Currently...

I am in the camper with my family (Grammy, grampy, mom, dad and sister) driving all the way to the west side of Minnesota. Once we get to ortonville we will set up camp and then relax to prepare for the long week ahead of us. I still have not done any training. I don't think that my one mile round trip ride to ben and jerrys last night counts. Oh well, it shoudnt be too awful. I hope. We left from welch village this morning, which is down by red wing and are now taking county road 19 to the west side of the state. We have gone down one very long very steep hill that I am hoping we don't have to climb back up, but at the bottom of the hill was one of the host cities, so unfortunately, climbing out of that river bed will most likely be unavoidable. We'll see how it is on Wednesday or Thursday. Otherwise the trip so far has seemed pretty flat. Then again I have never been this far west in mn, so I don't really know what to expect. We will just have to wait and see! I am just thankful that my whole family is here because as of Friday night there was some question about whether everyone would be able to make it. My parents are farmers in sw Wisconsin and they had the worst hailstorm my mom had ever seen in her 25 years of living in the Midwest. There was golfball sized hail that ripped holes in the siding of their house and broke a huge hole in my little brothers bedroom window. Worst of all it wiped out about a thousand acres of crop, which is about one third of the farm. Dad thought he might have to stay home to meet with insurance people, but fortunately he was able to come. I guess he will just have to deal with it when he gets home.
I will post again tomorrow after our first day of riding. Tomorrows ride goes from ortonville to Montevideo and is 58.9 miles. Looks like we won't be getting eased into anything here! I'll let you know how it goes!!