The St. Paul Fire Department deserves a solid fist pump..!

ok.. So like i mentioned yesterday (i think).. We stayed with Will Overly and his wife Alese who is a RA for the dormitories at St Thomas University there in St. Paul last night.. They put us up in these apartment/dorm things that were vacant since it is summertime..
They even went the extra mile to buy us a bunch of breakfast food and stuff.. including Bacon.. Which we quickly found out, can burn quite easily..

I had just run outside to get something from ryan's car when I first heard the alarms going off.. so i ran back to our room and was startled to be met by billowing smoke as I opened the door.. I saw Ben trying somewhat frantically to open the windows.. So i propped the door to our room open (thinking that it would help the smoke clear from our room and into the rest of the building).. Turns out, that was a horrible idea..! By leaving the door open, I allowed to smoke to set off the alarms for the whole rest of the building, thus requiring the response of the St. Paul Fire Department to shut it off..!

So we woke Alese up with not one.. not even two.. but 5 fire trucks..! All fully loaded with men carrying oxygen masks and axes.. They didn't say anything, but we are pretty sure they were a little ticked off when they found out that we had just burned our bacon..!

All in all.. pretty solid start to the day! (keep in mind, this all happened at about 7:30-8:00.. pretty early!)

So after the excitement died down, and we had finished eating our charred bacon, we loaded up and took off..

As we left the building, I would place our spirits in the moderate-low category.. We weren't too pumped to try to navigate the city streets.. Oh.. also.. Scott had to go home for a wedding last night, so it is just Eric, Ben, Ryan and I right now..

So we hit the streets.. We were feeling pretty cool biking through town.. We definitely stood out from the typical bikers, so we were turning some heads.. and then it was realized.. We were lost..

We stopped a couple times to review our maps, eventually found out where we were, then started out again.. After a little while we came out of some trees, looked left, and saw perfectly a huge cathedral which was located about 3 miles from the Overly's place..! Keep in mind, we had been biking for an hour and a half..! only to realize that we had made it like 6 total miles..
Needless to say, we were a little devastated...

We tried to remain positive though, so we found a detour on the map and set off again.. only to immediately encounter the st. paul monster hill..! (we met a guy at a gas station who just started laughing when we told him what street/hill we had just come up.. we forced a couple grins to be polite.. but no laughs)

After the monster.. we pulled off at a gas station, mildly frustrated, and called Ryan to come pick us up and shuttle us to the outskirts of town.. I realize this sounds like we wimped out, but we were annoyed and tired of getting rained on.. OH! thats right..! I forgot to mention that this whole time it was drizzling/raining on us...!

But with Ryan's help we got outside of town, found a pizza hut with a lunch buffet, ate away our sorrows, then forged ahead..!

Ben was feeling terrible all morning so we decided to take his rest day (all the rest of us have had one).. so it was just Eric and I on the bikes.. After eating as much as we did, we felt like we really needed to work pretty hard, so we pushed it pretty much the rest of the afternoon.. It was alot of fun with just the two of us.. We each took turns pulling for each other and stayed in the zone for quite awhile.. I felt like some sort of a professional rider because we were really utilizing all of our hand signals and stuff.. We were having conversations without even talking or looking at each others faces.. (ok maybe not conversations.. but kinda)

Here is an example of one:

Eric points to the ground on his right.

Translation: Hello Sam. You are my friend. Because you are my friend, I would like to warn you that there is something on the ground just ahead of us on our right. I wanted to warn you of this object so that you would not run over it and potentially harm yourself or your bicycle. Thank you for riding with me.

I, while riding in front of Eric, steer sharply to the left and look quickly over my right shoulder.

Translation: Hello my dearest friend Eric. I have been riding in front of you for the last couple miles, and although I hate to admit it, my legs have grown weary from the strain. I fear that if I continue to ride my bicycle in this leadership position, my legs will grow so weary that I will no longer be able to pedal my bicycle. Seeing as you are a noble gentleman, I would greatly appreciate it if I could trade my position for yours. Please pass me on my right side if this proposition will suit you, and I will fall into position immediately behind you. Also Eric, you look very nice this afternoon.

those are just a couple examples of our very specific signals.. Maybe I will share more with you later..