We had our family meeting last night and someone discussed the overall positive impact of this group. You can wake up in the morning feeling crappy, or have a rough day on the road, and no matter what, there's always at least one person who shifts the energy from negative to positive.
I experienced that first hand today. I woke up on the wrong side of my thermarest (partially due to watching the Game of Thrones finale the night before, partially due to the consistent 4:30 am wake up calls) and just had a really hard time getting motivated. It didn't help that as soon as we started packing up the trailer it started raining which made for an even more sluggish start to the morning.
I ended up being in a ride group with Maddie, Gabby, and Sarah D, all incredibly fun, energetic people. We started off the day in the pouring rain and were immediately drenched. We quickly accepted the fact that it was just going to be a wet, rainy day and decided to make the best of it. We formed a pretend girl band called The Soggy Chamois (pronounced Shammies - the technical term for our padded shorts) and sang as many Disney songs as we possibly could. It was hilarious and made the morning go by so quickly. In fact we finished the first 40 miles in 3 hours!
We scouted out a nice lunch spot with picnic tables and enjoyed a quick laugh session on the swing set as the rain started to subside.
After lunch we took things incredibly slowly since we were doing really well on time. Maddie conveniently got a flat right in front of a thrift store and we had a lot of fun looking through the store and the "free stuff" bin.
Shortly after we left the thrift store we entered into Athens, OH, home of Ohio University. We spent a good bit of time around the university campus and had a chance to do a little postcard shopping. All in all, we made it a laughable 4 miles in the hour and a half after lunch.
A good ways out of Athens we made it to some really pretty state parks full of marsh and swamp lands. For some reason the marshy scenery took me by surprise since it's something We haven't seen yet on our route. It was a nice change of pace and a reminder that we still have so much of the country to see!
The last 15 miles of the ride took a bit of a sour turn when the wind started to really pick up and we were starting to lose steam. I definitely bonked during the last couple miles (bonking: that grumpy, tired feeling you get when you haven't eaten enough and are completely depleted of energy). Needless to say I was so happy to get to our host location today and I stuffed my face with cookies as soon as they came into my view.
Overall I had a really fun time today and I'm so glad I was able to shake my morning slump. Tomorrow is our last ride day before our day off and the mileage could creep into the 90s. We're all pretty tired so it might be a tough day, but I know we'll get through it together!