Saturday (Geneva, IL to Griffith, IN)

We left around 6:00am in the morning in 3 different crews. The boys had a lot of energy, so we were moving fairly fast. The Illinois Prairie Path and Great Western Trails felt like riding through pudding (Blake’s quote). The rain from the night before made the gravel trails soft and therefore more difficult riding.

We had a couple different incidents in the morning. I am hearing the latest stunts these days is to go head over your handlebars. Both Jacob Haas and Mrs. Vensel did are now experienced at diving over their handlebars (two different incidents). Jacob’s front tire became stuck in a rut causing his accident. Mrs. Vensel had to stop quick because of a yellow light. Jacob is perfectly fine. Mrs. Vensel’s elbow and shoulder are sore, but she jumped back on her bike and continued on. She is icing them both and will definitely be sore tomorrow.

Out side of these two incidents, we had a couple flat tires but nothing that caused us to not make our destination. Mrs. Crown and Mrs. Haas meet us at the 47 mile mark with some snacks and then we continued on.

The Griffith troop (Troop 264) has been terrific. They organized a police escort through town to the church. At church they setup large canopies and had lots of food for us. There was a sign welcoming us to their church. They cooked up a great meal for us (hot dogs, hamburgers, sausage, and pulled pork). They had lots of snacks and drinks for us to eat. The local fire station has opened up the fire house for us to take showers and watch TV. The troop has been terrific to say the least!!

The total trip was a little over 70 miles and we averaged 13.8 miles per hour. 3 of the scouts from Troop 264 will join us tomorrow for the ride to Fish Lake, Indiana. The trip tomorrow will be about 54 miles.