Actual Kms: 88 kms
Overkill: Lots. Probably about 15 k biking to Kelly's house before the mass meeting of cyclists and then biking back to her house afterwards.
Road Things: The road was surprisingly clean in Jerusalem (Grand Rapids). Perhaps a taste of things to come???
Money Spent: Okay a lot. Let's just say Kelly and I went shopping and eating. And I spent around $200 on food (a number of times), shoes, dress, shirt, cards, and other stuff. I'm going to call it "Back to School Shopping".
Quote: "Get to the back of the line, your not Sea to Sea yet Bob!" -Me when we all rode into Grand Rapids. All the new people had to ride in the back while us experienced riders rode up front. Bob was a little disappointed.
Most Interesting Person: Bob. Did I mention that I am excited to have my brother on tour. He's a little nervous because as he put it "I'm so out of shape" but I'm sure he'll do fine. He has one of the lightest bikes on tour, borrowed from a Michigan friend (Mike) and he also has a great windbreaker-a huge man beard. Anyways, he's excited and nervous to be on the tour so I guess I'll slow down to ride with him. He is, after all, my little brother.
Favourite Part of the Day: That would be a toss up between seeing Kelly or Bob. Also, riding with over 300 cyclists into Calvin was pretty neat. There were people lining the street cheering, with signs and lots of excitement. Holding our line at the front (5 cyclists wide) was fun as we followed Motorcycle Bill.
Worst Part of the Day: I'm in Mecca, there is no bad day!
Today was a fabulous ride. It was short, there were so many stops, I can't even remember where they were. There were random people sitting at their houses with signs, cheering us on. It was beautiful. I rode with Brian and Matt the entire day and when we got to Tyler's house, we decided to go visit my friend Kelly. She was very excited to see me (after I finally found her apartment door in this huge old house) and we made plans to meet up later.
Then we drove to an area where all the cyclists were meeting so we could drive into Calvin together. I saw Bob and gave him a big hug. I'm really glad that he is doing the last two weeks with me because I think it's going to be the best section. Plus, I get to see him cringe as we make some bigger climbs in NY.
We drove into Calvin and I immediately started the task of emptying the gear truck because I wanted to gget moving to Kelly's house. I grabbed my pack, took my stuff out of the gear truck so it could get cleaned and headed out to Kelly's.
We went out to lunch at this great place called "The Green Well" which is a gastro pub (an environmentally friendly restaurant with good quality food and a pub atmosphere). I think I had the best beer I had on the tour there. It was a dark stout with vanilla and java flavours and it was made in Detroit. Unfortunately I forget the name.
Kelly and I took the bus to Woodland Mall and we shopped until we dropped, which was lovely. Then we went to Founders to meet up with some of her friends and afterwords, we went to Mobcat, another bar and met up with some people from Sea to Sea and other RBC friends. It was a very good time talking with everyone about the tour and what they are doing. I was the DD, and afterwards took people home and then slept at Kelly's. This is probably the part of the trip that feels most like a vacation even though Grand Rapids is so familiar to me. I think it's the friends.
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