Day 7-8

Hello All.... need to make up two day's here....

Day 7 we ended up in St. Charles Illinois to do a 1/2 century ride for Christ Hope Inter nation.... We started at Community fellowship Church...It was raining hard so they delayed the start time... that gave me and the rest of the team time to hang out and meet some of the people we would be riding with.... all in all we had 14 people participate in the 1/2 century...We got started and it was still raining but much less.... I had overheard people talking about some of the bike paths that we would be riding describing them as being made of decomposed granite.... non of us were thinking nor have we ever rode our road bikes on these types of surfaces.. but we were all game... so we ended up riding some of the most awful bike trails I have ever seen....there were mud puddles everywhere and our bikes got trashed..... but after a while we stopped worrying about about the bikes and started to have fun.... Tim and Terry were having mud slinging war with there back tires and as usual I ended up with all the mud on me... :-) ..... it was a blast...but then we all realized we needed to ride another 300 miles.... so off to the bike shop to get the bikes cleaned.... it took hours to clean the bikes..... but we could not let the dirt grind away at our gears..... The event afterwords was very nice.... all the 1/2 century riders were in attendance as well as many others....

Day 8

This day has been something very different for me... I'm not feeling all that great... I'm very tired and burnt out .... I need to get some sleep.... we were the first leg out so we rode from St. Charles and at the end of the day will be in Cleavland Ohio... The ride itself was treacherous... the rodes were awful full of pot holes and cracks.... all the bumps were starting to ware on my butt.....but I survived the day with a little help from my friends (thanks for caring me guys)..... I always go back to the reason why I ride and have to remove my self from the situation and focus on what matters most... the children... I need to keep my focus on them....

Jen and the other boys are having a good time with some ups and downs.... I love having them along with me ..... this trip would not have been the same if they were not with me......

I'm very tired and am going to sign off for now.... miss everyone... see you soon....

Day 9 is around the corner....