Champaign and Urbana, Illinois

An amazing day for sure! Last night, Bill went to the campground office to talk to Bob, the gentleman I met yesterday. He is friends with the Chief of Police in Urbana and called him right then and there. He handed the phone to Bill and they talked for awhile. He is picking us up for breakfast! We met at the campground office at 7:50 and Chief Connolly drove us through town and told us some of the history there. At Perkins, we met Mary Schenk, a reporter from The News-Gazette who interviewed us while we all had breakfast.

Thank-you Mary, it was nice meeting with you! County Sheriff Dan Walsh showed up next with a patch for us

and we all got a picture together.

Thank-you Sheriff! Chief Connelly traded patches and coins with us,

then it was over to the Urbana City Building where Lieutenant Fitzgerald took us on a whirlwind tour of the Urbana Police Department until the Chief was free...

we met so many friendly and pleasant officers!

I need a secretary to follow me around to write names down for me! Thank-you all so much! Since it was going to be awhile until we met Channel 3 for an interview at noon, the Chief drove us over to the Champaign Police Department where we met Deputy Chief Joe Gallo. What a wonderful facility they have. We saw everything from evidence rooms to the big SWAT team truck.

How could I resist getting a picture of these 3 handsome guys in front of this truck?! :)

Lots of veterans of the Iron Man competitions too! Again, met so many nice people that we thanked along the way. The Deputy Chief gave us a coin, patch, and mug and later gave us a SWAT team patch.

We received an interesting SWAT team patch while we were in St. Paul from one of the bicycle officers there and at the end of the day, it had a new home with Deputy Chief Gallo. Then it was time to meet reporter Anna Carrera for the Channel 3 interview. She was pleasant and thorough and was genuinely interested in what we were doing. Part of the interview was done in the Urbana City Building

and they filmed Bill on his bicycle right here in the campground. Thank-you Anna, nice job on the interview! (Nice shoes too...) Chief Connolly was instrumental in calling the media in and asking different people to come and meet us. Thank-You Chief and thank-you especially for the job you do. After the filming, Bill had a flat tire he needed to fix and some general maintenance on the bicycle.

While he was working, another gentleman from the Sheriff's Office pulled up to thank us and we thanked him. We talked outside for awhile and I can't imagine how hot it must be to have to wear those bulletproof vests in this record heat. I was just dripping and was only standing there. Thank-you sir for the job you do. So with the heat index of over 100, we are chilling in the little beach house on wheels planning out tomorrow's ride. Thank-you for reading.