Saturday, Aug. 14

 And we're off!

 

All 35 of us lined up on the Iowa border and started the ride in a group. The people of Elmore popped out of their houses at 7 a.m. to see us off, snapping photos and saying "God bless you!" For the first portion of the ride, speeds were very high and breaks were few. As the day wore on, however, we slowed down considerably and took frequent breaks. The day's trip was estimated at 58 miles. In actuality, the ride was nearly 70 miles from Elmore to Nicollet.... It was a long day. We were grateful for the relatively cool weather on our first day of riding. We passed through Blue Earth, Winnebago and Amboy, and ate lunch in Vernon Center. We continued in the afternoon, hitting Garden City, Lake Crystal, and Jedson before making it to our ultimate destination: Nicollet! We arrived hungry, tired, hot and sore... and some of us suffered wipe outs and knee problems. But, the spaghetti dinner provided by the Inlaws Restaurant in town cheered us right up. Thank you to Schmidt's Meat Market and George's City Meats for the meat, Hy-Vee Groceries in New Ulm for the bread and pasta, and Jim and Rhonda Ganger from Inlaws for preparing all of the food and serving sauce and salad. Also, we wish to thank Mankato distributors for the Coke and Pepsi, and Cellular 2000 and Midwest Wireless for our five donated cell phones. We appreciate it! Then the riders put together another show for the citizens of Nicollet, although this show was lacking some of the energy from last night! (We opted not to have the 12 footer in today's show.) QUOTES OF THE DAY! "We had 13 miles left 13 miles ago!" - Eric Rouse, after being told that we were not even close to being done, as we had thought. "You know, they really SUCK at estimating distances!" - Ashley Wood  "Oh cool, a hill. I've been looking forward to this all day!" - Andy Cotter, with just a hint of sarcasm "Men sweat; women glow." - Connie Cotter's motto. "If you have cuts and scrapes, tell us so we can fix you up." - Nancy Cline (faithful support staff) "If not, we can amputate it." - Andy Cotter "Where's your other wheel?" - a driver who passed us on the road, followed by sarcastic hysterical laughter started by Cameron and Preston Ulmer. :) "Mommy, I want to be a clown!" - kid watching our show OTHER HIGHLIGHTS AND FUNNY MOMENTS ~Roger Davies cruising along at 14 mph, fully absorbed in a good book. ~Toward the end of the ride, the guys opting to stand up on the pedals, ride with the seat in front, or ride with their stomachs on the seat to relieve pressure! ~The jokes we were telling on the ride were getting so bad we had to invent a signal to let the other people know that we were kidding, and that they should go ahead and laugh now. :)

Tomorrow we're off to Hutchinson!