Early wake up this morning. We needed to be in Rochester before 2pm for a scheduled tour at the Mayo clinic, so wake up was pushed up to 4:30am in order to make sure everybody would arrive on time. Since the leaders had really pushed for everybody to be packed and ready to go as soon as they woke up, we were able to get out the door by 5:15 and were on our way to Minnesota. Despite having to wake up early, I think many people actually liked getting up early as it was nice and cool for most of the morning. The terrain was much like we saw yesterday, with rolling hills with an eventual long climb out of the Mississippi River Valley. By 8am, we already had already gotten more than 30 miles down the road, and nearly half way to our destination. With a bit of a tail wind, many of us were able to make it into Rochester before noon. With a little bit of time before we had to walk across the street to the Mayo Clinic, we searched for the local YMCA where we freshened up a bit before our tour.
We had a two part tour of the Mayo clinic in the afternoon. The first part took us through one of the cancer research centers at the clinic. The particular lab that we toured looked at how cancerous cells grow differently from regular cells and how they move about in the body. I understood some of what they were talking about, but at points it seemed like you needed a few courses in cellular biology to know what it was that they were referring to. After that we toured the cancer education library. The librarian there explained to us about the library, and how various people used it to understand what was going on with either themselves or somebody that they knew. We were given some time to browse the library ourselves after the tour and stumbled upon the guest book where we discovered an entry made by last year's Illini 4000 group after they had toured the resource center.
This evening was also the beginning of Rochesterfest, a local festival which brings in groups from all over the area. Tonight they had a very long parade through town, lasting well over three hours. I caught part of it, but after an hour of watching groups walk by, I continued on in my exploration, looking for food and something to drink. After satiating those needs I wandered back to the church we were staying at found a place to sleep, and by 9:30 was out like a lightbulb.
Today's Mileage: 76.0