Being on the road for about 60 days, the team had no hard time waking up at 5:30 in the morning and on the road by 6:15. Today‘s ride isn’t any different than any other ride. It’s 65 miles to Niles Ohio which are has a nice amount of climb. It is a nice warm up as we climb over the Appalachian. I was joined by Cam, Jason, and Will. We were one of the last pace lines to leave lodging but the first one to arrive at our next lodging. Most of the ride to Niles, we were joined by Mr. Jim Karlovec who put together the first Journey of Hope team and planned the route a year after Mr. Bruce Rogers did his cross country trip. He told us the story of how he came to creating and planning all the logistic on how the trip is going to be. Our time on the bike flew by as we listen and share our stories with our pace line that we were cruising crew vans to crew vans.
Lunch was provided at lodging and there was even some rare time in between lunch and our friendship visit for the team to take naps. The friendship visit was one of our signature dance parties with a big turn out and plenty of excitement.The team felt like a famous athlete visiting the town when everyone started asking for our signatures. We move and groove to every music played. Everyone has a smile on their faces. It’s an amazing feeling to see an individual smile or laugh which took out the tiredness we felt after the ride. The Olive Garden in town was gracious enough to host us for a delicious pasta dinner. After the dinner, we headed back to lodging were a had fun to play games and had fun with everyone as this trip is winding down
Jantzen Pascual
Cyclist