Day 19 - 1,180 Miles To Date - Marion, IL

First off, I apologize for not posting in a few days, it's been a busy few days! On our first day back riding, each team decided to shorten their rides and shuttle to the host. Each team did it differently, I think Seattle did about 58, San Diego maybe 70 or so, we did a short 30 and shuttled to Nashville, and Portland did 20 because Jamie was their number 20. It was a little weird getting back on the bike after a few days off, but we eventually warmed up to it and remembered what we were riding for. Huge shout out to Brian Satola for being with us the three days after the accident. He was such a father figure to us and awesome to have around and help us out. On the shorter ride towards Nashville, we decided to stop at a park to have lunch and then take the vans back. When we arrived, Brian was already there and told us they were going to let us swim in their community pool and that hot dogs and burgers were on the grill. Such a nice surprise! We hung out at the pool for a few hours then shuttled into Nashville with enough time to check out the live music and BBQ which was also awesome! Nashville was a nice change from all the small towns we have been in and was probably the biggest city since Baltimore and DC. On Tuesday we had a service day at the Nashville Hope Lodge. It's basically a place similar to the Fellowship Center and Ronald McDonald House, where patients or families or both stay during treatment. The Hope Lodge is typically a shorter term place for people to stay and they have a few locations in many different places across the country (including Hawaii - future volunteer?) The cool thing about those places though are that they're completely run on volunteers except for two employees provided by the American Cancer Society. We were able to talk with some of the patients in the lobby while we did our project. For a couple hours we decorated luminary bags for relay for life in honor or memory of patients. It was nice to chat with everyone and the team while doing something nice for the lodge. We were able to check out Nashville a little more and just chill with each other that afternoon which was nice not being on the go for a little bit. Our first normal ride back was in fact a century. Honestly, the days are so long that I can't always remember what goes on exactly, but it was nice to be back on the bike for good. We were supposed to have about a 103 mile day and we ended up miscommunicating and getting lost and ended up at a total of 124 at 15mph. Such a power group of Steph, Sarah and I and I was really impressed by all of our will power! The last few miles hurt but we got through. If I remember more things from the day I will update but it's hard after the long week we've had!