CLEVELAND ROCKS................. sort of

well team, here's how the last few days went down. We woke up to pouring rain on thursday and lazily put our gear together and got breakfast, this should have been my first red flag, I'm usually quick and efficient in the morning, anxcious to start the days miles and get a move one, although waking up in a bed always makes this slightly difficult. We watched the weather channel as we packed to see a large green storm across the screen that we knew we'd be riding in all day. Second red flag, I decided to call my mom, just to check in and see how she was and what her game plan was for meeting us around the 4th. When I was little, whenever my mom stayed home from work, I would inevitably suddenly feel sort of sick myself and end up in the school nurses office, only to go back home shortly where I knew my mom was. Part of this was because I just wanted to be with my mom, which I didn't get to a whole lot when I was younger and part of it was because I knew she was home and I had an out. After getting off the phone with her and deciding that I should suck it up and stop being a baby about riding in the rain, Garland and I looked at each first settled on waiting till it stopped pouring, both sort of knowing that maybe we should just take a zero day ( a day off, called a zero because you bike zero miles) but neither of us wanting to give in to it first. Third red flag, we both gave in our situation, decided to go get back in bed, and officially take our first zero. We went and saw Hancock and then proceeded to sneak into Wall. E, which was very charming and cute. We ate and slept and then ate some more. It poured all day. We figured it was either ride only like 40 miles through cleveland traffic and be cold and upset, or chill out and be able to wake up fresh and probably cover twice the distance the next day. We woke up on the 4th and hit the road around 7, we coasted along the lake erie coast cruising at like 15 mph the whole way, the eastern suburbs of cleveland were very green and pretty. I then proceeded to get the worst possible flat a biker can get. I heard a large POP and pulled over to hear all the air gushing out of my tire. We joked about how if this had happened the day before in the rain, I would have been livid. We continued to ride along and went right through the projects and slums of east cleveland along the way, enduring some friendly cat calls and looks that said, what are these crazy white kids doing here?
Thanks to the holiday there wasn't a whole lot of traffic and I don't think we would have made it through alive on any other day. We fell in line with a cycling group out for the 4th and rode with them for a little bit till we saw the route 20 turn off, we turned a corner and quickly realized that we were going onto an on ramp where 20, 6 and 2 become a fun little stretch of super highway. Knowing that this was completely illegal, we pedaled our little hearts out, waiting to hear the sirens to pull us over, once again, if it had not been the 4th, we never would have made it. Happy to be outside of cleveland we coasted through the flat roads of central ohio.
Quote of the day:
'maybe you're being a baby because you know you have an out'- my mom
'I'm tired of my thighs rubbin' together!' a large black man wanting to lose weight

song of the day:
A little 'lawless and lulu' by buckcherry:
And now the dreams are near and the conscience clearing
Crazy about your love
Another change of direction and the motivation
King and queen of the nighttime world