Hi everyone! Welcome to days 65 and 66. Day 66 started out with a watermelon eating competition for us, pictures of which we do not have unfortunately. What we do have pictures of though, is us getting our almost daily McDonald’s breakfast.
Just look at these semi-happy faces :)
We had 76 miles to bike on day 65 but the route was not particularly interesting or picturesque and mostly ran through farmlands. Fortunately, we did not have a lot of climbing to do but the recent heat wave was still getting to all the riders making the ride not as pleasant as it could have been.
Rest stop for milkshakes and burgers
Once we got to Eugene, we got to bike through the University of Oregon campus and secretly (or not so secretly) compare it to our own UIUC campus. It was a nice, very green and pretty campus, but still not as good as ours of course.
Our biking on day 65 ended at our stayover at the Eugene Family YMCA that provided us with dinner as well as shower, pool, and hot tub access at their facilities.
Day 66 started out in a very different way then our usual days do. Our van needed a tire change, so we got to sleep in until 8 AM and after a nice breakfast also provided by the YMCA waited for the van to be fixed. During the free time, we went to explore the university campus a little more.
Future university chancellor
We ended up rolling out significantly later than we usually do at about 11, so the day ended up being very long and exhausting. In the first 20 miles of riding we hit a big milestone however - 4000 miles biked! We decorated the van for the occasion and took some team pictures. Only 600 more miles to go now.
The day was very hot again, so the riders did not stop to explore often and mostly everyone was just trying to finish the day as soon as possible to get out of the heat and to the showers.
Sophomores group
Sophomores group but cooler
When we finally got to our stayover at the Roseburg YMCA we got a food donation provided by Sam’s family again. Thank you to Sam’s family, we appreciated the delicious dinner immensely after such a tough day of biking!
-Valerie