Day 29 Some Friends From Home Joined Us
We left the warmshowers campground at around 9 AM. We got riding on the same bike path we left off the day prior. It was a fairly windy day spent riding through more open fields of mostly corn.
We got to La Crosse, WI at around 5 PM. There waiting for us was an Airbnb, scheduled and organized by our good friends Julian, Piere, Zach, and Cliff. They drove over 1,000 miles from New Jersey to meet us there. Pretty damn cool. I think it's safe to say those are some good friends right there.
They were sitting in the car in front of the Airbnb when we pulled up on our bikes. They were still in the car because they were catching up on the blogs together. I always find it funny talking to people about my blogs and hearing their thoughts and opinions. The overarching theme they seemed to acknowledge the most was how many flats Owen got. Can't say it's what I was shooting for but hey, sometimes the author affects his audience in ways he never could've imagined. I love it. Haha. It's funny too because after a certain number of flats Owen had that week, I actually stopped mentioning them in the blogs. I realized that due to their increasingly frequent occurrences, Owen's flat tires were beginning to take over. But judging from my friends' takeaways, apparently, his flat tires had already done so. When I told them I had to stop mentioning the flats, the boys couldn't believe there were actually more that could've been written about. Sorry guys, I can only get so creative in my writing style when describing flat tires during the week. After about 7 variations of the same sentence, "Owen got a flat," I had to make an executive decision to stop writing about it for all our sanities.
After arriving we all quickly began catching up on each other's lives, filling each other in on what we've all missed.
We got settled in the Airbnb. Took some showers, did some laundry, and headed out for dinner. We went to a Mexican place in town and had some great food together.
We hung out at the Airbnb for the rest of the night enjoying each other's company.
Stats for the day:
Oh yeah, as you can see from the elevation change in the first stats screenshot, there was a giant hill at the end of the ride for the day. I bombed that thing and nearly hit 40 mph. It passed my threshold for "good bomb" when I felt the tears rolling off the side of my face while I was flying down. Finishing off a 70-mile ride with a giant bomb at the end is like buying a kid pizza after a tough sports game. Just puts everyone in a good mood.
Day 30 Then Some Rain Joined Us
Unfortunately, we woke up to rain in the morning. So we took our time making breakfast and getting all our stuff together and ready to go. The guys left around noon. We got another quick group picture as they were leaving.
We said our goodbyes and they were on their way back to Jersey. Special shout-out to them for going out of their way to visit us and give us a bit of a break from planning and worrying about logistics for one night. It meant a lot to us 3 bikers. So thanks again guys.
Tom, Owen, and I hung out at the Airbnb until the rain lightened up. We didn't get moving for the day until after 2PM. We left while the rain had subsided for a bit but within 15 minutes of riding, it started coming down pretty strong again. We knew it was going to be like this all day and really didn't want to just sit around and do nothing so we decided to keep riding. We effectively rode the entire 40 miles in rain that day. Everything got soaked. Shoes, bags, even my face was soaked. At one point it was raining at such a pace that it was tough to even keep my eyes open while pedaling.
Eventually, we got to Winona, MN, booked a motel there, and called it a day. Oh yeah, we crossed over from Wisconsin to Minnesota. And we got our very first state sign picture during the few minutes of the day when it wasn't raining. So that was a plus.
It was a tough ride that day, as it always is when it's raining. But we covered a lot of miles given the poor conditions, so we were happy. I spent most of the day thinking about whether the cars passing can see us well enough not to hit us given the poor visibility. We made it in one piece so I guess the answer was yes.
But more importantly, what I spent the second largest chunk of time thinking about was how nice it was to see our friends from home. Personally, it felt like a breath of fresh air. Being around those guys made me feel like I could actually relax. Everyone we've stayed with so far has been great to us and we haven't had any issues with anyone or really been in any sticky situations yet. So it's not to say our past experiences up to this point have contributed to what I'm talking about. If anything we've had so many overwhelmingly positive interactions that they've detracted from it.
But when you're out in the middle of the country, in completely unknown territory, there's a certain amount of energy that is constantly being directed towards whatever senses you have that help keep you safe. More simply put, it's going towards not letting your guard down. But being around the guys made me feel safe and secure enough that I could sort of let that mechanism turn off for a few hours and actually relax. It also led to me having one of the best nights of sleep I've had yet. I'm definitely sugar-coating the story right now because that good night's sleep was absolutely just a result of the super comfy beds in the Airbnb. But you get the point. Just for further context, I wasn't actively aware of being able to relax in the manner I just described until thinking about it the day after. In the moment, I was just laughing with the guys.
Stats for the rainy day:
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