Crossing the Mississippi

Saturday, our second day off, was relaxing and nice - a bunch of us biked over to a campground in Pittsfield that had a lake, a volleyball court, and horseshoes. We hung out for a while and went swimming before we headed back to the Church. After dinner, we shuttled over to the Western Illinois County Fair, whose main attraction was a school bus demolition derby. They let each of us in for only $2, and we got to watch 12 school busses crash into each other! Then we ran over to the rides, got sno-cones, and called it a night.

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day because we finally crossed the Mississippi River into Missouri! We got in pretty early and biked over to the local movie theater to see WALLE. It was pretty much unanimous - it was great. Afterwards, we headed over to the Mark Twain historic district and looked around the museum for a while. We also saw some of the flooding of the Mississippi River in Hannibal - they had to put up extra levees to make sure the water doesn't get into the city. After dinner we hung around the YMCA, where we were staying. It was laundry night, so after everything came back we headed to bed. It's pretty nice going to bed at 10 every night, and definitely a change from my usual schedule.

Today we had a pretty normal day - about 70 miles into Moberly, MO. This morning, I rode with Mo, Brian, and Nikki on a closed road next to the road we were supposed to be on. It was great - like a giant bike path! We spent most of it practicing riding with no hands and making balloon animals that Brian had gotten for his birthday yesterday. This afternoon Amy and I took it pretty slow, but it was a really nice ride and we got in around 2. We are staying at a building that has basically everything we could ever want - showers, video games, a pool table, couches, and computers! We are going to have a good night.