Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Day 2 - Here We Go!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Jackson, MI to Bowling Green, OH
~ 102.36 Miles

Our expected course for today:
View Interactive Map on MapMyRide.com

Day 1 - Evening Report

We were off, and now here we are, in Jackson, MI that is (not quite to Baltimore yet).

We set off this morning from the Holland Lakeshore Pregnancy Center around 8:00 AM.

Many thanks to all of you who showed up this morning to send us off and or provide us riders with a great breakfast. It was a good start to a great day.

We also want to send out a special thanks to Congressman Pete Hoekstra for joining us this morning at LPC and for the first leg of our ride. Congressman Hoekstra, we understand you have a busy schedule and truly appreciate the time you spent with us today. Thank you.

A special thanks to Pastor Josh Wierenga from Real Life Fellowship as well for coming out and sending us off with an encouraging word of prayer. I appreciate you man.


When we departed this morning we were expecting to ride approximately 106.75 miles to our hotel in Jackson, MI. Due to the need to improvise our route a few times because of gravel roads or missed turns, we ended up riding around 120 miles (you'll have to excuse my guestimation as I can't quite recall what the odometer on my bike said, I am quite comfortable on my bed right now and can't say I feel like going out to the trailer and checking). One might think "What's an extra 13 - 15 miles when you've already gone more than 100?" True enough, but I think it's safe to say that we would have been glad to get off the saddle 13 - 15 miles sooner. Overall though, we can't come up with anything worth complaining about. Today was a great day. God is good. We had no major set backs. No injuries. We couldn't have asked for better weather. The terrain was fairly tame. And we all closed out the day feeling pretty good considering the fact that we just cycled around 120 miles.

Here are a couple of pictures that Dave got today before the camera batteries gave out. Hopefully we'll have more in days to come with fresh batteries.

The Crew:















We had to stop occasionally to refill on H2O:















Our Fearless Leader:













D-Rock:


Our "Bean Counter" Cliff:
















Loading up on carbs with the never ending pasta @ The Olive Garden: