So over this project. It's due on November 4th, so just a few more days of this.
Went to meet Steve and his friend Larry at Chipotle for lunch today, only to find that they've reverted to takeout only. Illinois' Covid is rising and the governor has been threatening to lock things down again, but this must have been some kind of corporate mandate.

Locally, our mayor is following the example of other communities and saying that he won't use police to enforce the coming ban on indoor dining. There's been a lot of pushback from the restaurant industry on this, with many stating that if they are shut down again, they will go out of business, so they are going to just go ahead and remain open.

Worked in the office most of the day --- it was kind of a cold and rainy day so good for being indoors. Met up with the roadie bunch for dinner. One couple is headed to Florida this weekend and had just cleaned up their garden and had a plethora of garlic and butternut squash. I took a small bag of garlic and one of the squash -- not sure yet what I will do with it.

Supposed to be cold and rainy today. I've got an appointment mid-morning to get new tires on the van, and this afternoon have a project kickoff meeting via Teams. Good day to be indoors

WILD GOOSE GRAVEL GRINDER - Sumner, MO
Loved this event! It's a 3 hour drive from home so we spent the night in Marceline, MO, (no hotels any closer than a 20 minute drive). It was 34 degrees at the start. Realized when Steve and I were gearing up that I'd forgotten my gloves, so borrowed a pair from him which worked out just fine, even if my hands were swimming in the gloves.

This gravel ride (we did the ride, not the 80 mile race) had a fun twist in that there were "Swag stops" scattered around the course. Over the course of the ride, we collected:
Stop 1 - hand sanitizer. They had little stroopwaffles with peanut butter, and Bailey's Irish Cream shots (we did not partake)
Stop 2 - Little fork and spoon sets meant for camping. Super cute. They had vodka shots. Again, we didn't bite.
Stop 3 - In the town of Brunswick -- you posed on a little zebra print chaise (copying Salsa Bike's "chase the chaise") and had your picture taken. They then gave out bandannas with the race logo on them. Oh, and the chaise is set up in front of a gigantic statue of a pecan, hence the "World's Largest Pecan". There was a coffee shop open where you could hit the restroom and get a cup of coffee.
Stop 4 - Swag was a cuzie (sp?) cup. I had a Slim Jim at this stop.
Stop 5 - Swag was a large button with the race logo on it that double as a bottle opener. A volunteer was cooking bacon over a campfire and we ate our share.

Beautiful course withe just enough climbing (2200 feet) to keep things interesting. There was a bit of a headwind from the NE.
At mile 28, my Garmin, which has been dying a slow death, went completely blank and nothing would bring it back on. I'm usually the navigator, so this was worrisome. We were riding with a guy from O'Fallon, MO, and a girl on a beautiful All City bike. Things went well until we made a left turn when we should have gone straight. To be fair, it did look like going straight would have put us in someone's driveway, but All City girl and I both felt it was not the right thing to do, but she had no navigation either.

After a couple of miles, we somehow ended up at a crossroads where 2 other 50 mile guys and a guy from Kansas City who was doing the 80 and had gotten hopelessly lost all convened. We ended up riding aimlessly through the country with this group until All City girl pulled the route up on her phone. She and I decided we could pick the course up again if we backtracked a bit. This worked out well and eventually we were back in business and rode the rest of the course with the KC guy.

Afterwards we changed in the van and then walked up to the town's Wild Goose Festival, where we knew one of the vendors. Visited with them a bit and then got some BBQ from a food truck and headed home.

On the way home, we stopped in Marceline and did a quick tour of Walt Disney's boyhood home museum. Really, really nice museum that gave a look at Disney's life on the farm when he was quite young.

Got home about 7. I'm pretty sore and tired, but in a good way.