Day 38 - Shabbona Lake SP, IL to Lansing, IL

Daily Stats:
Time: 5h13m38s
Distance: 153.29km
Avg Spd: 29.3km/hr
Climbing: 483m

My legs came back today.  I might be paying for it tonight, but I felt pretty good on the road.  We cruised with a big group of guys today - the new guys from Chicago (Kyle & Jason) joined the Top Guns today, and a number of others jumped on our train for various periods throughout the day.

I woke up today to this view out of the door of my tent: mist. Which is 10-times better than rain!

The route today took us through 90km of country roads, followed by 60km through Chicago suburbs.  It's stressful riding with so many turns through strange areas.  But we rode straight along the Old Plank Trail for a good 20miles, which is an old railway bed that has been paved, and turned into a pedestrian use trail and it is green and smooth...

Lansing is the home town of fellow Top-Gunner Brandon Haan, and his parents had been working super hard with Illiana Christian High School to host us and put on a dinner for us.  We were welcomed by a sign on the street, and loads of spaghetti and meatballs.

Brandon and Karel led our peloton meeting tonight and provided some much welcomed laughter and breathing/stretching exercises to get everyone involved.  Karel even went so far as to get a story and slide show of Brandon's life from Mr Haan, and proceeded to embarrass Brandon in front of the group.

After peloton the volunteers put on an ice cream social where we could eat loads ice cream and hang out with the volunteers and locals.  These guys really know how to get to the heart of a cyclist.

Brandon invited Karel, Mark and I to stay at his parents' house today, so we hung out here this afternoon and did some laundry, dried our tents and now we're updating our blogs and sending emails.  Definitely a big thank-you is in order for the Haan's for letting us take over their house with all our wet gear and sweaty clothes.

But now it's way past my bedtime, so it's time to call it a night.  Tomorrow the volunteers are putting on a pancake breakfast for us at 6:30am...  Hospitality in this town has been second to none.  People keep saying it'll get even 'better' as we head east into Michigan and Ontario...  if so, we're in for a real treat!