Story by Tim Swett

We started the day fresh with at least 6 hours of sleep. Each group, previously determined by Mike, slept in their respective houses. A group of girls slept at the Hopps, and the guys were split into two groups to sleep at the Nymans and the Ripkas. We were all treated to breakfast by each of our hosts. I have to say, they were all nice to us. Our next mission was then given to us by our hosts, which told us to meet back at the Nyman household for our next password. When we arrived, Mike gave us a devotional about the bike trip, and how it related to the "paths of our lives." He gave us 15 minutes, and then came back to give us our next password which told us what we were going to do next. The password, "gazebo," led us to North Park University, in the heart of Chicago. We were scheduled for a campus tour, during which we were to find the name of a statue near the gazebo in the courtyard. This gave us the next clue, which gave us the option to pick from five big museums in Chicago. But first, as many teens have to, we needed to feed ourselves. There were two restaurants in which we had the option to patronize -- a Thai restaurant or a Swedish restaurant. Both had very good food.

We split into three groups; one went to the Field Museum of Natural History, one to the Art Institute of Chicago, and the last to the Museum of Science and Industry. The next password was to be found in the Field Museum; the name of one of the statues, which was found to be "Record." We were then to go to dinner at Giordanos, a restaurant that supposedly makes some of the best pizza in the entire world. After we met everyone at Buckingham Fountain, Tim O. and Chris showed up saying that Mike was parking the van. Thirty minutes later, Sue received a phone call from Mike, who said he had parked the van, and would arrive in about ten minutes in a taxi cab. He had parked the car at the destination we would be walking to after dinner. We then walked almost a mile to Giordanos. There we figured out the next clue, the name of the restaurant, and found that we were to go to the Chicago Navy Pier. Pete, just by coincidence, knew the next password, which was the first word of the IMAX movie that played on Navy Pier, "ultimate." He remembered watching a commercial on TV about the IMAX Movie. Mike's jaw dropped. From this we discovered that we were going to crash in Chicago once more, but the groups would have to rotate houses. As we sat at dinner that night in the restaurant, Mike remembered that he received an email from Jeff the previous evening. JeffO, being the comedian he is, explained to us in a comical way how he was surviving through the recovery of his surgery. We all wish he were here; we miss his humor! A few moments later, Susan Ripka walks into the restaurant and joins us for dinner. When we finished, everyone walked to the trolley stop after dinner, where to our dismay, we found out that we missed the last trolley to Navy Pier by two hours. We walk to the pier, which is about two miles away, where we watched the fireworks and rode on a huge Ferris wheel.

The fireworks were awesome, and upon their completion, we all met back at the Original Red Radio Flyer, fifteen to twenty feet tall. Mike, Sarah, and Chris then walked to the van and met us about fifteen minutes later. We drove by the Buckingham Fountain while it was lit at night. It looked really nice in red.