I was really excited for the ride today because I was finally riding with the last guy on the team I haven't ridden with, David, and he is the rock of the team, the determination and drive that guy has is inspirational. He isn't a beast of a cyclist in speed but he will push himself harder than anyone on the team to get as many miles done as possible. We were told we would have a tail wind today but that really don't happen, we started off with a good cross wind and slight head wind so we were moving slow, about 25 miles in David's asthma was giving him a hard time and he was struggling to breathe and getting light headed so when we got to a crew stop he decided to rack until he felt better. So then it was just Dylan and I for a bit, but not too much further down the road Dylan slipped off the road into the gravel and fell onto his knee, he was fine but about 5 miles later got shooting pain in his knee and had to pull off immediately and could barely put weight on his leg. We sat down and waited for the last two pace lines and van to catch up to us and Dylan racked for the day. I can't ride on my own and the only pace line with a spot was the sweeps line that had two guys, Bott and Max, so I threw on a sweeps jersey and jumped in with them. We had a great ride, rode for another 65 miles with them and talked the whole time. We were moving pretty slow because a couple guys ahead of us were hurting but it was no problem. A few highlights from the ride, other than the conversation, came after we passed the tiniest town I have ever seen with a population of 10. We had just left the town and passed a field of sheep with a couple dogs barking so we barked back at them as we passed but then I glanced back and see the dog hop the fence and start running after us so we sprinted away on our bikes for a quarter mile until the dog gave up. We were laughing about it for a while, it was hilarious. A ways after that town we saw some signs for Hell's Half Acre overlook, sounded pretty cool so we stopped by real quick to check it out, it was this jagged red rock canyon, a sign told us that Native Americans would drive Bison into the canyon during hunts, brutal. Lastly, later on in the ride towards the end we passed a field of probably 12 horses and as we came up to them they ran over to the fence next to the road and then ran along with us for about half a mile, they were just following us up the road it was so cool! We didn't get to finish the whole ride because of time but we did 85 miles and had a blast the whole time so it was a great ride as always, despite loosing my whole first pace line and the crazy cross winds again.
Our lodging is a whole new story. We are at the Kelly Walsh High School in Casper WY. They are going through a major renovation/expansion so a lot of the campus is closed off but the high school is huge! Because of summer training camps we got put in the underground gym which is pretty sketchy and run down. The foam mats and turf are disintegrating and gets all over everyone's stuff but we made it work, I dragged in a mat from the room next door that has a plastic cover so I don't have to sit on the nasty foam which made it a lot better.
Our friendship visit was with NOWCAP which is North West Community Action Program. They have an awesome facility and are doing great things. On site they have a great dinning area, theater room and internet cafe, library and office space and two onsite employment centers for their members, a E-Recycling place and a antique refurbishing center. They are also renovating and adding on more too. they have 3 group homes across the street and nursing care on staff almost all day every day and on call 24/7. It was an amazing organization. We had a BBQ and played games with them at our visit. They had a sponge toss game and life size angry birds game, the top scores for both got cool prizes, gift cards and Clif crunch bars. I hung out with a guy named Carl who had just moved to Casper from Las Vegas 4 months ago to be closer to his aunt, he was so fun, loved football so we talked about the Superbowl for a bit because he was a Broncos fan and Seattle crushed them. When we left he was so sad and kept saying he just didn't want us to leave it was hard to go.
After our friendship visit we went strait to the movies with everyone and saw 22 Jump Street which was absolutely hilarious, I am sure we will be quoting that movie all summer long. Tomorrow we have a day off to hang out and clean vans and a friendship dinner in the evening with The Arc of Natrona County.
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