Today was another long day in the bike saddle. Today was our second Century ride. We rode 100.7 miles. To attain an extra four miles we rode up and hill and then back down right outside of Baker.

Today was also a long day because of the heat, flat tires in my pace line, and chip and seal pavement that makes for a very bumpy ride.

We entered Utah today early on in our ride. I rode with Kyle from Purdue and David from Iowa today. Unfortunately, Kyle exploded his rear tire and without a spare was unable to complete the last 20 miles of the ride with us.

For dinner we ate at a local Mexican restaurant called Zapatas. The food was good but the air conditioning was not working properly thus It became very hot with a lot of bodies and hot food. It was a nice reprieve to then was the team vans at the car wash as well as getting fresh strawberry milkshakes at the Delta Freeze. These were awesome and so cheap as well.

I am looking forward to getting to Salt Lake City in 2 days to have friendship visits again after a week without them. Where we travel in the desert there are not centers for people with disabilities, but this time was great to bring our whole team together and give us great bonding time.

Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers!

Love & Honor,

Beau

Today I rode with Alex and Travis, both from Georgia Tech and both experienced riders. I enjoy pushing myself when I ride with them and really learn a lot. 

The wind today was downright scary as we were going downhill. It was blowing us all over the lane and no braking was helping with being blown around. Luckily we all made it safely to Baker despite the wind.

Once in Baker we were shuttled to a truck stop on the state border to shower. Let's just say I'd be ok to never go back.

After our showers we went to Lehman cave. This place was awesome. So many cool underground formations and a lot of cool stories of uses of the cave. We also explored the national park and climbed (in our minivans) to over 9500 feet to a lookout area. There was still snow on the mountaintop which is astonishing considering the valley has reached over 100 degrees.

For dinner we were treated by many of the Baker residents to a fantastic home cooked dinner. They have hosted JOH for as long as the teams have come through here. 

They also talked to us about their court cases against Las Vegas for trying to take their water to sustain their own expansions. It was awesome to see how passionate this town is and how they rally together to stand up for themselves and their livelihoods. 

Tomorrow we ride 100 miles into Delta, Utah.

It has been a good time in Nevada and the desert but I am ready to move forward into another state.

Thanks for praying for our team!

Love & Honor,

Beau 

The loneliest road in America got lonelier.

Today I rode the almost 80 miles with Doug from NIU. We finished first, but it was a very, very long day.

Headwinds were the story of today. I made the mistake of complaining about them yesterday. Today they were about 3x as strong. There were moments where we felt as if we were going to be blown off the road and even had to peddle while going down steep grades because the wind was trying to blow us back up the hill.

Once at White Pine high school we were treated to a dinner by their student council. We then performed our team dance (sorry, no pictures), which they got a kick out of watching us.

After dinner a good number of us went to see man of steel at the local theatre in town. My personal recommendation: don't see unless you love incredibly extended action scenes. The movie was very long, but it was fun to hang out with everyone.

Tomorrow we will be trekking to the tiny town of Baker. We will be increasing their population by about 50%!

Once again thanks for checking in!

Love & Honor,

Beau

Today was probably me least favorite day of riding.
I was in the first pace line to finish, riding with Chris from GA Tech and Luke from Purdue. We cruised along pretty well, but there was a headwind almost the entire day. Also, the desert got incredibly boring so I was happy to finish early today.
After the ride we got about 2.5 hours of free time aka nap time. After riding for about 200 miles in the past 2 days it was nice to get extra rest.
For dinner we were hosted by the Eureka Lions Club. They have hosted JOH for over 20 years. We had a great meal that really hit the spot, and cake that cannot be beat.
Tomorrow will take us to the town of Ely, about 80 miles away.
As always, thanks for checking in!
Love & Honor,
Beau

The Loneliest road in America.

Today we started out in Fallon, Nevada and road to Austin, Nevada: population 168.

The road was completely in the desert, I can count on my hand the number of houses we saw all day. I rode with Chris from GA Tech and Alberto from Iona College.

The temperatures soared to 105 today which made the 112 miles very hot. Luckily it is dry heat and not the humidity that we have in Ohio.

We were treated to dinner by the ladies of Austin tonight. They cooked us a full out Thanksgiving dinner. It was AWESOME! They have such big hearts and you can tell they truly love having the Journey of Hope guys in town.

Tomorrow we are back on Highway 50.

Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers!

Love & Honor,

Beau

Not a whole lot to report on today.
We woke up at 4:30 to go to a breakfast sponsored by the Carson City Kiwanis.
We then hopped on our bikes and departed on our 65 mile ride into Fallon. I rode with Alex from GA Tech and Blake from Texas Christian. We averaged a speed of 18.6 over the course of the ride, and we made it into town much quicker than anticipated.
Once in town we went to the high school where we are staying and got our things ready to go for the night. It is nice to have downtime to relax and get caught up on things.
I am currently in a public library using their internet.
We have a friendship visit and sponsored meal tonight before tomorrow when we ride 112 miles to Austin, Nevada through the desert. It is going to be a very hot and long day.
As always, thanks for checking in on me!
Love & Honor,
Beau

Today was a short 35 mile ride into Carson City. After about 2000 feet of climbing we had 4000 feet of desent into the flatlands.

We had two friendship visits. The first visit we were given a police escort.

The first was at the Boys and Girls Club of Western Nevada. We played on the playground with the kids and then some of our guys put on a disability awareness puppet show. Following the puppet show the kids were also taught about bike safety.

The second visit was to the children's museum. This place was AWESOME! We got to act like kids again and play with all of the interesting displays and toys. We also did two puppet shows and bicycle safety.

Next we headed to lodging, showered up, and went to team dinner.

We were hosted by the Carson Rotary and this meal was phenomenal. It was great to talk to all of the local leaders in business. I also met a woman from Haviland, OH who grew up 2 minutes from my mom and knows our family. What a small world.

Once again the Internet is terrible out here and won't be getting any better. I will update with photos as soon as possible, but we are headed to the desert so it may be a while.

As always thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

Love & Honor,

Beau

A day in Tahoe.

Today we had the day off to kind of do as we please after yesterday's ride. This means that today was an errands day.

This morning a good chunk of the team went to Denny's for breakfast and then ran errands. I bought a new air mattress (my other one lasted 3 nights) and mailed some extra clothing home.

We then hung out at the beach for a few hours. We all got the opportunity to stand up paddle board. This was incredibly fun but also incredibly difficult. The downside was that the water is only 62 degrees so every time I fell in it was freezing.

After paddle boarding we are lunch on the beach and just hung around for a while.

We then had a few hours to run more errands which meant laundry time. We have very limited opportunities to do laundry so we have to take full advantage of them when we can.

Next we were then treated to a great dinner at a local restaurant. The Blue Angel and the family that own and operate the restaurant have been fantastic to us these last two days and have been incredibly accommodating.

Tonight we have the opportunity to get reorganized for our ride into Carson City tomorrow. It's a 30 mile ride and a lot of downhill, thankfully!

Thanks for checking in on my journey, more photos will be coming tomorrow from our two friendship visits.

Love & Honor,

Beau

I made it! 10,500 feet of climbing, 95 miles and 3 mountain passes after 10.5 hours we made it to Tahoe. Full post tomorrow morning when I have more energy as well as wifi

Post continued:

We started cycling at 7:45 this morning. The climbs were sustained for the first 6+ hours meaning there were virtually no downhills. This made for very, very slow cycling, we averaged only about 8 miles per hour until the tail end of the trip.

Once we got through Carson's pass, at over 8,000 feet, we had a nice, long downhill. This was quickly stopped by another smaller climb up Luther's pass. Once we passed Luther's pass we his a 6 mile downhill on a 6% grade. I hit 50.1 mph on this downhill (sorry Mom) and it was quite a thrill.

We finally arrived in Lake Tahoe at about 6:15pm, finishing what is said to be the hardest day of our ride. We greeted other team members arriving and then went and took quick showers. We then ate at a local pizza place and then headed back to lodging. We stayed in St. Theresa's fellowship hall, which barely holds all of us.

Thank you for your encouraging thoughts and prayers today, it was an awesome experience that I will never forget!

Love & Honor,

Beau

Day 3:

Today was a fairly simple 50 mile ride from Sacramento to Jackson. I was a sweep today which meant that myself and Jeff from CU Boulder were the last pace line that made sure all of the riders were accounted for.

One make think being a sweep would be nice to rest; this is true. It also was frustrating at times when we would get in a rhythm and then happen upon another line stopped for a flat tire. This of course means that we had to stop, wait, and let them get ahead.

Along the journey our crew do fun "challenges" in which they have us do eating and drinking challenges involving milk, orange juice and coffee. Today was a challenge in which we had to eat 3 pieces of birthday cake at a stop and then continue on. Jeff and I completed it, and thankfully it was on a fairly "easy" day.

Because I was a sweep today that meant I got to lead us into our friendship visit. We took 3 laps upon arrival and then we stopped and greeted the people at the friendship visit.

We had a great time signing autographs eating and just visiting with the people during this friendship visit. There were probably 50 to 75 people with disabilities that we got to visit with today as well as their caretakers.

After the visit we rode to our lodging which is a high school. Unfortunately, there is an incredibly steep uphill that we now call hotdog hill because everyone ate hotdogs shortly before we had to write up the hill and everyone felt that said hotdogs were going to be making a return visit.

For dinner tonight we ate at Mel's diner a local establishment. The local Lions Club made us spaghetti, salad and awesome cookies as well as cheesy bread.

After dinner we all came back to lodging and got our bikes prepared for tomorrow's very long treacherous journey. Will be embarking on a 95 mile ride from Jackson to Lake Tahoe. Included in this ride are several mountain passes and about 10,000 feet of climbing. This day is said to be the hardest day of the Journey of Hope North route and it comes on our fourth day of the trip. The anticipation behind this day is huge. Tomorrow I will be riding with Saurabh and Jason my Miami fraternity brothers. We will be on our bikes for almost 12 hours.

Please pray for our entire team tomorrow that we all finish strong and make it in before the sun sets.

Love & Honor,

Beau

PS sorry today's blog post is so scattered looking I am doing it from my phone.