Des Moines, IA to Marshalltown, IA

We woke up today at 5 AM to loud thunderstorms. I got ready and started to pack up my stuff and one of the crew members, who was staying in the same hotel room as me, told me that the Project Manager decided to delay wake up until 7 AM, hoping the storm will clear up. The rain isn't so much an issue, but the thunderstorm is, especially concerning safety. We turned on the TV and checked the forecast...nothing but thunderstorms for the 7-day forecast. Yikes! Since we didn't have to get ready until roughly 7:30, we could take advantage of the delicious continental breakfast at the Marriot's steak restaurant downstairs.

After such feast, we headed back to the hotel room where we eagerly waited for further instructions. The storm didn't seem to slow down, and things didn't seem too bright. The ride was a 50 mile ride to Marshalltown, and I was really looking forward to it. I love the short rides like these, because you can basically just sprint them and be done. Hour by hour, the wake up was delayed until 10 AM. Granted it was a great to sleep in, but it wasn't satisfying at all. We had to make it to a lunch/friendship visit by 11, so the project manager made an executive decision to rack us all for the day, and drive to Marshalltown.

There's not much we could do about bad weather like that, hopefully it doesn't affect us anymore the rest of the week. It even sucks, because today would have been an easy 50 miles.

Once we arrived, we went to this cabin-esque banquet room in the middle of a park where we were greeted by many children when intellectual disabilities. We had some fried chicken and watermelon for lunch, followed by root beer float. Afterwards, we messed around with the kids, playing Candyland. There was this one kid, who I guess is really into speedcups, a game where you organize cups into pyramids as fast as you can...sounds confusing but looks like magic. Now I know why I never played Candyland as a kid...cause I'm not very good at it, I guess.

I met this one kid name Cody, and I started playing around with him for a while, friendly wrestling with him, and I could tell I totally made his day...that was a lot of fun. We finished the visit off by a couple games of musical chairs. It got a little too competitive for my liking, though.

After lunch, we went to lodging, dropped off all our stuff, and headed to another friendship visit/dinner.

This dinner was at a bowling ally. I was surprised at the amount of people. There was at least 100 participants. We served them dinner, consisting of a pork sandwich, some beans, and a cookie. Afterwards, we broke off into groups of 6 and started to bowl. It turns out that I'm not a very good bowler. In fact, I didn't even break 70. In my defense, I get pretty bored at bowling, and stop being competitive after like the 3rd frame. So I guess Candyland, musical chairs, and bowling are not my games. That's fine, I'll stick to biking, as its not "bowl across America." The friendship visit was a ton of fun, and went by really quickly.
We headed back to lodging where we had a team meeting. By the end of it, it was already lights out, and time to head to bed. Sure, we didn't ride today, but the day was packed with all the programming.

Yeah, I really don't like days like this where I can't ride, but for a situation like this, there's not much to do. It's just too dangerous to ride in such conditions. Hopefully, the weather improves over the next couple days.