Day 13: 
Woke up about 6:15 to voices. I popped my head out of my tent to discover I was the last one up! I had to hurry so everyone wouldn’t be waiting on me to leave. I was feeling kinda sluggish so I went to the bathroom to splash water on my face. I hoped it would wake me up some but to no avail. The plan yesterday was to go 80 miles today. I wasn’t looking forward to it as the last couple of days we were only doing 50 to 60 miles. After studying the maps we noticed that we could cut out 20 miles by taking route 150 through Dansville and end in Springfield. Dansville also had a reputable bike shop where we figured we could get our bikes checked up. I haven’t noticed problems with my bike but it will nice to have peace of mind that my bike will be at 100%.

Usually Brent races ahead followed by Ellen, then Mark/Jolee, me and Evan. But today we kept in a group. We raced each other over the small hills and bantered with each other. The first 20 miles went by in no time. All traces of my sour mood disappeared and I remembered how much I love biking. I’m glad for days like this that make the misery of other days disappear. I’ll have to remember this feeling when the hills (cough Ozarks cough) come back. 

We ran into some smaller hills but they didn’t take even 10 minutes to climb the longest one. Currently I’m sitting in the bike shop: called Dansville Bike and Footwear. The shopkeepers have done the trail before and let us look through a cool scrapbook they made of their trip. Evan got his break fixed and everyone got their bikes looked over. It was such a good deal! For 10 bucks my bike was completely checked out and deemed A-okay! 

Eating at Bluegrass pizza and pub for lunch. The table is really cool! It’s just a door with 6 bar stools around it. Too bad it’s just for lunch. I want to linger and look at all the stuff on the walls. It’s just pretty interesting art work. 
Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of the restaurant. We headed out at 3:00 with 30 miles left. The heat had set in for sure although it wasn’t as bad as yesterday. The terrain looked really hilly but we were able to get tons of speed on the downhills that the uphills were no problem. In about 35 minutes we went 10 miles. We were crusin’! The next 20 miles were a breeze despite the heat. 2.5 miles from Springfield we stopped at a gas station and cooled off for 10 minutes or so. For the night we are staying at the Springfield city park. It’s not as nice as the other park we stayed at but there’s a bathroom and shade and it looks like there is food options down the road.   
For dinner we went to a Mexican restaurant called Los Mariachias. I ate really good nachos. I don’t know if I’ve been so hungry everything tastes good or the places we stop are actually good. For dessert we walked across the street to Wendy’s. I got a frosty but I probably shouldn’t have since I now feel slightly sick from the amount of food I just ate. We walked back to the campground and I called my parents to check in with them.
There’s a family reunion/birthday party happening in a pavilion across the playground from us. I hope they go to bed soon as they are really loud. Although I don’t know how much it will help. It’s so humid and hot in my tent. I would sleep cowboy style but there’s a ton of these beetle/bug things. There was just one in my tent which freaks me out cuz there creepy looking. I can hear the fluttering of their wings against the outside of my tent. Between that and the party and the heat I feel like I’m going to have a hard time going to sleep.  
There’s another cyclist staying in the park with us. His name is Tom and he is traveling across the county for cancer. He gave me the name of his website but I can’t remember it right now. Hopefully he’ll be here when we get up so I can ask him again. I think we’re going to get up at 6 to go 75 miles. We could have done that today easy if the bike shop hadn’t taken so long. There’s We didn’t get a shower today and everything got sticky fast. I think the final destination tomorrow has one. That’s all for now! 

Some random pictures from today: