Day 3: We woke up in Indiana Dunes State Park after a warm night serenaded by screeching owls. The nine of us left early this morning and found beautiful thick forests lining the backroads and neighborhoods to La Porte where we stopped at Kroger for a grocery trip. Early in the day, the group took a break at a basketball court and shot some hoops with the basketball Silas is carrying on the back of his bike. Leaving La Porte, we travelled through quiet roads surrounded by corn fields. The entire day was cool and breezy and made for great biking weather. On the route, we saw lots of wildlife, including deer, rabbits, horses, cows, alpacas, one ferret crossing the road, and one random zebra. The zebra was a representation of the surprise Indiana has given us, it is lush, green and an unexpectedly interesting state to bike through. We’ve got some quirky games going, like a banana being strapped to the bicycle of the person designated as the days “Heath and Safety Manager,” so they can remember their role in the group that day. But most impressively, we have a science experiment going where we are carrying one blue cheese pizza slice in a ziploc bag that was leftover from a dinner in Chicago in which we plan to take all the way to NYC. This experiment started with a joke about a side-by-side taste testing of the two city’s pizzas. Some of the Trekkers are determined to take a bite of the well-travelled pizza on the final day. We’ll see how that goes. The night was called off by changing time zones and gaining more daylight, then settling in at Potato Creek State Park for a night under the stars and laughing at the ridiculousness of weary, delirious bikers next to a fire while consuming way too much Oreos and peanut butter. Not a bad way to kiss a beautiful day goodnight.
