It was about 2 in the morning when we woke up and decided that we would move our tent and bikes under the overhang attached to the building next to the church. The weather had changed and it sounded like there was a storm coming. Its always nice to be dry when it rains, and since our tent was set up next to the wall of the church and right next to the bottom of a hill, we would woke up in a puddle. Although our tent keeps us dry when it rains for the most part, some moisture does get in through the floor and always makes things a little wet. It was a very good thing that we moved when we did, because later in the night it poured. Joe's alarm went off around 6, which was when we planned to get up, but he said it was way too cold to get up so he didn't wake me up and just went back to sleep. An hour and a half later, Joey woke me up and I was shocked at how cold it was. This was the coldest morning we had seen on the trip thus far. We got dressed as fast as we could and then I worked on making oatmeal while Joey packed up the tent. Thank goodness for our stove and the ability to make something hot for breakfast. Even though we forgot to pack our glasses, I still decided to make some hot chocolate in our bowls after our oatmeal. We were on the road around 8:20, all budled up (I had my cycling pants on, my sweatpants over them, my booties over my shoes, a turtleneck, and both of my cycling coats!). The road continued to have pretty steep hills early on in the day....boy was it cold going downhill! As we were riding there were a couple different scenic overlooks where we had the opportunity to see the Mississippi again. After about 13 miles of riding, we came to a town where we stopped for a quick break. There, we saw a sign that said it was 36 degrees!! We knew it was cold, but I guess we didn't realize it was that cold. It went from being in the upper 70s for a good portion of the week, to this, YIKES! For a short time today it started to sprinkle, which made the ride for a while extra cold, luckily it was a short lived rain. We stopped for lunch in Menona after 40 miles. Although we were planning on having Subway to use one of our gift cards (because we definitely would have froze if we tried to cook something), we ended up getting a 4 piece chicken meal with mashed potatoes and baked beans to split because the Subway was attached to a grocery store. Lunch hit the spot and warmed us right up. We really didn't want to go back outside after, but once we put on our face masks and started riding, the wind was right on our tail pushing us along. The hills became less steep and further in between. Although I figured that I would need to take off my extra pair of sweatpants because I would get too warm, I never needed to because it never really warmed up today. We ended up making it to our warm showers host an hour earlier that we thought we would. We were SO excited that Jacky and Ward could host us. They completed a three year bicycle tour around the world, riding through 42 countries and 6 continents! We enjoyed some cheese and crackers while discussing our trip and hearing all about their amazing adventures. All of the tours we've done have been a little more in our comfort zone than a lot of the countries they rode through. It was absolutely incredible to hear some of their stories. Jacky and Ward made some delicious chicken stir fry for dinner along with ice cream for dessert! What a great day, aside from it being 36 degrees out. We rode 72.38 miles today.
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