Distance = 54.44
Time = 3.35.48
Max speed = 30.5
Avg speed = 15.1
Lorrie decided not to ride today. Her left hand, in the pinky area, is quite swollen and sore. She's been taking ibuprofin and icing it but it's still sore. Yesterday was a very hard day so I thought it was a good idea that she not go. A bonus was that she could have our tent set up and get us all a good camp site for the night! It was weird saying goodbye to her in the morning. We all rode downtown for some breakfast. But I can't remember where we went! lol Must be starting to all run together. lol We all took off together. Actually we all rode together longer than usual. The road was pretty busy so passing wasn't terribly easy. That also made gaining speed difficult. Eventually I heard Heidi said, "I can't do this anymore. I'm going." and she was off. (= Tim followed. It all started to spread out a little eventually. I stuck with Daryl and Jeanie and we got past the crowd pretty well. It took awhile for my legs to get warmed up this morning. They didn't have quite the spunk they usually do. We passed by the first rest stop so that we could thin out the crowd even more. Daryl was singing and telling jokes the whol
e way as we rode. That seemed to cheer people up as we passed. It was pretty hilly, which I thought was fun. My legs did start to liven up a little bit. The scenery was very pretty... lots of flowers along this part of the road. We got to the second rest stop and decided to take a little break. Daryl asked Jeanie something about bonking and told her to get some water. She laughed and said she'd been trying to hide it. He's been biking in general and with her too long to be fooled. (= Daryl knows so many people after doing this ride for 17 years that every rest stop with him is like a party. It was fun to meet new people. I'm horrible with remembering people with helmets on. Maybe in 17 years I'll know the names too! (= While we were there, we ran into Bill who had apparently taken a spill. He was still steaming! Apparently one of the Ride Marshalls had cut him off or something. He said that instead of braking suddenly and taking Tim and other down with him he just let himself take the fall. He got up and wasn't hurt. But was PISSED! lol I asked him how fast he rode after that incident. He said, "Pretty damn fast!" lol I can laugh because he wasn't hurt. We didn't stay at the rest stop too long. Enough to do a little stretching, refill our bottles, and get a little food. I had put some bugles in my pocket to save for Lorrie. They take up a lot of room those things! Well, as we got going, we got back into some hilly sections. And one nice steep descent had me tucking in pretty tightly. The air swooshed around me and my bugles flew out. )= That was sad! Daryl came up next to me and said he was sorry to tell me that I had lost them. Someone also ran them over. Geez! I guess it's the thought that counts! (= It was actually pretty funny! On to the third rest stop, if I remember co
rrectly, is one where skinny dipping is not uncommon. My finger was thinking about skinning dipping. But then chickened out and decided to just get into the photo of the skinny dipping dock! The line to the bathrooms is a funny thing at some rest stops. When we got to this one Tim and Heidi were still there. Tim came running down to us, real secretive like. He told us there was a bathroom up on the hill that was unlocked that we could use and there was no line. He was so serious about it and very quiet! I appreciated that so off I went! It was still just a hole in the ground. But no wait! Always a good thing! It seemed like we stayed at this rest area for a very long time. We gave each other shoulder massages and chatted with various people. I think I also ate too much. I hate when I do that. Finally we were off again. More hills! It started to look like it might rain. It wasn't cool or anything yet but it did sprinkle some as we got into the final rest stop. 
When we were there, I met a couple who is celebrating their 50th(?) wedding anniversary and they've been celebrating on the ride for many of those years. I thought that was pretty cool! They're both still riding strong! I hope I can be that way!! In the marriage thing and the riding thing! While we were at this rest stop, someone announced that Fergus Falls was set to get a downpour in about 30 minutes so if we wanted to beat that we'd better get going. I don't think there was anyone there who could make it the approximately 12 miles in 30 minutes. But we took off just in case. It did sprinkle and rain at one point. But it stayed off pretty well. I don't think I ever got completely wet. There were a few hills up to the finish and I actually had fun with those. I just decided to kick it to the end and see what I could do. I haven't done much of that this season so it was interesting. The finish in Fergus was very cool. There was a nice crowd of people cheering. Lorrie was there with her video camera filming us coming in. That was nice. She showed us to our site and it was wonderful! Good shade, close to the edge so we didn't have to walk as far to get to town, and flat! I got my stuff arranged and went to take a shower. The line was pretty long but seemed to go fast. Then we explored a little. They had computers set up for us and power strips so we could charge phones if needed. I love when host cities think of thos
e little details for us. There was a tree that Lorrie was dying to show me! It was full of egrets! She said she'd spent some time sitting and watching them earlier in the day. These photos don't do them justice at all but they totally took over this little island! They are one of her favorite birds so she was extremely excited! We checked our email, plugged in our phones, and did some laundry. Meanwhile the rest of them had gone downtown to scope out some food. Daryl left a message saying they were at some Viking Cafe or something like that. So after we'd done our chores, we headed down that direction. It was still early in the day. So we had a good amount of 
time. When we got to the cafe, no one was there and it was a bit of a dive. We called Daryl again and he explained where they had decided to go. Just down the street. It was an Italian place that was usually not open except on weekends. They were going to be open at 5pm but Daryl et. al had talked their way in a little early and had been siting drinking wine. I was extremely hungry but knew by the time we found someplace else to eat the pasta bar in this place would be started. I'm also not fond of pasta! But I felt like spending time with them was more important that having the food I would prefer. I just hoped for good meatballs! (= They weren't! lol And I wouldn't call myself a picky eater. I just wasn't thrilled with the place. Daryl and Jeanie had deemed themselves hosts and servers for the evening. So they were seating people, getting water, pouring drinks, etc. I couldn't tell if the owners were thankful or irritated. But that was their deal! lol When they finally opened the pasta bar, it was a mad dash! Great salad! Great sauces... the clam sauce was really good. But the meatballs and sausage weren't great. Didn't matter, I was hungry and this was food! More wine, more people joined our group, good conversation, great energy. It was fun! We sat for a little while and then needed to walk around some. Lorrie and I paid then headed out into the heat again. We ended up at Pamida where we got mosquito nets for our boundary waters trip and I got a tarp to cover our stuff in case it continued to rain through the night. Then we sat in the outdoor area on a porch swing for at least 30 minutes. I might have actually dozed off for a few minutes. lol It felt good to be in there. Then we needed some fresh air so out we went. Fergus Falls was hosting a street dance in our honor that night. But before that the teams on TRAM had contests for best song, best t-shirt, etc. So they had those competitions and results before anything else. We watched that for a little while then started walking around again. There was also a concert in town that Heidi and Tim had gone to in an old theatre. Prudence Johnson was playing. I had no idea who she was but Daryl went berserk when he realized she was in town. So off we went to the theater. We ran in and asked if we'd missed her and they said to hurry and go in. She came out just then. It was good. A combination of oldies, jazz, and blues. I was falling asleep though. So after the intermission we decided to leave. We found out later that the others had to pay $12 to get in! I probably would have stayed awake if I'd paid that! lol We jumped on one of the buses provided by the city to get us back to the park and headed to our tent. I covered everything up with the tarp and off to bed we went. It was nice because we could still hear the music being played down at the dance. Our last night on the ride! Weird! Just when we were starting to get the hang of things!
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