Today we got to sleep in until 6:30 which was great…and I was on the couch which was awesome too, laid in bed for an extra 15 minutes as well haha love that feeling that you’re tired and want to sleep while laying down. Anyway, the ride today was only 41 miles which everyone was very excited for, and there was an awesome town on the way (Nashville), and Bloomington (home of Indiana University) is really really cool.

We started out slow, and I pulled into the wind for awhile which was good because I can pedal hard and get to help out other people! There were still some inclines along the way, but no real big ones and we made great time. About halfway on our ride we got to Nashville, and we stopped at a super cool coffee shop and got some fudge!

Kristen, Jen, and Caroline last night sleeping :)

Jen (other Jen) last night haha

And then today:

Stretch break!

Coffee shop in Nashville, sorry that a lot of these aren't going to be rotated

Heather with her cherry bomb

Dave's Oregon Chai Tea was awesommme

Yay coffee! Rockin the backwards helmet, so stylish

The coffee shop owner was the coolest, and he wanted our picture for his shop!

Then we hopped on over to the fudge store where the “fudge never melts”! I’m 99.9% sure it would in my back jersey pocket haha

Yeahh homemade fudge!

They had 50 flavors of popcorn at that place

Nashville was such a super cool town, soo many little shops it would be easy to spend a day there for sure.  Riding out of Nashville was nice too

I tried to take some pictures of the group biking behind me, it was really hard

And Will was rockin out, providing some good music for us singing. It made me less dissappointed that we can't hook up speakers, because it was better for sure haha!

The roads we were biking on were sweet

Lunch was about 30 miles in, at the top of a small hill that Dave and I sprinted up being chased by a dog haha.  I got to eat the leftover enchiladas from the night before which were awesome!!

Lunch!

The roads before lunch, pretty country!!

Rolling into Bloomington we rode by the university and I saw fountains on campus, so of course we had to get in them!

The water was ICE cold but it felt soo good

IU!! I look like a giant haha, look at Paradis on the right too lol

After a little, we were all freezing even though it was hot out because of the slight wind and the icy water...so Will had the brilliant idea to lay on the hot sidewalk! It felt sooo good haha

I did some modeling on the art thing haha

We got into the host which is a HUGE church right in the downtown, and I got to shower again right away, score!

Dinner was about a mile away from downtown where we're staying, at a cool park

It was provided by Jim and Sandy, parents of a girl who did a B&B trip last year. They grilled out burgers and footlong hotdogs and just so much other great food. A lot of the food was donated, and Jim being a salesman and knowing someone from the local brewery told them about us and got them to give us all free drinks (except for us youngin's though....)

After dinner, I realllly wanted to go find the Little 500 track so I headed out on my bike to explore because that’s always fun.  Bloomington is one of the nicest college towns we’ve been in, I enjoyed it a lot, and the campus was gorgeous as well.

Beautiful campus

Look at all of the bike racks! Definitely a super cycling friendly city

Just look at this campus. I think I also really liked being by myself for once, and exploring on bike is just super fun. I needed the solitude I think

I ran into a teacher at the university, and asked how to get to the track and ended up talking to her about cycling, (she was on a bike and commutes on one) and what I am doing and it was cool.  I had to ask another guy before I found it haha.  I was amazed by the castle-sized frats here, they are rediculous!

HUGE! Notice the little 5 painting on the tree haha

I would totally join one of these frats, it's gotta be crazy expensive though

All the sidewalks in front of the houses had some awesome paintjobs about their little 5 teams, so cool

After throwing my bike over this fence, and climbing it, I made it to the track!

The track was really neat. It was finely ground cinder, so almost like riding in an inch of sand! I couldn't imagine trying to go fast around these bends, no chance on a road bike at all

And then I came back and we walked over the brewery for free beer (free water for me haha) and it was pretty cool.

Cool brewery for sure

And that was the day!! A really long day for such a short ride, but after my campus cruising I logged over 50 miles.  Tomorrow I should break 1000! I’ll end with my favorite picture of the way, the view from my handlebars:

And we're almost to the next time zone!!!