Following Esther thru the woods

We started our day early with a 4 AM thunderstorm. We stayed in camp a bit longer this morning and had coffee in the tent as we were waiting for the rain to stop. My banana this morning had 867-5309 scratched into it and I have no idea who put it there! the picture with Tara and her bowl on the top of the tent was funny because we looked a long time for that bowl!. The campground host was a giant dog, a fancy farm dog. Kelly came up and then eventually we took off and arrived late, so we went to the fueling (feeding yourself) seminar. We decided to ride the Esther green trail, which is a mountain bike route in Kohler park on our gravel bikes. It was really fun! It was a bit muddy in spots because of all the rain this morning. Then we went to a tire workshop and had lunch just before a big ride returned. We road with the rowdy girl at 2 pm, we rode the rowdy Gowdy with this woman from Colorado who runs an organization to make bike riding more accessible to people of all walks, talks backgrounds. It was hot, long sections of gravel that were fun. Lots of grassy buttercup filled fields with occasional herds of cows. Met even more new people started to feel a bit overwhelmed by all the greetings that take place when you meet somebody new, but all really awesome people. made it back to the event location and then debated on whether to leave or not or wait for the party or leave, clean up and go back to the party, but in the end we decided to head out because we were getting very excited about Working on our bike packing simplicity model. On the ride to the hotel, it rained a bit, but it was so hot, so it just cooled us off a bit. We arrived at the hotel, and brought our bikes into our room and stripped them down and decided to do the next three days ultralight. Tara left her sleeping bag behind but has a sleeping sheet, we left the stove and the dishes, And the fuel, and all the clothes and the shoes. So what do we have with us? Just the basics. Snacks, tent, sleeping pads and I have my sleeping bag. we have our riding shorts and top and our PJs and a rain set. We also have a repair kit and our headlamps but really that’s about it….. this will be a new adventure, traveling light!