Chicago --> St. Louis

Day 13: Chicago, IL
We had a really fun day off in Chicago. We'd been having some rainy weather but the weather was beautiful for our day off. In the morning we biked down to a bike shop where we had a deal for some high-quality tires. I also bought new handlebar tape, so my handlebar tape is no longer held on with duct tape and is now black, so my bike looks a lot cooler. Later that day a small group of us biked down to Millennium Park and to the Chicago Blues Festival. The four of us split some deep dish pizzas, which were amazing and probably filled our 5000 calorie quota in one meal. We took some pictures with the weird giant metal bean that's just randomly there and sat and listened to some music. It was really nice biking through Chicago. It was cheaper and more convenient than public transportation and biking through the city was easier than I would have imagined.

Day 14: Chicago -> Kankakee
Not a particularly eventful day. It was pouring rain for the first twenty miles but it let up as the day went on. The ride was short and we had a really great community dinner. There was this fruit and marshmallow thing that was really good. We also got our team jerseys finally! They look awesome! They also make us look like a team, which is cool.

Day 15: Kankakee ->Bloomington
In our new jerseys we set out on a 95 mile ride. It was long but not too bad. Around mile 90 I got pretty tired so the last five miles in were tough but we got there. We passed a lot of corn fields. In one of the corn fields there were like twelve plastic carousel horses just standing there which was kind of bizarre. We stopped and took some photos of that. Also, we had an awesome water stop in some guy's front yard. The man let us use his bathroom and gave us all his Powerade and bottled water and showed us his two-week-old kittens. Plus, he donated $20 to the team! And he was just some random guy who our van driver asked for permission to use his driveway. Also, I fell pulling into the parking lot of the YMCA where we stayed. There was some gravel I didn't see and slipped on it and skinned my knee for the third time. Ouch.

Day 16: Bloomington -> Jacksonville
This day was 115 miles. It should have only been 111, but a closed bridge added on a couple of miles. This was definitely not an easy day. Plus, there were hills, which we had not encountered in a while. Basically biking 115 miles is really really hard and the hills made it harder. We also heard a tornado siren which really freaked me out. At mile 80 I was pretty tired. Normally at that point, the day is almost over, but we still had 35 miles to go, which was pretty scary. The rest of the day was pretty painful, but it's mostly a blur. When we finally got to our host at Illinois College, I just laid on the ground for a little while and didn't move. Our host was great. They gave us T-shirts and we had beds to sleep in. I slept really well that night.

Day 17: Jacksonville, IL -> St. Louis, MO

The first forty miles of this day were some of the worst I have ever biked. I woke up completely exhausted already from the two previous days. I struggled to bike at 12 MPH when I can normally go 18 without too much of a problem. I just felt completely horrible. Plus it was raining which didn't help. At the twenty mile mark I had never been so sure that I could not finish a day. At lunch, however, at forty miles, I took a nap and drank some gatorade and felt infinitely better for the rest of the 90 mile day. Also, we biked past a field of cows and the cows all started sprinting along with us. That was cool; I've never seen cows run like that before. They can actually go pretty fast. Later in the day we got to bike on some trails that ran parallel to the road, which is much nicer than actually being on a road with no shoulder.
My favorite part of the day though was crossing the Mississippi river. The whole team waited up and we crossed the bridge together. Halfway through we entered Missouri and posed for some pictures. It was pretty fantastic biking over the Mississippi River. We are officially in the West that means, even though geographically I think we're still pretty far east. We biked through East St. Louis, which was a little sketchy, but not too bad compared to what some people made it out to be. And we finally finished off the day. 300 miles in three days. Completely exhausting and I'm still in disbelief that I actually did it considering how bad I felt at certain points. And we're staying at Washington University which has really nice dorms and really soft beds. So hooray!