Pancakes for life!

COLUMBUS TO BLOOMINGTON

We found out at 9:15 the night before we ride to Bloomington that our host can no longer accommodate us, so we're forced to take a last resort which is cramming 30 people into Mike's 2 bedroom apartment. Thankfully Mike goes to school at Indiana University and still has a lease on his apartment there, and is nice enough to allow 27 of his stinky teammates to crash for the night.

The ride to Bloomington was a mystery ride, and my group was Cam, Kevin, and Liz (Cam was convinced that Liz and I rigged it to be together but it was truly fate). We stopped in Nashville Indiana, a cute little tourist trap with expensive art galleries, coffee shops, and candy stores. A bunch of us went into the Daily Grind coffee shop, and the manager told us he was waiting for us to roll through (apparently CUS kids have been going there for years).

We shopped around a bit and found a sock store where they legitimately only sell socks. Liz and I bought dinosaur socks:

I dig Dinos

When we arrived at Mike's apartment we went in for some hose showers and turned it into a slip n slide. Jack got really into it and came out with scratches on his stomach from pokey grass.

Slip n slide

Since this host was not a church, beers were consumed outside and the night was full of drinking games and story time. This is when we discovered there was no AC; imagine sleeping in a small apartment with 27 other people and no AC. I fell asleep with a bag of ice on my face.

BLOOMINGTON TO TERRA HAUTE

I have one word to describe this ride: an adventure. Okay that was two words. But this ride was seriously the craziest since Doomsday. All was normal up until lunch, and then after lunch we took a turn into a gravel road which lasted almost 10 miles. I felt like I did a full body shake weight work out.

What were the next 5 turns on the cue sheet? MORE GRAVEL ROADS! We started to think that everyone had re-routed and we were the only ones out there on the road less travelled (literally- at one point we were riding on tire tracks in the mud). We were convinced we would be the last to the church if we even made it back alive.

Lost and confused

Where are we?!

After this ride, I realized how much fun it is to get lost. The adventure was thrilling and hilarious, and we still made it to the host first where the lovely church ladies have us yogurt and fruit. They showed us an awesome fountain on Indiana State University's campus, and since there was only one shower at the church, we went full-on homeless style and showered in the public fountain. This shower was one for the charts, and although we got some stares from passers-by, we had a blast. No regrets, best shower ever.

TERRA HAUTE TO EFFINGTON

Today we time travelled an hour into the past and into the state of Illinois. The morning ride was beautiful and easy, so we took it slow and played would-you-rather and similar games. Incredible discovery of the day: A BABY DEER! Bambi came to us fresh out of the womb, and was the cutest nugget I ever did see:

After heartfelt goodbyes to Bambi, we travelled on to encounter a river (realistically it was a stream) that we forded and then more gravel roads.

There's a river on this road!

It's cool to see our team really closing the gaps in our riding speeds, we all got in within two hours of each other today on a 75 miler! Pizza for dinner of course.

We're the cutest.

Tally:
States: 6
Hose showers: 2
Slip n Slides: 1
Smelly people crammed into a 2 bedroom apartment: 28
Sweaty nights slept only on my therms rest: 1
Naked miles: 3
Public fountain showers: 1
Miles ridden on gravel: ~25
Rivers forded: 1

Our team slogan is: Ranch is the devil, pancakes for life! A quote from Cam and therefore the name of this post.