Yesterday I officially biked over 1000 miles since leaving New York.  I crashed again as usual since I seem to have trouble riding my bicycle the way it was meant to be ridden.  I will also never fool around as much while traveling 20+ mph :P  I'm beginning to get used to being perpetually bruised and scraped.  It could be a new look for me.

It's currently day two of my stayover in Greenwood, Indiana.  If you read the main Illini 4000 journal entry for today, you'd understand why these two days have been so incredible.  The whole team is staying at a fellow rider and friend's house, the Bartholomew residence.  As I'm typing this, I am nearly drooling on myself because his parents are cooking up sausage and egg biscuits for tomorrow's breakfast.  There must be a stack of 40 of them piled on a tray at the moment with more to come.

I spent the better part of today fixing my bike up with free parts courtesy of Bike Garage Indiana - hopefully it will stay in one piece for the next month and a half.  The rest of today involved eating biscuits and gravy for breakfast and watching movies on Dan's giant flat screen TV in the basement.

Here are my highlights for this trip so far (in the order they pop up in my mind):

1. Impromptu pirate battle on paddle boats on the pond in Dan's backyard.

2. Riding 110 miles into Richmond, Indiana and going straight to a Wendy's.  I ordered an Asian Boneless Chicken combo with a supersized fries and drink and 4 1/4 lb DoubleStacks with cheese.  That comes out to about 2600 calories.  Two hours later, the church we were staying at provided an enormous feast and I was already hungry enough to eat it.  Apparently 6 hours of cycling burns a lot of calories.

3. Going into Philadelphia and eating at both cheesesteak places that claim to have the best cheesesteaks in the world.

4. Rolling down hills next to a church we were staying at somewhere in Ohio.

I should have kept a journal because all the days are blending together and I'm forgetting where and when I did what.  I hope I've taken enough pictures, because I'm sadly already forgetting a lot.

I'm just going to give a few notes of what I remember about each day so far:

Day 2: Philadelphia, PA
We stayed at the UPenn Chabad Jewish Center.  At first we thought there wasn't much space in the building so we laid out our sleeping bags in the hallways, but after further exploration, we found a door that lead into another hallway with offices and a creepy steep staircase that ended with a door that was locked from the inside.  This is the day that some of us went to taste test the two best Philly Cheesesteaks in the world.  Pat's is waaaay better by the way.

Day 3: Newark, DE
We were welcomed into Delaware with big factories and drain grates that run parallel to the road so bike wheels can fall into them.  Since the ride was only 44 miles that day, we decided to push hard and got to our stayover in about two and a half hours.  Once we got there, we found a diner and proceeded to order several times as much food a normal person would eat.  A friendly woman there saw the jerseys we were wearing and learned about our cause.  She donated some money to help pay for our meal and the rest to cancer research. 

The church we stayed at was kind enough to provide dinner for us.  Every single church we have stayed at that provided food has cooked pasta for us.  It's always fun to stay at a large building with a lot of rooms because you get to explore it and find the comfiest spot to sleep.

It's several hours past my bed time, so I'll continue catching up another day!