Hi everyone! Welcome to Day 14 of our epic journey. Today we had a short day - only 45 miles with almost no elevation. The day went by fast and we were done riding at about noon, getting a whole half of the day to ourselves.

The route was very nice for the most part, with a few rough roads but some very smooth and satisfying roads as well.

The morning blessed us with really nice weather for a bike ride - sunny but not hot, no rain and almost no wind.

After the ride, we got hot showers at the recreation center of the Purdue University. Then, the team split up to get lunch with choices ranging from Mexican, to burgers, to poke bowls.

After lunch, the poke bowl team that I happened to be in stumbled across a fascinating local store selling pretty much everything. Their offerings included crystals, fun socks, jewelry, plush toys, clothes, sunglasses, CDs, books… Do I even need to go on?

The afternoon was dedicated to a team meeting where our team members shared their personal reasons for joining Illini 4000 and for deciding to do the ride. It was a very emotional couple of hours and many napkins were used up. So, naturally, afterwards we wanted to cheer ourselves up with ice cream.

The team had the evening to themselves with some spending time on a movie night watching ‘"Top Gun” and the rest just enjoying the rare moments of free time.

-Valerie