Everyone woke up in a complete panic, “WHAT TIME IS IT?!?!” It was later in the morning, and I hadn’t heard from the Wingmen and James. I got out of the RV to discover that James was all ready to start the swim. No big deal for me, but the big surprise was that the Wingmen were still sleeping. James thought it would be a fun surprise to the Wingmen to let them sleep-in. He had woken up on his own, so he just got going.
The Wingmen panicked! They totally freaked out, thinking that they had abandoned James and not been there to do their duties. They were kind of mad at him (unoffically), but were soon in speedos, climbing the big slide (I think it was a slide) to make their debut for the morning. They danced at the top of the slide, and then entered the water, swimming a bit with James.
Annie Rubens was organized, and I mean ORGANIZED! I was approached, “Here is your binder for the day.” This thing was legit, something Carlee Lilley Tulett would have died to have thumbed through. I sat poolside and visited with Nettie Weber and Ryan Vanderloop, who is a Blue Seventy employee. He had come to support James, and had brought a slew of things that James needed. James’ speedos managed to go missing on our journey; he had been down to one for a long time!
When the swim was over, we went inside to a beautiful breakfast in a side room. The kids had woken up and came in with us. We had breakfast together as a family! It was awesome! We had all the food that we could possibly want, and the kids were so excited to be able to choose from the options.
We separated from James at this point. I am not sure if he left from the pool on his bike, or if they drove him somewhere. But we had somewhere to station ourselves for the day, the house of KT Anne and her husband Todd in Sun Prairie. Initially we were supposed to go to the house of Tammy Coplien, but the swim was changed from open water to a pool, so our station for the day changed. Tammy took the food over to KT Anne’s house, and we are so grateful for her hospitality, even though we didn’t crash at her house for the day. Karen Price Dwyer was there with KT to make sure that we had everything we needed. We were able to visit with them for a while, since we stayed at the house for several hours before we took off for the day.
There was LOTS of laundry to be done, and lots of showers to be taken. We had the Zyto people come to the house as well, and they set up their computers for the day. There was food and places for people to sleep, anything we needed. I remember going downstairs into the family room to make a phone call to USADA (yep, another long phone call, that was completely unnecessary). It was dark and cool, and the Wingmen were there sleeping on the floor. They were going to get a solid 4 hours of sleep today, instead of only 1-2 hours!!!! Wink, wink.
I actually had a really great time in Wisconsin. It was so beautiful, I remember thinking, “I could TOTALLY live here!” But then I thought about winter, and it is probably worse than Utah. One reason it was special is that my friend Susie Baughman Espinosa lives there. She was a friend of mine in Utah, we met at the gym, and we did classes together for years. Her husband was going through dental school, and she ended up in Wisconsin. She didn’t have a lot of time, but she brought some of her cute kids to see me! They came by the house, and visited for a bit. It was so thoughtful of her to drive to come see me, and it really meant a lot! Love her, and so grateful she came to see us.
Another reason it was special was that my friend Liz Lewis came out. Liz is the generous person who let us crash at her house before and after the 50. THEN, she let us leave stuff in her garage for a year after until we had our feet back underneath us. Liz is a grandma, and I am sure that it was a lot to have all of us stay with her. We had another place arranged, and she insisted that we stay with her. So when the documentary comes out, and you see James riding his bike inside, these shots were at Liz’s house. We love her forever and ever. And to be even more awesome, she came out to see us! She brought her grandson Conner with her, he is friends with Lucy and Lily. They had their own hotel, and were totally independent, they just wanted to come out and support us.
When we had everything taken care of at the house, and the day grew later, we were ready for an adventure. What was suggested was the State Fair. This made me so happy! I felt like it was a totally Wisconsonian thing to do in Wisconsin!!! That is what I wanted on this journey, fun local things to do. I packed all of my things up to leave for the day; Liz and I went to the State Fair!
The kids were so excited to see the carnival all set up. The weather was starting to get rainy-ish, but the rain hadn’t quite started yet. The sky was dark, which I thought was great because it kept the weather cool. We separated into two groups: big kids and little kids. The big kids went on their way with other crew members, and Liz and I visited while we took the little kids around. It was SO NICE to be able to visit with Liz, and to have smiles on every, single, kids’ face!
It started to sprinkle a little, but we didn’t care. We blew through all of the tickets to ride the rides, and then it was time to try fried cheese curds! This was a must, according to the locals. They were very salty and yummy! I love cheese and salt, so hey, what else could you ask for. We had to share them, because they were super salty, but we definitely loved them. We decided to go see the animals. We went insides and saw giant pigs, horses, and equestrians. It was such a great day, and a fun activity that was different from what we had done throughout the journey.
It was time to find the RV, and the rain was coming down. Our group re-united and we got the directions to the RV. Like many other times, we were taken by GPS to somewhere random, and eventually found our group. It was POURING rain by now, and we are talking flooding-raining! We climbed in the RV to see James and to seek cover. It was so humid and muggy in there, and there were lots of bodies adding to the mustiness.
We were trying to get the money transferred to the Jamie Oliver Foundation. Yep, we are on state #41 and still trying to get things figured out with them! We had the link for donations to go directly to them, but we had trouble getting info for the wire transfer. It was so stressful, because James wasn’t there to do it, and it was through his business bank account. We had managed to get info out of him before he left the RV to start his run. He had said, “We will do it later,” which wasn’t good enough for me. I insisted that he could not leave that RV until it was done (remember, James was a zombie!). We got the info we needed, James went outside, stood under a canopy, waiting to start his run. I began picking up the RV, while Brian Hancock helped me finish up the transfer.
We moved the RV to the 5k location, and it was still pouring rain! I felt so bad for all of the Wisconsin people! They had put on this killer event, and it poured rain…the whole…night…long…. They had a mascot, a ton of people, and their spirits were up. They did not care that it was raining. We took shirt orders, because we had hardly any inventory after the last few states that had a lot of people at their events. This place was buzzing!
After all the runners were out running, I went in and got the RV ready. Everything was muddy and wet. There were shoes everywhere! I knew there wasn’t much that I could do that day, it would have to wait. The kids left all their wet stuff in a giant pile, brushed/floss their teeth, put on warm, dry jammies, and set their spots off. They had loved their day in Wisconsin!
