Today was another day of climbing through the Appalachian Mountains. Today I rode with Derek from TCU and Doug from NIU. In all actuality I rode with pretty much the whole team. It was incredibly foggy at the beginning of our ride and there was a lot of climbing. Pretty much the entire team was at the same crew stop at the same time and we all decided to go down the mountain through the fog together. This is definitely frowned upon for safety reasons, but with it being our second to last day we decided to give it a go. The crew was hesitant to allow it to keep happening, but eventually just let it happen. It made the day go so much quicker riding with 20 of my brothers; we tackled mountains and then enjoyed some steep downhill’s weaving in and out of each other. With about 25 miles left on the ride we got on a bike path that ran on old railroad tracks along the Potomac River. It was a very scenic ride; we rode along hundred-year-old telegraph lines and most importantly it was incredibly fast and we cruised right along. Once we reached lunch we divided back into our pace lines to ride into town and lodging for safety purposes.
Once at lodging we showered and got ready for our last friendship visit of the summer. We ate dinner with live-in clients of the Potomac Center, which serves people with severe intellectual disabilities. Many of us helped feed the clients their dinner of KFC potpie and applesauce. It was such a learning experience for all of us. I take for granted how easy it is to do simple tasks for me like eating meals. We made sure to purée their food, made sure that it was cool enough, and also that it we fed them at a slow enough pace that they could swallow all of their food. We were not able to have conversations with the clients, but it was incredible to see the joy on their faces to be around 35 guys that cared about them and took time to just sit with them.
After dinner we had some time to clean up our bikes and take naps. I chose the latter. We have had many hard days on the bike, many early mornings, and many late nights on the trip and after over two months my body is just completely pooped. I would never trade any of it for anything and we always remind each other whenever someone complains of being tired, “No one ever looks back on JOH and says ‘Man I wish I would’ve slept more.’”
To finish off the meeting we came together as a team just to reflect on the summer and provide each other words of encouragement, wisdom, and moments where we all exceled this summer.
One more day of hard riding tomorrow and then Saturday is arrival.
Thanks for keeping up with my blog and praying for the entire team this summer.
Love & Honor,
Beau
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