Arrival in Chi-Town

Not many challenges to this morning before the ride except to drink two liters of diet coke, which I decided not to do. The big challenge was dodging the traffic and potholes that seemed to be everywhere in Chicago. This is the largest city we've been to on this trip and seeing the downtown area while cycling through it was a lot of fun. We even saw people walking to a Wrigley field for a day game.

We have some nice digs at the 5-star Palmer House Hilton. We usually do not stay in places like this. It's usually a high-school gym or a community center. The manager said that they did a 170 million renovation of the hotel in the past year. In addition the Hilton has been donating these rooms to Push for 6 years running. Well I can't wait to see more of Chi-town in our two days here. I am at an Internet cafe right next to the hotel, there was no way I was going to pay $15 dollars to use the Internet at the hotel.

Glenview Illinois

The ride to Glenview was somewhat chaotic, but a lot of fun. The night before a few of us decided to start some more challenges on the bike. We decided to eat only saltine crackers during the 70 mile ride and the next morning we decided to also drink only soda. We had to finish a sleeve of saltine crackers before the ride was over, which was fairly easy, but we ran out of soda a few times. We were able to stop at a gas station and get some free fountain sodas for the rest of our ride.

The team had lunch and burger joint, which was sponsored by Jimmy Vaeth’s parents. Right now I’m doing laundry before we go to dinner. Tomorrow we make the ride to Chicago. I can’t believe that this ride is coming to an end. I feel like it’s gone by so fast. I guess I shouldn’t dwell on the past month and a half, but focus on the next couple weeks and live it to the fullest. I hope I stay in contact with these guys after JOH is over, I could see some of them being life-long friends.

Wisconsin

Our ride to Waukesha wasn’t too bad; we didn’t have a tough head wind for most of our 95 miles. We had an arrival which, I did not get to ride in because when I went to grab my bike to ride to the picnic and my front tire was flat. It was probably from the many potholes I nailed riding into Waukesha. We had great lunch and friendship visit with the workers and clients of independent first.

We had an awesome dinner at a Pi Alpha’s parent’s house, which is right off a lake. We got to go jet skiing, tubing and play Bache ball. Tomorrow we have a tough 15 mile ride into Milwaukee.

Two fun filled exhausting days in Milwaukee. Our schedule was pretty packed for these two days. The ride was fun into Milwaukee, our pace line tried to do the golden arches challenge by going through the McDonald's drive through and ordering something off the dollar menu, but there were no McDonald’s on the way to Milwaukee so the challenge will have to be done another day. We had lunch at a local school where we were able to play wheel chair basketball, softball and tennis. We also play goal ball, which is a game for people who are visually impaired. So we put on blackout goggles to see what the game is like. The object of the game is to throw the ball, which has bells in it so that everyone can hear it on the opponent’s side and get it past them, which equals one point. Later that night the team decided to explore the downtown area of Milwaukee, which was a lot of fun.

On our day off we had breakfast and Independent First, which is an organization that serves people with disabilities. They also sponsored all of our events for our two days in Milwaukee. We also got our care packages that morning, thanks mom and dad. After breakfast we did a KOB presentation at a local school. I participated again and it went much better. The kids have some very funny questions, most of which have nothing to do with our puppet show.

Later that day the team had a lot of fun playing wheel chair hockey at a local skating rink. At night we did an accessibility survey at a local mall while we spent time with pre-teen and teenage girls who have disabilities. We helped them develop some of their social skills in different situations. There was one family that had five girls, all of which has disabilities. There father has to work 80 hours a week mostly for the hospital bills. Hearing some of her stories was a real eye opener for me.

Last days in Iowa

Today we had a ride to Dubuque Iowa, which is our last city in the state. I was excited for the ride because I had originally thought we were going to go over the mighty Mississippi river. However I learned that event would be occurring the next day. The ride was pretty eventful, but dangerous some of the roads were terrible. There were also some tough hills, and we haven’t encountered hills such as these since Colorado, but we also haven’t had many big downhills either. Our lodging was at a local camp outside Dubuque.

Once we ate and got showered we actually went to where most of the movie “Field of Dreams” was filmed. It was pretty cool. It hadn’t changed much since the movie and we got to play baseball on the field. There weren’t many restrictions to where we could go in the area.

We had a great friendship visit and dance for a few hours later that night and got any early nights sleep for tomorrow’s 110 miler.

The ride to Illinois was tiring but fun. There was some confusion on how to cross the bridge to get over the Mississippi river. Once we did we encountered some big rolling hills and some dangerous traffic. Once we got to mile 65 which is where we had lunch and finished our meal we learned that everyone was going to be racked for the day. Apparently the road we were on had a minimum of a 45 speed limit, and it was too dangerous for us to ride on the road. I thought we might be able to keep it at a 45mph pace, but that’s me. We had an arrival at a local Saturn Dealership. We head for Wisconsin tomorrow.

Marshalltown, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City

I decided to be in Ryan Heider's paceline the day we headed to Marshall town. Coincidentally his fiance is from Marshal town and she was preparing a lunch for us at noon. I wanted to get him their as fast as possible since he hadn't seen her in a while. So when It was my time to pull I cranked it up to about 25 to 30 miles an hour over those rolling hills, I was exhausted, but it was a lot of fun, and are pace line got their first.
We had a friendship visit at a bowling alley for special Olympics bowling. Surprisingly it was our first SOB event this summer. During school my fraternity brothers and I do SOB every week. I must say that I am not the best bowler, I hardly bowl over 100, but today I was having the best game of my life. I started over with 5 spares and strike. However I ended with a 131, mostly cause I only got one pin in two frames.
After dinner Alison Zimmer, heider's fiance took J-post and I around town. We even saw the sketchy elf-man's house (look it up on facebook).

The ride to cedar rapids was one of the nicer days in Iowa. It was 80 miles and we were racked for 10 of them because the road was dangerous. Lodging was at the ARC of cedar rapids which is also where our friendship visit was located. At the visit I did some arts and crafts projects with my new friends.
After dinner some of us went to some local establishments in Cedar Rapids. Sam Leaf and I were able to see the end of the Yankee game where Hideki hit a walk off home run.

The ride into Iowa City was eventful since it was raining most of the day, but it was only 30 miles. We had an arrival into the old capital building since Iowa city used to be the capital of Iowa.

Des Moines, Iowa

Today I decided to ride with a ride along. For those of you who don;t know a ride along is usually a person who has already rode JOH or is a sponsor of JOH, who also wants to ride. Ride alongs usually ride with us for a day. However sometimes the crew members want to see what it's like to be a cyclist on JOH for a day. Today Ross Grienke decided to embark on our 50 mile trip to Des Moines. Now Ross is a great guy, but he's not the greatest of athletes and today is the first time he has ridden a rode bicycle. Needless to say I was a little nervous riding with him. It took Ross a while to get into a groove, but he did and started out the day well, but 50 miles is no easy task for someone who hasn't trained. It took us a long time, but we finished and the whole team was waiting at the finish cheering him on. Tomorrow we head to Marshal town Iowa where Ryan Heider's fiance will be providing us lunch.

last couple days

The ride into Grand Island was pretty simple, only 50 miles. It's weird saying that sometimes. I mean to us a 70 mile day is easy. Anyway I only had one flat today, which wasn't so bad. We staged up at the John Deere Tractor dealership for a police escort into Grand Island. We were greeted at the Holiday Inn by a big crowd of supporters. Grand Island has been supporting the Journey of Hope for a long time. After we were introduced I got to do a TV interview with a local station. I thought for a first time interviewer I did well. It was on TV later that night, but I didn't get a chance to see it.
We had Lunch at Tammy Nance's house, who is one of our biggest supporters. We were able to take down some great steaks, play latter golf, jump on their trampoline and play some video games. It was a fun filled afternoon. You should have seen Sam Leafs face when he hopped on the trampoline, he looked like a little kid, we all did.
After Lunch we had a dance and dinner frienship visit at a local Elks club. It was a lot of fun, but very tiring. I still had enough energy to go out and explore the town of Grand Island. There were not many drinking establishments near us in Grand Island so we went to the local Godfather's pizza chain to have some drinks.
The second day in Grand Island was great too. We enjoyed some Arby’s breakfast in the morning and Runza in the afternoon. Between them we had great friendship visits.

The ride into Lincoln wasn’t so bad except for the five flat tires my pace line encountered. We stayed at the local Beta Theta Pi fraternity house. Pi Kapp is actually re-chartering at UNL because they did some bad things in the eyes of our national office. I was to appear in another interview, except I was just riding my bike. We had a two hour long dance we the local ARC center after dinner. Despite my tiredness I decided to explore the local Lincoln downtown area. We went to a local bar, which is supposed to be popular, but on a Tuesday night in the summer, we were the only customers.

Today’s ride into Omaha was interesting. A 50 mile ride turned into 60 because one of our sponsors wanted to lead us to our destination in a very different and unsafe way. Needless to say some riders were not pleased.

Today I also performed my first KOB puppet show. Everything was going well except that we sometimes alter some of the lines in the script to mix it up a bit. I said a funny line and my partner Jim Rampton could control himself from laughing, and then I started laughing. We did eventually stop and were able to finish the skit in a reasonable fashion.

Tomorrow we head to Griswald, Iowa. “Hey is this heaven… No it’s Iowa” (Field of dreams).

The ride into Iowa was very eventful. Crossing the boarder into a new state is always fun. In addition at mile 50 we started to run into a crazy rain storm. Crew made us sit in the vans at mile 55 until the rain slowed down. We had about 15 more miles to go to finish the day. The rain came back again and we were all soaked. Once we got to our lodging, which looked like a house from a horror movie I thought I would get some relief from the cold with a nice hot shower, but on the Journey of Hope it’s not a JOH shower unless it’s cold. We were able to take a nap before dinner, where we had BBQ near a local quarry.

Dexterity, what is that exactly, well it seems to me it’s the agility you have in a particular area of your body. When the other riders spoke of losing dexterity in their hands earlier in the trip I shrugged it off. However over the last week I have been losing dexterity in my left hand. It gets really frustrating because I don’t have the same strength I usually do. Sometimes its even difficult to shift my gears when I am riding. If any of the few followers of my blog have advice on my situation please feel free to give me a call.

Winterset, Iowa; the whole ride was pretty nice. We had some good conversation, good weather and a tail wind to finish the day. We have pretty nice digs at a Junior high school in Winterset; warm showers and internet. So right now I am doing laundry in town. The coin machine did not work so about 15 guys had to go next to the gas station to get about two dollars worth in coins each. The owner got a little irritated. Fortunately the laundryman is a block away from the birthplace of The John Wayne. We decided to go take a look, but none of us decided to fork over the 6 bucks for a tour of a house. We also discovered that the movie “Bridges of Madison County” was filmed in this town as well. Winterset seems to be a famous town. Were going to Des Moines tomorrow. Cya my clothes are almost dry.

Minden, NE

Today was filled with many problems, but the day got better as it went on, however flat tires can always bring a cyclist back to ground zero. It can be very frustrating riding with another cyclist who refuses to take advice or constructive criticism. The best way of dealing with it is to find good conversation topics to get your mind off his bad cycling. We did come up with some good topics, but I can't divulge. Anyway later on in the ride J-post and I thought it would be a good idea to run through some corn fields while the fertilizer and water sprayer was going. I'm not gonna lie we went somewhat deep into that cornfield. You can get easily lost in a place like that, but we found our way back. Later on in the ride we went through a big down pour which gave us a much needed rinsing of dirt, sweat, and fertilizer seeds. The rest of the ride was going fine until I got a flat two miles away from lodging. As we were changing the tire Jimmy's tire popped as well, probably from the heat. So we change both of them and we get on our way. Another mile down the rode I get another flat. This puts me over the top because I know it's my tire. I bought two $65 dollar tires before the trip probably have rode about 700 miles on them and I have to replace them already. Those tires I bought are durable at. In fact they suck; another learning experience. Anyway I was unable to finish the last mile of the day. Hopefully there is a bike store in this town so I can get another tire to do tomorrows ride. It's 50 miles and we have an arrival in Grand Island, Nebraska. Supposedly it's supposed to be pretty cool. Peace out cub scout.

To Nebraksa and Kansas

Today got off to a great start with some wonderful pancakes provided by the boy scouts of troop 35. We had 95 miles to go to McCook Nebraska. Luckily we were about a mile away from the Kansas border. We made a quick little detour to see the Sunflower state. Then we went back on our way to McCook. The entire ride went pretty well. We were able to go see transformers 2 at a local movie theatre. I will also say that their are some bored girls in that town. It was a Friday night and they kept on following us around as we walked back to our lodging. Another 95 tomorrow to finish our four 95 day run.

Wray, CO

Today we all got off to a great start, not only did we get to sleep later than usual, but we had an excellent breakfast provided by the Fort Morgan Elks Club. I feel like since we all conquered the Rockies, the rest of our journey wouldn’t be difficult, however the last two days of cycling haven’t been that pleasant. Yesterday’s scorcher was followed by today’s blistering headwind. The smell of the passing cattle farms, cattle trucks, and grasshoppers also didn’t help the ride go by any faster. However, the games we play and the discussions we have with each other do make the ride more pleasurable. In addition, we grow closer and learn more about each other during each ride. I have always thought that I would have the closest bond with my teammates from my high school wrestling team because the training and dieting was so difficult. But after this trip is over, I feel like I’ll be as close with these guys as I am with my own family. I mean we spend all day with each other. I’m kind of surprised that we haven’t been at each other’s throats more often, but I guess fights don’t tend to occur as much when you are with a great group of guys who want to achieve the same goal. Most of us finished the ride today amid some bike problems and minor injuries and were able to enjoy the amenities of our lodging at the Wray Rehabilitation and Activities Center (WRAC) including a hot tub and a piping hot sauna. In addition, our dinner was phenomenal, one of the best we’ve had all trip. It was a potluck provided by the staff of WRAC. Usually our team is able to polish off all the food, but tonight was no easy task. The staff of WRAC made sure that we were absolutely stuffed. After dinner we performed a successful KOB puppet show for WRAC and their children.

It was a hot one

Today started off well when we were greeted with a wonderful breakfast provided by Matt Cassels mom. It was also a good day because I had just gotten my wisdom teeth out and I finished a 100 mile ride so I felt pretty tough. It turned into a logistical nightmare when two pace lines rode down the wrong street. However my pace line did not make that mistake. No we made the mistake of pushing too hard. It seemed that each person leading the pace was pushing it way too hard. The first 70 miles of the ride sucked because we didn't talk and everyone was trying so hard. To top it off we had a side wind and it was 95 degrees out. After Lunch we decided to calm it down a bit and we also had a little tail wind to make things better. 10 miles after lunch two of the riders in my pace line were racked to a KOB presentation that we didn't know was scheduled. So the four of us finished the day. But we didn't finish without some bumps and bruises. about 10 miles out Adam Caruthers clipped Dan Brown's back tire skidded and fell, I was right behind him so I had no time to break I crashed into his bike went over my handlebars and over his bike and landed on my back and smacked my head against the ground. I had a couple scrapes and an instant headache and Adam has some decent cuts, but we were able to finish the ride.

Wisdom Teeth Weirdness

So for My day off the bike in Denver didn't go exactly as I planned. The original plan was breakfast, then a chiropractor would come do free back checkings or something, then lunch with Dave Fishells family, a friendship visit, then Dinner with the Tanabe family.

Now for what really happened: for those of you who don't know I have been having a pain in my mouth for the past week and it was because one of my wisdom teeth was coming in. It has been very painful to eat over the past week, so I figured something must be wrong. Luckily Meredith Fleishman lives in Denver who I know from back home. Through her I was able to make an appointment at her Dentist for 9am today to see what was wrong.

So I took a cab ride down to 16th street where University Dental Arts is located. When I saw the dentist I got an X-ray of the area of my mouth that was bothering me. The X-ray showed one of my wisdom teeth coming in and putting pressure on one of my molars, which was most likely causing the pain. I was able to get an appointment at an Oral surgeon at 10:15 to get my wisdom tooth removed. So another cab ride later I made it to another waiting room. This place accepted my insurance and everything seemed to be going well until I needed a referral from my primary care physician. I was not able to reach them for a while since it was lunch time back east. Finally I got through to the office and they granted me a referral due to the emergency situation. Everything set up pretty well, but I was a little nervous about the procedure. My brother got his wisdom teeth out and he was inactive for a while. How long would I be off the bike, a day, two days, a week.

My fears eventually dissipated when I learned it would be a simple procedure especially since my tooth was not impacted. I got to experience laughing gas for the first time and I must say it was so weird. I was hallucinating hard core. For a little bit I thought I was dead. I didn't pass out or anything I was just out of it. I think the assistant must have given me a little too much. I asked her if the operation was over even before it started.

The procedure went extremely well and everyone was amazed at my fast recovery. I was able to make to the friendship visit and play wheel chair rugby with gold medal winner from the Paralympics. It's an intense sport. I was also able to enjoy the wonderful steak meal the Tanabe family cooked for the North team.

I happy to say that I don't have any pain at this moment and that I am going to ride tomorrow's 100 miles to Fort Morgan.

Today was definitely an weird experience, but that it what this whole trip is about a life experience. Something that I can look back on. I don't think I will ever forget getting my wisdom teeth out in a strange city. It was pretty amazing how easily everything was set in place. It couldn't have happened without Meredith, my family and the staff at the dentist and oral surgeons offices.

Well I gotta go to bed I'm pretty tired from this eventful day.

Empire Colorado and Denver

So the 40 mile ride to empire was pretty tough, but exciting. The first half of the ride we had a steep climb up to love land pass which is actually 12000 feet in elevation. I tried to call my mom to tell her that I was on top of the world, but no cell phone service. The view was simply amazing. I'll post the pics on my facebook. The downhill was pretty steep with a lot of twists and turns and was a lot of fun as well. Our lodging was pretty nice and everyone got a bed. We had a friendship visit at the summer camp for people with disabilities, which actually brought me back to bad memories of summer camp from my childhood. I couldn't believe the amount of camp songs the counselors knew. It was endless.

The next day was a ride into Denver. It was one of the more beautiful rides I have been on this summer. My pace line and I also got to ride with the man the myth the legend Bruce Rogers. For those of you who don't know Bruce started the Journey of Hope in 1987. The last part of the ride was a downhill with so many dangerous twists and turns, but we all made it down safely. The road looked like one of the roads in those Mazda zoom zoom commercials.

In Denver we got to meet up with the Transamerica route, so I got to see my fellow Virginia Tech brothers. It was a lot of fun catching up with them. Both routes even got a tour of Mile High stadium, which is where the broncos play. When we entered the Jumbo-tron read "Welcome Journey of Hope" it was pretty neat.

The arrival in Denver was probably one of the more important arrivals in the trip. We got escorted to the State Capital by the local law enforcement, where a mass group of people and local television stations were waiting to meet us. Denver is a really awesome city. I feel like I would want to live here after college.

That night we did our "Peddle for Pennies" event where we rode around the local city park lake on our bikes with a person who had a disability to raise funds for special Olympics activities.

Tappin the Rockies

I haven't kept up my blog up to date very well, but in my defense there always isn't Internet access. So I'm skipping a couple towns and putting in parts from various places in the last week.

Anyway Dinosaur Colorado was very interesting place. We got there early because we were racked for most of the ride because of construction. We stayed at a elementary school. Our shower situation was pretty interesting. We showered at a truck stop. I know what your thinking it must have been disgusting. I thought it would be too, however they were quite clean. But the interesting part was that these showers had two shower heads in one shower. So picture a regular shower but with two shower heads. Anyway it was made for two people to shower at the same time. It was quite interesting. Heider my brother from VT were about a half a foot away from each other.

The ride to steamboat springs was fairly simple, but my pace line including me encountered many flats throughout the 40 mile ride. The shower situation was a much better than Dinosaur. We got to the local hot springs spas to shower, but before we cleansed ourselves with soap we did it with hot relaxing natural water.

Today's ride was Breckenridge, this ride was probably the most difficult of the trip. 110 miles into the Rockies, 9,000 elevation. The pace line I was in was doing well. We were the first group into lunch at mile 70, but oddly enough we were the last group out after lunch. I have learned that you can be the fastest cyclist on the team, but if your equipment isn't working well that day, like if you encounter a couple flats you will probably finish last or close to it. It felt really good to finish the ride especially after I kept getting sharp pains in my knee, but that's nothing a bunch of Advil and an Icy Hot patch won't fix.

It's pretty weird that today is July 4th. It certainly doesn't feel like it. After we ate dinner some of the cyclist went out to see the town, which was probably a bad choice because the walk was so long and lodging is up on top of a big hill. Needless to say I am exhausted writing this blog, but my mommy wanted me to update it. I'm going to bed. Got to get up early to hit up Loveland Pass tomorrow: 12000 ft elevation.

Salt Lake City

Today's ride started out great we had some gorgeous weather and scenery. However 30 miles into the ride we came up on a construction zone that did not seem to end. So the team had to rack for the last 50 miles into Salt Lake.

We had our first arrival in a while. We rode into the local Saturn dealership where they provided us with lunch. We quickly showered to get to the local raging waters water park for a friendship visit. We all had a great time with our new friends at the water park. There a particular slide with a big drop and even though all of us were a little hesitant everyone made it down the slide safely. Usually when our team goes somewhere a lot of people stare at us because were such big crowd, but at the water park everyone wasn't staring because of are large crowd, but because we had such weird tan lines. I mean my stomach and back are completely white compared to my arms, legs and face.

The next day we had a day off from cycling, but we had a friendship visit a the National Abilities Center – Bronfman Family Recreational Center & Ranch. This was one of my favorite friendship visits yet. This center is doing some wonderful things for people with disabilities. They have a range of people that come to the center to enjoy their facilities. This week kids with visual impairment stayed at the center. I had the pleasure of spending time with lovely girl named Bridgen, who is blind and has a cochlear-implant due to her loss of hearing at an early age. She was extremely bright. She's a senior in high school and said she wants to be a child psychologist and help children with disabilities. She spoke often about her older brother who wants to be an optometrist to help people who are blind.

Before I spoke to Bridgen the north team got to climb a 30 foot rock wall, only blindfolded. It was pretty difficult and scary.

Payson, UT

Since we didn't have any programming today we decided to the ride a little easier. We also felt some rain showers might catch up with us, but yet again we seem to beat out the weather. Sam Leaf, Eric and I finished second for the day. It took us a couple of hours to get into our senior citizens lodging since there was a party going on. I still don't know why we couldn't join them. I thought a bunch elderly people would mix well with some tired and sweaty frat dudes. Our showers were located at the local high school. Grant didn't have the right keys to get into the shower so we had to go and find the custodian that intimidated Grant a little bit. This school actually had a batting cage and an indoor track.

Since our dinner was not sponsored that night we decided to go out for some Mexican food and also to celebrate Alex Rosell's 21st birthday. After dinner we hit up a little bar, I forget the name. Anyways apparently Utah has some strict alcohol laws, and I thought Virginia was bad. The bar was holding a karaoke competition that night. Some of the acts were a little odd to say the least, but we all had a great time. Tomorrow we got to the city that has a Salt Lake.