day 18: rolling in (bowling) green 💸

Rest Day in Bowling Green, KY

greetings from the lovely town of bowling green, kentucky! 🌳 i’ve given you a biking blog, i’ve given you a learning festival blog, time to round it out with a rest day 😴 (i just checked and sadly there will be no driving blog from me, but i can give you everything else :))

after the previous night’s fun and games of seeing our AMAZING airbnb for the first time; having a BOMB mac and cheese, watermelon, and salad dinner made by some of the team with ishaq as head chef 🧀🍉 (vegan brownies were eventually brought out for dessert); watching 21 jump street and playing the card game “we’re not really strangers” until the wee early hours of the morning, i got out of my cozy cubby bed bright and early at 10:30am (it probably would have been MUCH later had i not set an alarm…) 💤

thinking i was one of the later ones, i made a quick bagel with cream cheese, poured myself a glass of milk, and headed outside to catch up my parents on the events of the last few days via text and pictures (if you’re reading this, hello! 💗) eventually, joseph and ramona come back from the grocery store, and i am enlisted (willingly) to carry groceries back inside and start helping with breakfast. i am delegated the incredibly important task of DJ-ing for our lovely chefs, and spend a few minutes personally queuing up the best tunes off my various, distinctly named spotify playlists 🎶

soon, we have eggs, bacon, and pancakes as various spokies start wandering into the kitchen. at some point, ishaq disappears and returns with insomnia cookies from down the street (THANK YOUUU), and i decide i must have both a 2nd breakfast and a snickerdoodle (or two)–carb loading, of course! 🥞🍪

i hung out for a while at our STUNNING airbnb provided to us by our learning festival partners in bowling green, procrastinating the various odd tasks i had to do, before deciding i should probably be at least slightly productive with the 2nd half of the day. i threw on a pair of sweat pants and my favorite MIT track and field hoodie, grabbed my laptop, and made the 10 minute trek in the humid, 85-90 degree kentucky heat to spencer’s coffee—recommended to us by the owners of the airbnb ☕️ if there is one thing i think i have the leg up on compared to my fellow spokies, it’s being slightly heat tolerant: blazing heat to me is like a warm, nostalgic blanket. what can i say—i like feeling like a lizard baking in the sun 🦎☀️

i got my usual iced chai latte and a strawberries and cream muffin, and got to work 🍓 before answering emails and other things, though, i first decided that i wanted to make a ranking list of all the iced chai lattes i’ve had on spokes. after reviewing my debit card history (yikes…) and recalling my previous drinks and experiences to the best of my ability, i compiled my list (with locations, days of purchase, notes, and scores, of course). eventually, greta, ruth, and joseph arrive to also do some work with me! we grind for a bit, i step out for a sec to call and chat with my mom, and greta gets a bloody nose :(( but as the evening draws closer (and because the cafe closes at 6pm), we pack up our stuff and start making our way back to our place.

back at spokes headquarters, it’s burrito night! there’s rice and meat, beans, chips and guac, and other various side dishes on the way 🌯 gloria, a friend of greta’s from MIT who happens to live in/near bowling green, has also joined us, and brought scallion pancakes! i think i ate half of the container while working on (and maybe slightly stressing over) my sorority recruitment application. some are consuming the otter pops charles bought a few grocery runs ago and has been dying to freeze and consume (i call them otter pops, but i hear they have other names) 🧊 i break and walk around the house to take a few pics of our place for the blog. after a day of catching up on various things, everyone is chatting, relaxing, and getting ready to eat. life is good! 😌

once food is ready, we make our way out to the chairs in the mini backyard to eat, continue chatting, and enjoy a little bit of the milder summer heat. eventually, gloria makes her way home, we tag team dishes, and the team starts making their way to bed to prepare for our 4th learning festival. this would be our biggest one yet—we would have the usual 4 groups, but each would have around 15-20 kids!!! spoiler alert: we ate it UPPP 🚨‼️

i went to sleep in my lovely cubby bed (an idea that i WILL be stealing one day), dreaming of the lush kentucky greens we would soon be leaving behind for a quick detour in illinois, then a leg in missouri. after our learning festival tomorrow, we have a pretty decent stretch before our next non-biking day, long enough to the point where i’ll be driving the first and last days of said stretch! by the time we set off, i will have had 3 whole days of rest. nice 😎

as i am finishing up this blog, i am parked at one of the rest stops on our way to madisonville, ky—our last stop in kentucky! being 20 days, over 800 miles, almost 2 states, and 4 learning festivals in (or, about ¼ of the way through), i can confidently say spokes is something that has, is, and will change me forever—something that i will smile back on for the rest of my life. even the 15% grade hills of 4-5 days ago are already forgotten in favor of beautiful views, delicious food, smiling kids, and the bestest of friends (the feeling of accomplishment after a long ride or steep climb is pretty great, too, though). getting to explore more of the country i’ve lived in all of my 19 years up close has been incredibly eye-opening. it’s been an honor giving back to my community and sharing the same joy and excitement of STEM i’ve felt many times throughout my own life. the good—no, GREAT—food and deep conversations with hosts, friends old and new, and teammates…i could go on and on, but i’ll end my ranting now ❤️❤️

doing hard things feels both totally AWFUL, and freaking AMAZING.

until next time, which will be a 90-miler to jefferson city, missouri!

with love,

“schmitty” 💗

edit: apologies to ruth for not getting a pic of her room :((