Sandwich of awesomeness

Opelousas to Alexandria 76.3 miles

I realize that I start almost everyone of my posts with "today was..." or something similar. But I just can't think of any better way to describe today other than today was a sandwich of awesomeness. It began awesome, the middle bits were amazing and I ended on an awesome note. Any day that starts with Mustache Monday and a police escort is pretty good. We have decided to do theme days of the week to spice up out rides, so today was the first one: mustache monday. We drew mustaches on each other with permanent marker (yes I know that sounds risky, but we figured that it would sweat off pretty fast in all of the heat). I had a very nice handlebar, but others were sporting some ridiculous creations. Jillian had a Fu Manchu, Keenan looked a bit like Chewbacca, and Kristina had a half-grown mustache with a bit of a goatee. All amazing! Almost everyone participated, which made it even more fun. As we were prepping for the route meeting, the leaders let us know that we also had a police escort out of town! We all got to ride in a big group of 30 out of town and he blocked all of he intersections so we didn't have to stop. He even used his sirens and flashing lights. I really enjoyed the start of our morning today. We broke into smaller groups when we reached to highway. I would compare most of the roads that we ride on to Chicago Drive in the West Michigan area. They all have their parts that go right through towns and are busy and crazy like grandville/jenison but most of the time they are like the bit between Hudsonville and Holland with lots of farmland and few cars. Anyways, I rode with team estrogen until 1st lunch. We have gotten in the habit of naming the groups that we ride with. The A Team is always the first group in, then you have the A- team and the B+ team which are flexible with membership. Team Estrogen is a group of all girls that always seem to end up together. They aren't really set people in each group, but each day they change a little bit depending on who is sweeps, who's riding fast or slow, ect. 1st lunch was in a field of what I believe to be sugar cane. Too many people had joined Team E during lunch so I ended up splitting up from them after lunch. I joined up with Eddie, Kelsey and Alyssa to make up Team Pinky (Eddie) and the Brain (us girls). Lynsey joined us a little later on. I had a lot of fun riding with them. We had a little time to chat during times between cars which is always nice. At one point I fell behind and had to go 21 to catch up and as soon as I made it back, everyone stopped for a break. Haha so funny...after I got my breath back I really enjoyed the spot. It was like the southern scenes you see in the movies, with all of the trees overhanging the road which wound gently into the distance. Just beautiful! Pushing on to 2nd lunch we ate lots of bananas (we have a banana surplus right now) then took off for home. Halfway there we found Galen who had a flat and needed a tire from the van. Usually when you get a flat you only need to replace the tube, not the tire. However, a rock had completely ripped his tire to shreds, so he needed a new one. We made it into town and to the St. James Episcopal day school. If you search YouTube for videos of Southern US bike and build and see some with trikes in them by a girl named "ninabikesandbuilds" you will see the gym we stayed in tonight. I headed out to go get snowballs with a few guys. I had a watermelon and it was amazing! Dinner was red beans and rice, provided by the church. We quickly threw the laundry in the wash, listened to an affordable housing presentation by Summer and David about homelessness and the affordable housing crisis, then piled into Richard's parents vehicles. All 33 people went to Richard's mom's house for a pool party. They even had a cookie cake to share! It was the first time I have ever swam in a saltwater pool. It was actually quite refreshing. Richard also had 3 dogs for us to pester all night :) We came back where Corey raced a trike around the room and sleeping people. Keep your eyes peeled for a video in August :)