Day 23 – Freeport, IL to Moline, IL

June 22^th:

It was scheduled to be a long 90 mile day of rolling hills through fields of corn (as per usual, these days), but we heard that bad weather was on its way.  A consequence of being one of the first people ready in the morning with my duffle bag packed is that it ends up at the bottom and back of the van, where it becomes irretrievable once everyone else packs their bags and then someone finally checks the radar to see that it’s going to pour all day.  So my rain jacket tends to get left behind.  Anyway, we got ready super quickly (for us) and were out by 6:15.  We made it to the first water stop and noticed that it was still kind of dark outside despite the fact that we’d been riding for a couple of hours and it should be getting significantly lighter.  We checked the radar and saw that if we were just about anywhere else in the U.S., we’d be in the clear from the rain.  Of course, the huge storms were happening where we are, and basically only where we are:

We’ve been rained on SO MUCH.  I don’t remember getting rained on THIS much on Bike & Build.  We’ve been unable to complete several miles now due to bad weather conditions.  We were able to ride about 35 miles before we decided we needed to stop at a gas station to let the storm pass.  A woman even passed by us in her car as we were climbing up a hill and she told us that a storm with “gale force winds” was on its way.

When we got to the gas station, we were thankful that it was more of a small town gas station, and by that I mean there was a Subway inside and some booths to sit in.  We decided we were going to be camping out here for a bit, especially after checking the radar and realizing that the storm was going to last for much of the day.

The gas station was Wizard of Oz themed… or something… we weren’t totally sure…

At 10am, the sky looked like this as it poured rain with heavy winds:

We met a group of four old men who seemed like they’d been coming to this gas station/restaurant for years.  They joked around with us and we were chummy with them.  We entertained them (how often does this small town see 30 cyclists passing through?) and they surely entertained us.

Patrick took a photo of us at the gas station, and I don’t think he realized I was looking at the camera and making this face until after he took the photo:

I kinda looked like Rachel Dratch’s character for like one episode of 30 Rock (I don’t even really remember anything about this character, but I still reminded myself of her in the previous photo):

So we made the best of our 6 hour stay there.  Well, some of us stayed 6 hours, anyway.  I chose to hang back because when we decided to start shuttling, our van had to go back and forth between the church and the gas station because, again, we can’t fit 30 people with all our bikes and gear in two vans.  We patiently waited and just hung out at the gas station.  The staff were so kind to us, and even offered us free donuts at one point!  Before we left, we took a photo outside of the gas station with the remaining “long term stay” crew:

We finally got picked up by the van, but it was still nearly an hour and a half drive to the church in Moline, IL.  Sean and I were feeling slap happy.  When Matt fell asleep, we put a donut in his mouth because he sleeps like this when he falls asleep:

Even the chummy old men at the gas station said “oh man, that guy’s asking to be messed with” when they saw Matt sleeping like that.

Our Team Portland phrase/logo or whatever you want to call it is “Find a way.”  I took a photo of Sean trying desperately to find a comfortable position to sleep in the van, and then posted it to the GroupMe with the caption “find a way.”

Overall, I hate missing riding days.  AND I’m in the host van tomorrow.  AGH.  At least I can say I biked EVERY SINGLE INCH of the country on Bike & Build.  I hate that I can’t say the same for the 4K, but part of the fun in such an adventure is what you make of it when things go wrong!  One last photo of Julia and I being goofy: