We rode into Kalamazoo two days ago. I wrote the Official JOH journal entry for the first day in Michigan when we rode to K-Zoo. The entry isn't posted yet, but once it is I'll try to put up the link since I don't want to re-write an entry for that day.
Today we rode from Kalamazoo to Lansing. We started with a continental breakfast at the Sherman YMCA last night, which is near Gull Lake. Today's ride was a little hillier than yesterday, but it wasn't bad. The pace was pretty high; for a while we were cruising on the flats at 24-25 mph and going uphill at 20 mph with no wind. We rode in near downtown Lansing and could see the top of the capitol, but that was about it. We also rode through part of the Michigan State campus and right past the Breslin Center where the basketball team plays.
We arrived at the Lusters' house here in East Lansing just before lunch. Ben Luster was a JOH rider from UofM who rode in 2006 and his parents' and the parents of a couple other former riders sponsored the team in Kalamazoo and Lansing. I hadn't met Ben before today, but had a chance to chat earlier today so it was cool to share experiences. They provided us with goodie bags that had Michigan JOH t-shirts, a window sticker for our cars, and snacks, which was awesome.
Actually all of the Lusters' neighbors prepared us dinner and are generous enough to put us up in their homes tonight, which is incredible. It's awesome just to be in a house, as weird as that sounds; it really gives a sense of normalcy to be in a house, even someone else's house.
Tomorrow we ride to Ann Arbor, which is incredibly exciting because Mom will be there as well as Matt and Sherri. Plus, it will be cool just to be some place that I know.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Chicago to South Bend
None of us wanted to leave Chicago. We woke up early and had a sponsored breakfast in the park overlooking the city. Breakfast was awesome and so was the view.
We started out riding south along the bike path in the park until it dead-ended on the south side of the city. The view of the city and the lake early in the morning was beautiful. We stopped and took pictures of the skyline from in front of the aquarium. Once we got off the bike path, it wasn't quite as scenic. We entered Indiana without much fanfare because we were riding through a pretty heavy industrial area east of the city. From there we rode through Gary, Indiana, which a lot of guys said was a scary ride. The neighborhood was pretty bad, but all the people who came and talked to us were really nice. They had a great big banner in the middle of town in memory of Michael Jackson since that was his hometown. Also there was a nice little minor league ballpark in Gary too. Once we left Gary it became a lot more rural and the riding was much more relaxed.
Unfortunately we got racked at mile 70 when we were scheduled for 90 because we had to get to town to do our Kids on the Block puppet show. However it was totally worth getting racked because the show at the HealthWorks Kids' Museum in South Bend was hilarious. It was probably the best show all summer.
After dinner, which was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, I went to McDonald's with most of the rest of the time to witness the 10K Challenge. All summer guys have been attempting several different challenges on the bike to make the ride more interesting, such as:
- No Seat Challenge - don't sit on the saddle all day
- Saltine Challenge - nothing to eat on the bike all day, but saltines and water
- Black Coffee Challenge - black coffee in the water bottle all day instead of water or gatorade
- Starvin' Marvin Challenge - eat nothing on the bike all day
The 10K Challenge was to eat almost nothing on the bike all day and then make up for it by eating 10,000 calories in two hours at McDonald's. Three guys signed up. No one came close. But Scott Asher ate 6,600 calories before losing nearly all of them on the side of the road on the way home. The most impressive part might have been the fact that he started off by consuming over 3,500 calories in the first 20 minutes we were there. It started off entertaining to watch, then progressively got less fun.
We started out riding south along the bike path in the park until it dead-ended on the south side of the city. The view of the city and the lake early in the morning was beautiful. We stopped and took pictures of the skyline from in front of the aquarium. Once we got off the bike path, it wasn't quite as scenic. We entered Indiana without much fanfare because we were riding through a pretty heavy industrial area east of the city. From there we rode through Gary, Indiana, which a lot of guys said was a scary ride. The neighborhood was pretty bad, but all the people who came and talked to us were really nice. They had a great big banner in the middle of town in memory of Michael Jackson since that was his hometown. Also there was a nice little minor league ballpark in Gary too. Once we left Gary it became a lot more rural and the riding was much more relaxed.
Unfortunately we got racked at mile 70 when we were scheduled for 90 because we had to get to town to do our Kids on the Block puppet show. However it was totally worth getting racked because the show at the HealthWorks Kids' Museum in South Bend was hilarious. It was probably the best show all summer.
After dinner, which was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, I went to McDonald's with most of the rest of the time to witness the 10K Challenge. All summer guys have been attempting several different challenges on the bike to make the ride more interesting, such as:
- No Seat Challenge - don't sit on the saddle all day
- Saltine Challenge - nothing to eat on the bike all day, but saltines and water
- Black Coffee Challenge - black coffee in the water bottle all day instead of water or gatorade
- Starvin' Marvin Challenge - eat nothing on the bike all day
The 10K Challenge was to eat almost nothing on the bike all day and then make up for it by eating 10,000 calories in two hours at McDonald's. Three guys signed up. No one came close. But Scott Asher ate 6,600 calories before losing nearly all of them on the side of the road on the way home. The most impressive part might have been the fact that he started off by consuming over 3,500 calories in the first 20 minutes we were there. It started off entertaining to watch, then progressively got less fun.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Chicago Day Two
The second day in Chicago as I mentioned Bill and Sarah were nice enough to let me do my laundry at their apartment. Plus I got to watch Fast & Furious with Bill.
Afterwards we had lunch at sponsored by a former JOH rider at Chipotle on State St. at Division. It was delicious, but I overdid it with the Tabasco.
The afternoon I spent pretty lazily. Picked my laundry since it wasn't done drying before lunch. Got a cup of coffee. And cleaned up before dinner.
Dinner was at a pizza place called Lou Malnati's on Wells St. It was good, authentic Chicago-style pizza. The sponsor was Adam Solarz from Miami of Ohio who looked really familiar. And it turns out he graduated in 2006 and rode that same year and knows Adam Dick, Jon Bos, and the Brothers Kozak.
Also on our last night in Chicago, the Art Institute had free admission after five o'clock, so Ray and I met Kozak who came straight from work. We didn't have a lot of time, so we just saw the Impressionists, some of the contemporary galleries, and an exhibit on architecture and design. The architecture and design exhibit was really cool. Also they just opened a new wing for the contemporary and modern collections along Millenium Park and it seemed really cool, I wish had had more time to check it out.
Also as an aside we determined that the circumference of the Earth is just over 24,000 miles. So our trip this summer is just shy of one eighth of the circumference of the entire planet. Pretty crazy when you consider most of the planet it covered in water.
Afterwards we had lunch at sponsored by a former JOH rider at Chipotle on State St. at Division. It was delicious, but I overdid it with the Tabasco.
The afternoon I spent pretty lazily. Picked my laundry since it wasn't done drying before lunch. Got a cup of coffee. And cleaned up before dinner.
Dinner was at a pizza place called Lou Malnati's on Wells St. It was good, authentic Chicago-style pizza. The sponsor was Adam Solarz from Miami of Ohio who looked really familiar. And it turns out he graduated in 2006 and rode that same year and knows Adam Dick, Jon Bos, and the Brothers Kozak.
Also on our last night in Chicago, the Art Institute had free admission after five o'clock, so Ray and I met Kozak who came straight from work. We didn't have a lot of time, so we just saw the Impressionists, some of the contemporary galleries, and an exhibit on architecture and design. The architecture and design exhibit was really cool. Also they just opened a new wing for the contemporary and modern collections along Millenium Park and it seemed really cool, I wish had had more time to check it out.
Also as an aside we determined that the circumference of the Earth is just over 24,000 miles. So our trip this summer is just shy of one eighth of the circumference of the entire planet. Pretty crazy when you consider most of the planet it covered in water.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Glenview and Chicago Day One
The day before last, we rode about 62 miles to Glenview/Northbrook, Illinois, which is in the northern suburbs of Chicago. We didn't have a friendship visit, but we did have a presentation and dinner from a former JOH rider named Seth Klondar who gave us a good presentation on how to apply what we learning on JOH into the workplace and how to use it to help in our future job searches. It was pretty informative.
Also Kozak rode along with us from Glenview into Chicago yesterday so he met us the day before at the YMCA where we were staying, so it was awesome to see him again.
The following day we had to get up early to get out of the Y, so we just rode first to a Dunkin Donuts for coffee and donuts, which was pretty sweet. We then rode about 15 miles to the Neuman Center in Chicago on the north side for a friendship visit and lunch that was a lot of fun. After lunch, we rode all the way down Clark St. to our lodging: the Palmer House Hilton. The ride was cool because even though the street was busy we got to see a lot of the character of the city, but especially cool because we went right by Wrigley Field during a ballgame. It was sweet to ride past the stadium when it was packed and the streets were full of people. Also I was riding with Kozak and we went right past his apartment building. We're staying at the Palmer House, which is a five-star hotel, because they sponsor the team with rooms every year. The hotel, not surprisingly, is incredibly nice. We had a little free time in the afternoon, so I just relaxed and caught up on some of my journal entries. Then dinner was sponsored by Joseph Freed & Associates, a pretty big real estate developer. The dinner was in the break room at their office, which was right in the Loop and awesome. They had foosball, pool, and ping pong. I played foosball and was able to recapture some of my talent from college and only lost one game (by one goal).
After dinner I met with Kozak, Bill Kraus, Sarah Z, Mike Olson, and a couple other folks. Bill just took the Illinois bar exam yesterday so we hung out at his and Sarah's apartment
to celebrate. They have an awesome balcony with a great view of the Sears Tower and the rest of the Loop. We had planned to go out to the bar, but all just decided to take it easy and stay in. It was really nice to just have a fun, relaxing night with some old friends.
Today Bill and Sarah were kind enough to let me use laundry machine in their apartment (and their wi-fi) and I'll be going out with some team members and probably Kozak again tonight.
FYI, this is the eighth post I've done today (sorry again), but the blog only shows the last seven, so there's another new post if you click over to the Older Posts.
So far I'm loving JOH and especially this visit in Chicago.
Also Kozak rode along with us from Glenview into Chicago yesterday so he met us the day before at the YMCA where we were staying, so it was awesome to see him again.
The following day we had to get up early to get out of the Y, so we just rode first to a Dunkin Donuts for coffee and donuts, which was pretty sweet. We then rode about 15 miles to the Neuman Center in Chicago on the north side for a friendship visit and lunch that was a lot of fun. After lunch, we rode all the way down Clark St. to our lodging: the Palmer House Hilton. The ride was cool because even though the street was busy we got to see a lot of the character of the city, but especially cool because we went right by Wrigley Field during a ballgame. It was sweet to ride past the stadium when it was packed and the streets were full of people. Also I was riding with Kozak and we went right past his apartment building. We're staying at the Palmer House, which is a five-star hotel, because they sponsor the team with rooms every year. The hotel, not surprisingly, is incredibly nice. We had a little free time in the afternoon, so I just relaxed and caught up on some of my journal entries. Then dinner was sponsored by Joseph Freed & Associates, a pretty big real estate developer. The dinner was in the break room at their office, which was right in the Loop and awesome. They had foosball, pool, and ping pong. I played foosball and was able to recapture some of my talent from college and only lost one game (by one goal).
After dinner I met with Kozak, Bill Kraus, Sarah Z, Mike Olson, and a couple other folks. Bill just took the Illinois bar exam yesterday so we hung out at his and Sarah's apartment
to celebrate. They have an awesome balcony with a great view of the Sears Tower and the rest of the Loop. We had planned to go out to the bar, but all just decided to take it easy and stay in. It was really nice to just have a fun, relaxing night with some old friends.
Today Bill and Sarah were kind enough to let me use laundry machine in their apartment (and their wi-fi) and I'll be going out with some team members and probably Kozak again tonight.
FYI, this is the eighth post I've done today (sorry again), but the blog only shows the last seven, so there's another new post if you click over to the Older Posts.
So far I'm loving JOH and especially this visit in Chicago.
Milwaukee - Day Three
The last day in Milwaukee we had a busy day of friendship visits. We started off with breakfast at the Independence First offices. Oh and I should give thanks to Kathy of Independence First who planned the whole time we were there, which was awesome.
After breakfast we went to a Milwaukee summer school for kids with disabilities and did our Kids on the Block puppet show, which the kids really enjoyed. Then we got to play on the playground with the kids and that was a blast. The kids were so much fun and it was really cool because we got one of the girls to try to fireman's pole and monkey bars for the first time and she was super-excited.
Afterwards we got to play wheelchair ice hockey at one of the US Olympic training facilities in Milwaukee. Wheelchair hockey was a ton of fun. Gabi from the day before showed up and played as well. It was really hard but the trick was to keep moving because starting was tough because your wheels would spin, but then once moving it was easier to keep going. But there were a couple guys there who were ringers, but we still managed to tie them (although we had about two to three times as many players).
Later that evening we met with a group of adolescent girls from Independence First who were differently abled at a mall. We did a scavenger hunt with them to help them develop confidence and social skills. We also did accessibility surveys of three stores in the mall to determine how "friendly" they are to people with disabilities. Barnes & Noble was good, but lacked braille signage, whereas Starbucks wasn't very good - counters to0 high for a wheelchair, displays cluttered and hindered access in a wheelchair, and they didn't have any braille menus.
It was an awesome couple days in Milwaukee.
After breakfast we went to a Milwaukee summer school for kids with disabilities and did our Kids on the Block puppet show, which the kids really enjoyed. Then we got to play on the playground with the kids and that was a blast. The kids were so much fun and it was really cool because we got one of the girls to try to fireman's pole and monkey bars for the first time and she was super-excited.
Afterwards we got to play wheelchair ice hockey at one of the US Olympic training facilities in Milwaukee. Wheelchair hockey was a ton of fun. Gabi from the day before showed up and played as well. It was really hard but the trick was to keep moving because starting was tough because your wheels would spin, but then once moving it was easier to keep going. But there were a couple guys there who were ringers, but we still managed to tie them (although we had about two to three times as many players).
Later that evening we met with a group of adolescent girls from Independence First who were differently abled at a mall. We did a scavenger hunt with them to help them develop confidence and social skills. We also did accessibility surveys of three stores in the mall to determine how "friendly" they are to people with disabilities. Barnes & Noble was good, but lacked braille signage, whereas Starbucks wasn't very good - counters to0 high for a wheelchair, displays cluttered and hindered access in a wheelchair, and they didn't have any braille menus.
It was an awesome couple days in Milwaukee.
Milwaukee - Days One and Two
From Rockford, Illinois, where we stayed after leaving Iowa, we rode to the suburbs of Milwaukee. We had a friendship visit for lunch and that night went to Pewaukee Lake for a dinner sponsored by the family of a guy who rode a few years back. They had a cool little cottage on the lake and took us out on the boat for a trip around the lake. It really reminded me of northern Michigan. It was a nice relaxing evening.
The following day we had our second shortest ride of the trip of 15 miles to Milwaukee. On the ride into Milwaukee, the city reminded me a lot of Hamtramck, Mich. It just feels very blue-collar. When we arrived we met with Independence First, which is an organization dedicated to helping people with disabilities live on their own. We met Gabi, a little girl with spina bifida who was just a ton of energy and fun. She was really cool. Independence First had a bunch of wheelchairs and we got to play wheelchair basketball, tennis, and softball. Basketball and softball I felt like I could pick up relatively quickly, but tennis was nearly impossible. I could only hit the ball if it was in just the right spot because it was so hard to maneuver the chair laterally. We also played goal ball, a Para-Olympic sport for the visually impaired. Basically three people stand opposite each other and try to roll a ball past the other team. The ball is a little bigger than a basketball and has bells in it. So we played that with blindfolds, which was pretty sweet.
Later on that night we went to a bar on Water St. downtown called Duke's since we had a day off the bike the next day, which was a lot of fun. Ray and I met a couple locals who we were hanging out with who later on gave us a lift back to lodging. It was nice to get out and relax since we had just completed 13 consecutive days of cycling, the longest stretch on the trip.
The following day we had our second shortest ride of the trip of 15 miles to Milwaukee. On the ride into Milwaukee, the city reminded me a lot of Hamtramck, Mich. It just feels very blue-collar. When we arrived we met with Independence First, which is an organization dedicated to helping people with disabilities live on their own. We met Gabi, a little girl with spina bifida who was just a ton of energy and fun. She was really cool. Independence First had a bunch of wheelchairs and we got to play wheelchair basketball, tennis, and softball. Basketball and softball I felt like I could pick up relatively quickly, but tennis was nearly impossible. I could only hit the ball if it was in just the right spot because it was so hard to maneuver the chair laterally. We also played goal ball, a Para-Olympic sport for the visually impaired. Basically three people stand opposite each other and try to roll a ball past the other team. The ball is a little bigger than a basketball and has bells in it. So we played that with blindfolds, which was pretty sweet.
Later on that night we went to a bar on Water St. downtown called Duke's since we had a day off the bike the next day, which was a lot of fun. Ray and I met a couple locals who we were hanging out with who later on gave us a lift back to lodging. It was nice to get out and relax since we had just completed 13 consecutive days of cycling, the longest stretch on the trip.
The Rest of Iowa and crossing the Mississippi
After Winterset we had about another week in Iowa. The rides were all very similar: rolling hills with lots of cornfields. But it was better than Nebraska because the farms were smaller and it was a lot more visually interesting. Plus there weren't many days during which we had bad headwinds. We stayed at a couple camps in Des Moines and Dubuque, which was interesting because they were staffed mostly by college kids from England and Ireland. Evidently there's an organization that staffs all those camps for kids with disabilities and recruits students from overseas.
We had rain on two other days in Iowa: going into Iowa City where University of Iowa is located and again on the way to Davenport. On the ride to Davenport I crashed for the first (and hopefully only) time of the trip. I was riding fifth in a paceline of six when Ray, the third guy, accidentally dropped a wheel off the road down onto the gravel shoulder (did I mention the fact there are no shoulders on the roads anywhere in Iowa). He tumbled over and Matt, who was directly behind him, couldn't avoid him and neither could I. I also couldn't swerve out into the road to avoid it because there was a truck right behind us. So I crashed right into them. Ryan who was behind me was able to drop down off the road on the right and missed the whole crash. Fortunately no one got injured and there were no serious bike damages. Just Matt bent him shift lever and I have two big, nasty bruises on my thigh. But I'll take that any day if that's as bad as it gets.
From Davenport we rode across the Mississippi into Illinois. It was really cool to ride across the Mississippi because it's one of the largest rivers in the world and has been so important in the history of our country. Plus I've always thought of it as one of the major dividers between the east and the west. So it was a great landmark to cross. The first day in Illinois had a couple long climbs that I actually really enjoyed, then in turned into rolling hills. The hills were really dangerous because there was no shoulder, the road was really bad, there was a ton of traffic, and the rolling hills made it hard for cars to see ahead. Fortunately we made it through okay, but the highway patrol told us we couldn't ride the remainder of the day due to minimum speed limits on the road ahead, so unfortunately we had to rack and only got to ride about 65 miles when we were supposed to do 110.
We had rain on two other days in Iowa: going into Iowa City where University of Iowa is located and again on the way to Davenport. On the ride to Davenport I crashed for the first (and hopefully only) time of the trip. I was riding fifth in a paceline of six when Ray, the third guy, accidentally dropped a wheel off the road down onto the gravel shoulder (did I mention the fact there are no shoulders on the roads anywhere in Iowa). He tumbled over and Matt, who was directly behind him, couldn't avoid him and neither could I. I also couldn't swerve out into the road to avoid it because there was a truck right behind us. So I crashed right into them. Ryan who was behind me was able to drop down off the road on the right and missed the whole crash. Fortunately no one got injured and there were no serious bike damages. Just Matt bent him shift lever and I have two big, nasty bruises on my thigh. But I'll take that any day if that's as bad as it gets.
From Davenport we rode across the Mississippi into Illinois. It was really cool to ride across the Mississippi because it's one of the largest rivers in the world and has been so important in the history of our country. Plus I've always thought of it as one of the major dividers between the east and the west. So it was a great landmark to cross. The first day in Illinois had a couple long climbs that I actually really enjoyed, then in turned into rolling hills. The hills were really dangerous because there was no shoulder, the road was really bad, there was a ton of traffic, and the rolling hills made it hard for cars to see ahead. Fortunately we made it through okay, but the highway patrol told us we couldn't ride the remainder of the day due to minimum speed limits on the road ahead, so unfortunately we had to rack and only got to ride about 65 miles when we were supposed to do 110.
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