Illini 4000

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Parades and Soap Operas

Man, today was the best day of the trip so far. It started out like any normal day. Rolled out and started biking. Everything was pretty average until we hit mile 56. We were in a town called Fairmount in Minnesota on our way to Jackson. I'm personally a huge fan of stopping in small towns and getting a feel for the world around me. I really like seeing what each town has to offer. Boy was I in for a surprise and so were others on the team. We started touring Fairmont and it was pretty simple at first and almost everything was closed. Thankfully this awesome place was open it was called the Real Film Society I believe. It was this club that was decorated in a 20's style and was available for rent for anyone in the town. Maggie and I just walked around in awe at how awesome it was. We even make a breast cancer survivor who was 20 years free of her cancer. We told them what we were doing and they were so supportive. After we walked around in there, we got the offer of a lifetime. The owner said they were filming the town soap opera called "As the Corn Grows" and needed some extras so obviously Maggie and I jumped at the chance. It was insane we got to pretend we were eating and talking at a Diner. It was hilarious and so cool. I couldn't believe that we were featured. Maggie and I, will both now have a credit to our names and we even got some free advertising for Illini 4000! Amazing!We were already on top of the world when we kept riding. We were in another town and we ended up in their town parade! How insane is that? We rode up to the parade to see what was going on and lo and behold we saw Relay for Life rolling up. We told them what we were doing and they let us join the parade with them! We rode like 5 or 6 blocks in the parade and then rolled back out! It was so crazy awesome.Later on we heard that in the same towns another group of riders got to work at a bike shop and got interviewed on the radio and also attended the town festival! Minnesota is officially the nicest state in the United States. I have yet to meet a mean person in this state. We even were invited to a graduation party yesterday for dinner. We literally crashed a graduation party without our knowledge. We thought we were going to a park but really we were going to someone's back yard where their food stand stood.These have been the most insanely awesome days ever! Can't wait for more.