Day 19: 83 Miles

Monday July 4th

We began our day a little earlier and easier than most mornings, getting dressed and ready by about 7:15. To be fair, it was to get in a car rather than an early start to biking, but it still counts. It was a solid effort made easier by the two nights in an air-conditioned hotel room. We got in the car to drive south to circumnavigate the flooding and to avoid the dirt roads that may or may not have been the detour. I have no idea, as I was asleep the entire time. The rest of the day was almost as easy, as we had a steady tailwind that managed to turn with us at every turn, keeping us relatively cool in the insane heat. This may have been a problem for my light-skinned friends and me, as it was Bib Day 2.0, so we had no idea of the severity of the sun burns wreaking probably cancerous havoc on our backs, and in fun designs. The new ipod speakers Brit played music from didn't help either, as the music provided a fun distraction from the burn as well as the pedaling. So, most of us, meaning all of us but our own Colombian Luke Noreña, have sports bra-esq burn lines on our upper backs with speckled dots of red spewn across our lower backs from the holes in the mesh from the R2R bibs we wore for the patriotism factor for the 4th of July. We later augmented the Captain America shorts with face and body paint to ride into Maddock with to greet the people throwing Lia’s 16th birthday/4th of July/R2R party for us, which was awesome. They greeted us with smiles, friendliness, good food, a much-needed shower. For that, we are all very thankful for, but to top it off, they raised a whopping $307, so again, to the people of Maddock, thank you kindly.

Tucker Burleigh