As we say our good byes to Champaign, we’re hoping for better roads, hint hint to the road fairies. My vote for the worst roads is hands down Illinois so far. But first before we can roll out, it’s our mandatory decorate you helmet day. Yep, that’s right it’s a Crossroads tradition to stage a helmet decoration day. Like what are we back in the Cub Scouts? Seriously we have to stoop to these  corny summer camp skits as a grow mature proud grandfather. So naturally leading up to this day I fought it and tried to guestion it thought good natured humor. I told Tracey I wasn’t going to drink the Coolaide. But I went along with it knowing we could dismantle our works of art them get our ride on. I will admit yes it was pretty funny. Maybe that was just my inner child coming out again. For mine I attached about 16 individual packets of Butt Butter. But it was still humiliating when all was said and done. And no I’m not posting any pictures sorry. 

Yesterday was a fun rest day having Debbie and Kristen here. We hung out then went to lunch followed by and old fashioned drive out into the country. We found a cool park, the Lake of the Woods in the Prarie or something like that. We walked around the lake, found a covered bridge and then found The Museum of the Prarie. 

Next we found a cool town named Farmer City and took a cool video of a farmer on his ginormous tractor spraying his crops. My grandsons love these videos. So that had us feeling pretty thirsty which led to dinner and drinking Champaign in Champaign ! 🍾cheers . that was a fun day for sure. 

Today’s bike ride was pretty non eventful except for crossing another state line. But it was rather boring, flat and easy. We had a great foursome with the potential for some good horsepower. But the boys didn’t want to power down and let the dogs run. In fact with 14 of the 81 miles left everyone went to sleep. I wanted to ramp it up and get something out of it but they had nothing to do with it. So we glided into Crawfordsville at what felt like 40% effort. But we arrived and Debbie had found a great sandwich shop on Yelp. Great lunch stop Deb. 

Editors Note 

I apologize for a miss statement yesterday. When I said we ” lost a rider”. It was lost Richard as a rider  his fall wasn’t fatal !  Sorry for that. He’s handling the pain with out taking any pain pills and doing really well