Apparently mother nature does NOT care that it's your birthday. Haha! We had a hilly ride into Rochester, Minnesota last Friday with some obnoxious head wind. Lets just say, we were pretty exhausted after the ride.After we arrived at our stay over in Rochester, we went to visit Hope Lodge. Hope Lodge is a place where cancer patients can stay while receiving treatment. The Hope Lodge is convenient for those receiving treatment at Mayo Clinic. I enjoyed our visit to Hope Lodge because we got to talk to some of the patients there and learn about their stories and how they have been affected by cancer, whether it was about themselves or a loved one. We all spent quite a bit of time there learning about how Hope Lodge works and talking to people.We had a rest day in Rochester the next day so we had some time to explore the city. During our rest day, we visited the education center at Mayo Clinic and got to learn about the clinic and how it serves people. The nerdy part of me was really excited to learn about the clinic and how it works with cancer patients. I feel like I got a pretty good grasp on Mayo Clinic and I hope to learn more about it in my free time.Hit the sack early that night because we had an early wake up at 5am the next morning. Since we had started earlier in morning and we were making good time on our 70 mile ride to Albert Lea, we had some free time around lunch... so we found a playground across from out rest stop and played "rocks" for a good amount of time. Basically, one person has their eyes closed and tries to tag people as they try to quietly navigate themselves to a safer spot on the playground, but they can also yell "rocks" if they think someone is on the ground and that person is automatically it. I think I was more sore from playing rocks than bike riding this morning.We rode to Jackson, Minnesota today. The weather was gloomy and cold today. It made us all pretty tired, which made the beginning of the ride go by slower than usual. We saw some of the tornado damage as we rode by houses this morning. It was really upsetting to see peoples homes and farms in that condition. There were areas where roads were closed off to try and fix some of the damage. Once we got into Jackson, there was a pool that most of us went to for a little while. We were also able to shower at the pool (finally!). If it wasn't for the pool showers, we would have gone through Minnesota without taking a shower. And that explains my blog title :)I'm looking forward to riding into Sioux Falls, South Dakota tomorrow.