T1 Day 48 (Kayla)

 July 24th : Le Roy to Midland 

The worst part about getting ready in the morning after setting up camp in the rain and sleeping out in the rain is probably the way that dirt and sand is stuck to everything. It is just nearly impossible to keep anything clean. But despite this struggle we managed to get ourselves up and going. We packed away our soggy wet tents along with our wet rain gear, and for me, all the wet clothes I had used to try to dry out the inside of my tent last night, since that was a bit of a disaster. 

Once we started biking I was feeling surprisingly good, my legs were feeling strong and I was enjoying working on pedaling faster and keeping my momentum up. I was also excited to get to the home of our warm showers hosts to dry out all of my belongings. I had also been told that there would be curry and that sounded amazing. After about 10 miles on back roads we arrived in the town of Evart, which had a very foul smell to it, and got back onto the bike path we had left yesterday. The bike path was nice because it made for easy miles, but the scenery was really nothing special. We stopped for lunch at a park in the town of Clare and discovered a shop called Cops & Doughnuts which we simply had to try. We picked out of doughnuts from their overwhelmingly massive display case of options, then checked out the cafe next door for some fun drinks! All it all is was a successful lunch break. A little while later, as we were getting going again after a side of the trail port-a-pottie bathroom break, Liz called out that she had a flat! And it was the rear tire again! Shucks! It was going to be a test of our skills again to see if we could fix it any faster this time. It turns out our strategy is improving slightly.. maybe… okay it’s still not great. And somehow I always instantly get grease on my face. Anyways it seems like Liz’s tires are reaching the end of their life, they’ve really been through a lot over the past 2,700 miles so it’s not that surprising. We’ll be stopping at a bike shop tomorrow for her to see about replacing them. After a few more miles, and lots of winding residential streets north of midland, many of which didn’t appear to be very bike friendly, we arrived at our home for the evening! What an amazing feeling that was. After some introductions and a tour we devoured some watermelon and unloaded everything from our bags and set it in the driveway to dry. Luckily it was very sunny evening, so everything dried in no time! Then we went back for more watermelon while also putting our clothes in the laundry. At this point keelin was ravenous and on the edge of delirium, but luckily our amazing warm showers host, Kathy, had made us curry and had also left containers of cut up fruits and veggies. We dug in and it was amazing. Then since we are rarely too full for dessert, no matter how much we’ve eaten, we made brownies! When Kathy returned (she had an obligation for the evening) we chatted and got to learn more about the Rag Bry?, a race in Iowa that her husband was partaking in starting tomorrow. We also talked about how we’ve been divvying up responsibilities on the trip. Liz is in charge of everything communications and social and takes care of arranging our warm showers visits, which I am eternally grateful for since the idea of communicating with strangers makes me want to hide in a corner. I am in charge of navigation, since I have the garmin and know how to build the routes. And keelin is in charge of bringing her position disposition (except for when it’s raining), which helps us get the help of strangers and keep laughing. Okay I was just kidding about Keelin’s role, kind of, she actually does an amazing job of keeping notes of where we stay and the route we take to share with future groups embarking on this journey, but the positive disposition is also great! I cozied up for the night on the couch and just as I was settling in Jazz, one of the family cats, hopped right up on my chest, rolled over to nestle himself against me, tucked his head under my neck and began purring. It was probably the cutest thing that’s happened to me all trip. A perfect way to end the day.