I made it to chicago! woOoOoOo! I'm ashamed that this is my first blog, but I'm going to try to blog more often for the rest of the trip. The ride from New York City to Chicago has been quite an adventure. I'm gonna try and do a quick recap of my ride so far, but I will have more detailed blogs more often after this one.Ok, Ready. Set. Go.Exploring New York City during our rest day was fun, it was my first time there! One day is definitely not enough to get a good grasp on the city, but I got a good taste of it. Quick recap of some of the things I did: visited Central Park, Times Square, Soho, the 9/11 memorial and saw the statue of liberty from a distance. I'll upload pictures later, promise!Lets just say, going through Pennsylvania was quite memorable. IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL! There was just so much green everywhere. The mountains were tough to go through, but I think they definitely kicked our butts into shape and helped us in the long run. I'm not gonna lie, there were some dreadful and long days when we were going through Pennsylvania, but I got through them with the help of my teammates. :)We were all excited to go to Ohio and ride on some flatland. I feel like the days after Pennsylvania flew by really fast, and we were flying from state to state. Arriving in Champaign was an awesome feeling. The last part of the ride to Champaign was the same route as one of our training rides, it felt like deja vu! I was excited to see my friends in Champaign and share random stories with them. I took a long shower and went out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, ate twice as many wings as I normally would, and then had some ice cream to top it off. Basically, I just ate a lot of food and relaxed with my friends that night :D. It doesn't sound that exciting, but it was much needed.I was pumped to ride to Chicago and see my family. The ride days in between Champaign and Chicago were shorter and more relaxing. The view was pretty boring though. I can only look at corn fields for so long.... We did a pretty good job of keeping each other entertained with crazy stories, singing songs, and talking about random things. Arriving in Chicago was a day that we were all looking forward to for a long time. I had never ridden my bike on the Lake Shore Trail by the city before, but let me just tell you... it was great! Not only was it sweet to avoid the crazy Chicago traffic, but we got great views of the city and the lakefront from there. I definitely plan on going back there after the trip for a long bike ride. The Blackhawks parade drew such a huge crowd into the city that we were not even expecting to encounter. By the time that we made our way to Millenium Park, the parade had just passed by there. I was really excited to see my mom at Millenium Park when I got there (I still have no idea how she managed to get there on time after work with all the traffic). We then took a two hour car ride home to Schaumburg (which should have only taken 40 minutes). I didn't do much in my day off at home. I took my bike in to the shop where I got it from and I was told that I needed a bunch of stuff fixed on it. Once I got my bike fixed up, I felt like I was riding an entirely new bike ... it was great! I got to spend some time with my parents and tell them all about the past couple of weeks, so they don't have to worry about me as much anymore since they know that I have adjusted to this new lifestyle: wakeup. eat. ride bike. eat. sleep. repeat.The ride-a-long was the next day, from Chicago to Highland Park. I was lucky enough to have my friend Amy come and ride with me. The weather was great for a bike ride, and we got to ride on some really nice trails ... so it was basically just destined to be a really fun day.After Highland Park, we crossed the border into Wisconsin. It rained and the trail we were riding on suddenly turned into a muddy path. Our clothes/bikes/helmets/hair were covered in wet sand and we looked very disgusting at the end of the day. We stopped at Lake Geneva that night and I got to see a little bit of the lake and area, which I was excited about because I had never been there before. We rolled out of Lake Geneva this morning and into Fitchburg/Madison. The ride today was rainy and cold. And of course, the sun comes out a few hours after we finish riding. The fun gets taken out of going downhill when its slippery everywhere. Hopefully we'll have better riding weather tomorrow though! I'll keep my fingers crossed.P.S.- please ignore all the grammar errors and bad wording!and expect another blog really soon! :D