A 4th to remember

We woke up in Cadiz ready for the day. Some felt a little extra patriotic and sported some awesome flags. I had a red, white, and blue lei that I wrapped around my seat.

The first thing we noticed on our ride was how Ohio was flattening out for us. We couldn't have been more happy. I remember blowing through 13 miles in about an hour. Pretty soon we were nearing our mid way point (aka lunch stop) and then suddenly we saw the van and trailer on the side of the road with ALL the bags and other trailer belongings on a lawn on the side of the road. Aaron was quick to say it was trailer crew's fault that Megan hit a bump and everything flew out. I got extremely defensive since I was on trailer crew, but then the truth came out. I guess Megan (she was driving the van) saw a bunch of people taking pictures by a little tin man and thought it would be fun to pull over and say hi. Unfortunately, she didn't notice that it wasn't a pull-off and, instead, was a ditch, so she got the van and trailer stuck in a ditch. A group of riders helped take all the stuff out so she could get the van out. This is the second time Megan has got into an accident in the van...

Anyway, we enjoyed lunch and even cracked open the frosting.

I took off with Sarah, Tatiana, Andrea and Jenna. We were going at a good pace and occasionally stopping for cool pics with large patriotic eagles (pics coming soon). Then we came upon a small climb which meant a small descent, too. Andrea was behind me and Jenna was in the back behind her. Now, the white line had a rumble strip right next to it and then there was maybe two feet of road for us to ride on that had gravel on the other side. Basically, we only had a narrow strip of road for us to ride on. We were kind of trapped.

So picture that little strip of road for us to ride on. Now, picture a 25lb dead raccoon whose carcass takes up that ENTIRE strip. The first three of us riding swerved around it, but Andrea rode right over it. She grabbed her brakes cause she said her bike started freaking out (she even said she could feel its intestines move under her tire) and then she flipped and started rolling. Jenna hit her and also fell. I didn't see them fall, but I heard them screaming. We pulled over and I ran back to them. Jenna was sitting up and screaming. She had a bloody arm. Andrea was contorted under her bike, but said she was fine and told me to go help Jenna.

I'll skip to the end and tell you right now that they are both doing okay, but that is one sight I'd like to never see again. To see two friends lying on the ground and not know if they're hurt, can move or not, or worse, was simply agonizing. I called 911 and they had two ambulances come. A cop did a crash report and then I rode in the ambulance with Andrea to the hospital. They got x-rayed, blood tests, etc. Jenna got stitches in her arm. I was able to go to a nearby ice cream shop and get some donated cups for them to eat. There were a couple times I felt bad because I made Andrea laugh while she was strapped to the body board (or whatever they're called) and she said that hurt when she did that.

Andrea is just really sore and her parents came and got her that night. Jenna is bandaged up and has been riding in the van the past two days. Andrea should be returning tonight, but I'm thinking she might be riding in the van, too.

It feels good to know they're doing okay, but, like I said, it was a disturbing image.

Everyone was already at the AWESOME Kids Sports Arena we were staying at. The people ordered us pizzas and we watched some movies. We had our family meeting that night and then some of us went outside and did sparklers and saw two different fireworks shows nearby.

Like I said, definitely a 4th to remember.