Day 45: Finished

I am not a regular contributor to this blog, but as the one parent who cycled across the country with this amazing group of students, I thought it an appropriate time and place for me to share my sincerest thanks to all involved.   

To the parents (aunts/uncles too)  – I know  just how much work it took to get these kids to the finish line.  I loved getting to know those who drove support, and it goes without saying – we could not have done it without you.  Maybe when these seven have kids of their own, and are asked if they will support their own child’s desire to cycle across the country,  will they then  truly appreciate your collective Herculean effort. 

To those with the Ride2Recovery organization -  you gave us true purpose.  Without this particular mission,  I don’t think we would have experienced the incredible outpouring of support along the route – particularly in the west and mid-west.    Because of you, we received an invaluable education, and I will be forever grateful .   

To the host families, churches, other fiends made along the way - your generosity and support of injured vets, and these students,  was an inspiration to us all.  Hopefully, our paths will cross again at some point in the future.  

To the veterans who shared in this experience with us – specifically, Tyler Boudreau, Kenny Butler, Jaime Cruz,  Jack Shepard and Mike McNaughton - I enjoyed getting to know you all.  Tyler, a special thanks to you – the one who spent an entire week to support this group.  You provided much needed conversation (and I was a little needy after 5 weeks with 7 teenagers), and more importantly,  much clarity regarding our mission.    You are an amazing group of people, and I hope we will remain in touch.

Last but certainly not least, to these seven remarkable students:  I am so proud of you all, and hope your “take away” was as rich as my own.   We learned much about group dynamics and communication - more than any college course will ever teach you.     I know most of you were skeptical about me at first, but I’m hoping I exceeded expectations (which I think were pretty low).   You all know by now that I assess people for a living, and if you guys are any indication of what is in the “future leader” pipeline, this country has nothing to worry about.     I hope you will keep your promise to me – when my own kids refuse to have dinner with me during one of my trips through Concord, that you’ll happily come out for a meal with me instead!  Thanks to you all for allowing me share in your incredible journey; it has changed my life.   (Now that the trip is complete, does this mean you now will all be “de-friending” me on Facebook?)   I love you all.

-- Anne Keyser

Day 35: 78 Miles

Today we decided to try something new. The heat wave that has been rolling through has been devastating to our biking, leaving us tired, sweaty and dehydrated by 10 in the morning. After discovering on Tuesday night that today was supposed to be the hottest day yet, the girls of the group made a drastic decision; we were going to leave at 6 in the morning, meaning we would have to wake up at 5:30. The boys decided that this sounded too intense for them, so they opted to sleep in and leave at our normal departure time of 8. This morning, when 5:30 came (all too soon) The girls reluctantly rolled out of bed and into clothes and onto our bikes. The first 30 miles passed in a zombie-like state with almost no talking. At mile 30, we found a gas station and things perked up a bit. By keeping our stops short and our average speed at 20 mph, we were able to roll into the campground at 11:30, where we promptly jumped into the lake to cool off. The boys and the trailer joined us 2 hours later, and we were all able to enjoy the hot day off of our bikes and in the shade.

-Anna Hymanson

Day 34: supposedly 92 miles, actually 97 miles

Today we left the country. With the help of our friends from the St. Mark's Episcopal Church, who fed us an incredible breakfast, we were able to locate the ferry.  We were then yelled at by the woman at customs for attempting to take a picture with a sign that read “once you pass this sign you must take the ferry to Canada.” Apparently it is against the law to take pictures of a federal building, even though the exterior resembled more of a candy shop. After making it across the canal, we were able to start our ride. We only made one wrong turn before the first snack break at the local fire station, where the fire chief let us use the bathrooms and take a picture with the old fashion fire truck.  Unfortunately, the second portion of the ride did not go quite as smoothly as the first, and we ended up taking a wrong turn that added an extra five miles to the route.  This caused my mother to begin yelling at the “worthless” GPS unit perched on the front of her bicycle. We all made it to the stop in good time, and only later did we discover that it was trying to take us on a shorter route.  A nice man who owned the restaurant next to the shop let us use the bathroom before he locked up, but poor Luke discovered only a few minutes to late that he had left his water bottle inside.  Luke was devastated even though we have extras, because his water bottles would no longer be matching and one of them would not have a Camel back jet squirt top.  With his newfound anger, Luke pulled us the last fifteen of our final thirty-mile section into Port Stanley. Upon our arrival, we went swimming in Lake Erie, and later had dinner in a near by restaurant.

Lia  

Day 33: 88 Miles

Monday July 18th

The day started off a bit earlier than usual, at 4:15, when the skies opened up on us and dumped some rain on us. Our tents held for the most part, but the rain was powerful enough to wake us all up to get the no-longer drying towels spread across the picnic tables and lawn. When we actually got up at the usual time, we were a bit slower in downing some cereal. As we started, everything was going well. We didn't even get lost. However, at mile 14, we came across some train tracks. For some reason, the lovely tracks were built as parallel to the road as possible while still crossing the road. Being mostly asleep, we did not think quite enough about crossing them perpendicularly, so we had a bit of a tumble. Lia, Luke and Brit all fell, and Lia ended up with 5 stitches in her elbow. She told me specifically to talk about how she was bleeding profusely, which, I admit, she was.

Nothing else really happened, but it rained for the last ten or so miles. So we finished up at St. Mark’s Episcopal church in Marine City, Michigan, where we generously given showers, a delicious meal, and a roof over our head shelter us from the night’s coming showers.  

Tucker Burleigh

Day 32: 94 Miles

Sunday July 17th

Word of the day: LOST. I stopped counting after the 10th time we stopped analyzed the maps, Garmin GPS, and a location application on my iPhone to figure out where we were going! It was crazy how many times we got lost and had to call the support vehicle for help. However, it was a beautiful hot day and we were surrounded by wonderful guests who were riding with us so getting lost today wasn’t as frustrating as others. We had 13 riders at one point-- it was quite the crew. Jaime Cruz rode for the first 60 miles with us. Jaime served as a Marine and then entered the National Guard at which point he was deployed to Iraq. He still serves as a MP and participates in the Ride2Recovery challenges. Jaime was entertaining to ride with and put a smile on all of our faces with his stories and jokes. Jaime was actually quite the jokester. At one of the rest stops he snuck up behind me with an ice cold glass of water and poured it on me! It was ridiculously hot so it felt refreshing. Sandy and Dave Hahn (R2R volunteers) also joined us for the first 20 miles of our route along with John Everett and Bets Kent who rode for 30 miles of the day.  For the majority of the ride we were on bike paths which was fantastic because it allowed us to get off the busy roads and ride side by side with our guests where we could share stories and enjoy each other’s company. After all our guests had gone their separate ways we were back to our typical 8 riders. The heat was immense and slowed us down. We were sure to keep applying our sunscreen, hydrating, and eating our CORE bars for energy as the sun beat down on our backs. We rolled into our campground around 7:00pm where we had (at our request) breakfast for dinner! YUM! Omelets, fruit, bacon, potatoes...what a feast! It got dark before we knew it. The realization began to set in that we were now so close to the East Coast and the sun didn’t set at 11:00pm like it did in Montana! So...We were doing dishes in the dark with headlamps strapped to our foreheads. It was an entertaining thing to watch as water was flying everywhere when we were trying to clean. After a while we decided that it was “camp clean” and promised we would clean it better before the next big meal. We filed into our tents and went to bed. The girls decided that we would sleep without our rain tarp on because it was so hot outside. BUT, at 4:00am it started thundering and lightening. Thankfully our trusty support vehicle helpers: Nicole (Better known to me as Mom) and Cathy (Aunt) put our rain tarp back on before the rain began. I was EXTREMELY glad to wake up not sleeping in a puddle. THANKS MOM AND AUNTIE CATHY! 

T-Minus 12 days until Maine. This amazing journey has gone by oh so quickly. Such a bittersweet feeling. I'm having the time of my life.

Brittany Marien

July 16^th 2011

            Today was an amazing day for not only the SPS cyclists but for the cycling community.  The weather was nice and it was also our first day where we had a bike trail that we all could ride fast on.  The feeling of no cars passing you makes everyone feel so comfterable with each other.  It was a very relaxing 99 miles because of this path.  Later on in the day there was another surprising event.  We had our first visitor riders join us.  The four Ride2Recovery volunteers were very appreciative and supportive of this expedition that we are pursuing.  Also seeing new people and getting to talk to them was great.  We all finished at a gorgeous house owned by the Turner family, who let us sleep in their house for the night.  That night we all went swimming, boat riding and filled our stomachs with pulled pork, fruit and other delights.  We finished our day with a nice and relaxing night that made us all shut our eyes and fall asleep.  And so it goes.


-Luke Noreña

Day 30: 44.1 Miles

Friday July 15th


Dear blog,Today was the best day of my life. The morning was slow and tired and my knees were stiff while the SPS cyclists and I rode 44 miles to lake michigan. It felt long and brutal for what was called a rest day but in the back of my mind I knew (we all knew) it was A VERY HARRY FERRY DAY. We boarded the SS Badger ferry from Manitowoc, WI to Ludington, MI unknowing of what was in store. This ferry was not any normal ferry. It felt like a huge cruise ship (all that was missing was a pool and rock climbing wall) floating on lake michigan. Once Badger Idol was mentioned, everyone (Brit and I) was excited to participate (unknowingly forced) in this competition for a very coveted miniature trophy, fame, and bragging rights until the next ferry took off in the morning. By the time two hours had passed, Brit and I had visited the Micheal at the cruise director's booth 4 times (each time diligently looking at the hundreds of songs for the karaoke contest). Somewhere in our many visits, we managed to sign up Lia, Anne, Tucker and Luke for musical numbers without their knowledge or consent. When we broke the news to Lia, there was a lot of blushing and pleading but in the end she was forced up to the stage and belted out Your Love by The Outfield. Anne in the last second backed out (saying that she only sang to family members) and then Tucker and Luke came in with their rendition of Ain't No Mountain High Enough and then for the grand finale Brit rapped and Anna and I shared the singing of Love the Way You Lie by Rihanna. After the meager clapping (that decided the winner), lia was crowned champion as she was the clear crowd favorite but in the end they just wanted to get back to Badger bingo to win magnets and pencils. Four hours and a new time zones later, we left the ferry ready for dry land and a special surprise of Aaron's brother waiting for us on the other end. After a huge hug, we went on our way with an extra because Harry Potter 7 Part 2 was going to start in half an hour (we were on a tight schedule). We all excitedly took our seats with two large popcorns, three large drinks, and lots of candy in the packed theatre because my dad had bought us tickets in advance. When everyone started dying in the movie, an lady in front of us started bawling and violently hushed all of her friends around her when the tried to calm her down. It was quite a sight such that we could barely manage to muffle our chuckles. To top it off, she yelled at the screen "is that really it?" after the two and a half hour movie came to a close. Then all eight of us squeezed into Aaron's brother's five person car and there was some tickling, squirming, and squealing, but we eventually made it with a rush at the doors when the car stopped movie. Then to top it all off pizza and clean laundry awaited us in our motel room by the awesome Cathy and Nicole Marien. The day we had been looking forward to since Montana had finally come and gone and so our sights switch to Niagara Falls, our next rest day.


-Anna Richardson