about me missing the show and singing their songs while I was biking around the city, and finally deciding to see them in Milwaukee. If you look at their trip log website, you can see in the picture with the marching band in Chicago that Abby is just about to bite into something that I'm pretty sure is the power bar I baked. Awesome.