Lake Havasu, AZ - Parker, AZ

Wake-up today was harder than normal, since we all had a great time in Lake Havasu and didn't want to leave the hospitality of the people of Lake Havasu City. We got on the road to head to Parker, AZ, about a 40 mile ride (shorter than most rides), but even at 7 AM, we could feel the heat already. The ride went by fairly quick, with the heat being the only bothersome obstacle during our ride. We all arrived at the Parker Community/Senior Center, where we would be lodging that night. We didn't have any scheduled programming, so it was nice to be able to just relax and take a break from the usual tight schedule. I had lunch with one of the senior residents at the Community Center, a military veteran/inventor who claimed that he was going to invent the next big thing--something about cars, but he wouldn't tell us what he was creating. He was also a novelist on the side, and wasn't afraid to brag about all of his endeavors. We ate some weird chicken & rice casserole, which looked disgusting but wasn't half bad. After lunch, a few of us made a trip to the Family Dollar to pick up a few things, followed by a bike cleaning session and a nap. For dinner, we had a sponsor buy us sub sandwiches and chips from a sandwich chain that I had never heard of. After dinner, we continued cleaning our bikes, and went to bed to get ready for our 115 mile ride the next day.

Lake Havasu, AZ: Day 2

My day began with a late 7:15 AM wake-up for a breakfast sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. We had pancakes, eggs, and sausage--I also had coffee for the first time in about a month, which gave me more of a buzz than I was used to. After we all ate and introduced ourselves, we all teamed up in groups of five to make dashboard cookies. Basically, we all got a tube of cookie dough and an aluminum platter, and had to make some sort of design on the platter using the dough that we would place on our van dashboards to bake in the Arizona sun. My group decided to make a design of Lake Havasu's popular tourist attraction, London Bridge--one of the guys in our group, Sean Palmer (Colorado), is really artistic, so he did most of the work. The mayor was going to judge the cookie designs later that day after they had baked, so we wanted ours to look the best.

After we made our cookie designs, we went over to a Friendship Visit with some of the people we had met the night before at our potluck dinner. I spent my time doing puzzles with one girl, Margaret, and talking about our pets back home. We started on a 1,000 piece puzzle with a few of the other guys, but we had to leave before we could finish. When I got back to the van, I noticed that our once-pristine dashboard cookie had expanded from baking in the sun, and now looked like a giant cookie-blob that looked nothing like London Bridge. A few of the guys were upset that our design didn't look so great, but I didn't really care all that much.

We had a few hours of free time, so I decided to go to the local bike shop so I could pick up a pair of nicer sunglasses for cycling (the ones I had brought are pretty cheap, and fog up easily while cycling). However, a bunch of the other guys who also came to the bike shop had to get more serious repairs done to their bikes, so I had to wait at the bike shop for the entirety of our free time, just to buy a pair of glasses. When everyone got their bikes taken care of, we went back to lodging to get ready for dinner.

Dinner that night was at the house of the parent of a Pi Alpha in Lake Havasu City. Their house was amazing, and had an awesome backyard with a pool, hot tub, a lot of cool little backyard decorations (including a dog house shaped like a little salloon). They barbequed ribs for us, and made us cornbread, corn on the cob, and lots of other great foods. We spent a lot of time in the pool, and later on watched a few episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger to pass the time. We stayed there until late at night, said our goodbyes, and went back to lodging to get some rest. Our crew chief, Mocha, gave me a haircut in the bathroom using clippers one of the other cyclists had brought--having long hair sucks on a bike, especially when its 100+ degrees out. After getting my hair did, I went to bed to get ready for another day of cycling.

Needles, CA - Lake Havasu, CA

I woke up today excited to finally leave California and head into Lake Havasu, Arizona. I love my state and knew I would miss home, but it's hard to feel like you're making progress when you've been cycling for nearly 3 weeks and are still in the same state. Plus, we only had 45 miles, which has now turned into an 'easy day'. I was selected to 'sweep' that day, which mean you and one other cyclist are responsible for staying behind all of the other cyclists so that the crew members know that when you pass, all of the cyclists are accounted for I swept with Ethan Heine (Colorado), one of the faster guys on the team.
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The day went a lot longer than we had expected.--45 miles goes a lot slower when you have to stop for everyone with a flat tire or a messed up chain. We met up with a bunch of ride-alongs (basically guest cyclists) at  a gas station about 15 miles outside of Lake Havasu, who matched up with our team pacelines to ride with us into Lake Havasu. After a very strong and hot headwind, and a few nasty hills, we finally arrived at the WalMart in Lake Havasu, where we had a few police motorcycles ready to escort us into town. Our arrival was longer than we had anticipated--about 10 miles total averaging 12 mph. We finally arrived at our destination, the local community center/aquatic center, where they had a huge sub-sandwich set up for lunch, along with awesome goodie bags prepared for us from the Chamber of Commerce and Lake Havasu Journey of Hope Arrival Committee. When we had eaten lunch, we all went in the vans and to the lake for an afternoon on a houseboat, courtesy of the local yacht club. The boat was great--there was plenty of food, and  the water felt great after a very hot cycling day. More importantly, downtime is rare on JOH, so it was nice to just relax for a little while. After a few hours on the lake, we went back to the aquatic center to shower up and get ready for dinner. Dinner that night was a potluck dinner/Friendship Visit, with lots of people from the Lake Havasu City Community coming through with great food (including about 6 different pasta salads). There was a live band playing lots of different cover songs after dinner, which we rocked out to with our new friends. After the band played their last song, we all cleaned up the gym which we ate in and said bye to our new friends.

Even though it was late, a few of us decided to head into the town to check out some of the bars.  Unfortunately, because it was a Sunday night, there was literally nobody else out at the bars, and the place we had heard sold $1 tacos turned out to not have any such deal. We stuck around there anyway, had a few beers, and went back to lodging to get some sleep before our much-anticipated day off.

Twentynine Palms, CA - Needles, CA

Today started with a nice early 4:30 AM wake up call to get us up for our 100+ mile ride. We had the option of going 125 miles, which I had decided I would do to try to push myself. I pacelined with Matt Calardo (GWU), Matt Reisen (TCU), and Cory Carson (Michigan State). The first part of the ride went well--I had ridden with Matt & Matt before, and they're really good at making jokes along the way and keeping your mind off of the ride ahead of you. However, once the weather got hotter and the day went on, we all got a little more tired and started cycling slower. Matt Calardo did an awesome job of pushing us through the day, maintaining good conversation and asking random questions to keep our mind off of the heat. Hours later, we hit the rack point at 98 miles and had to finish our ride up. While we were happy to have pushed through the day, I was a little upset that I didn't get to do the whole 125 mile-ride that I had set my mind on in the beginning of the day.

Our lodging was at a local Lutheran church in Needles, CA, a very small town in the middle of the desert nearby the California-Arizona border. We dropped our stuff off at the church and went to go shower at the bathroom by a nearby Marina/trailer park. We hung out in the lagoon for a bit to get our feet wet (it was scorching hot) while waiting for everyone else to get ready. Dinner that night was back at the church, where we had an awesome spaghetti dinner prepared for us. We went to McDonalds later on to get some WiFi and check up on what was happening in the world. Because I don't have a iPhone or any sort of Smart phone, it can be easy to get out of touch with whats going on the world. There isn't really enough time in the day to glance headlines, let alone read a full newspaper, so I take every opportunity I can to get Internet and update myself on what's going on. When we got back to lodging, we all crammed into the little room where we had eaten dinner to set up our sleeping bags and air mattresses. We did a quick practice for Kids On the Block (KOB), a puppet show we're doing throughout the summer that features puppets with disabilities to spread disability awareness to little kids. I play Mark Riley, a red-headed puppet with cerebral palsy. When we had practiced enough, I went to bed to get enough sleep in my last night in California before heading into Arizona.

Yucca Valley, CA - Twentynine Palms, CA

Today was one of my favorite days of the trip so far,  mainly because of the low mileage and lots of free time. We had a late (7 AM) wake up, and had only 21 miles to ride that day into the adjacent town of Twentynine Palms. Most of the pacelines decided to race that day--I forgot where my paceline finished, but we finished the ride in one hour and two minutes. After everyone arrived, we had free time for the rest of the day, which I spent napping and listening to music. A few of us went to the 7-11 to get Slurpees to beat the heat, while and other group went to the pool to swim around for a bit. 

For dinner that night, our Project Manager, Paul, decided to take us all to Joshua Tree National Park to grill some burgers and hot dogs. The park was beautiful--there were lots of really cool rock formations, and, of course, Joshua Trees. While Paul and a few of the guys got the food ready, a few of us decided to do some bouldering and rock climbing. I was surprised at how well my Sperry's held up while climbing up the rock formations. Some of the climbs we did reminded me of scenes from 127 Hours, so we were sure to take caution in our climbing. Once the food was ready, we all climbed back down to our picnic site and ate burgers, hot dogs, and watermelon. When we were all done, we went back to lodging (which was infested with cockroaches) and got some rest for our long ride the next day.

Victorville, CA - Yucca Valley, CA

Today started out with an awesome 5:30 AM wake-up, with leftover pizza for breakfast from dinner the night before. We had another 75 mile day ahead of us going into Yucca Valley, CA, and I knew that I would have to ride fast in order to beat out the heat that would inevitably wear us out later in the day. I rode today with Matt Calardo (George Washington University), a frequent paceline buddy, and Ethan Heine (University of Colorado). At first I was a little nervous, since Ethan is easily the strongest cyclist on our team, and I had never ridden with him before. However, his speed coupled with Matt's enthusiasm and motivation got me through the ride. I struggled to keep up with the other two guys, but they pushed me to ride hard throughout the entire day--we even got up to 40 MPH at one point on a flat part of the ride! With lots of rolling hills thrown into the ride and the desert heat creeping up on us, the three of us finished the ride first among all of the pacelines, giving us plenty of time to relax. We didn't have any scheduled Friendship Visit, so we all got to relax at our lodging at Yucca Valley High School, where we were sleeping in the gymnasium. After a Crew Chief lunch of sandwiches, we all got settled in for some much needed relaxation. After showering and shooting hoops in the gym, I read for a bit in the book my mom had sent me, "Determined to Win", by Jean Driscoll, the biography of a woman in a wheelchair and her experiences with wheelchair sports. Our dinner was provided by Matthew Calardo's parents, a delicious meal of New York style pizza. When we had all eaten our fill, I went back to my air mattress for some reading, music, and sleep. Overall, a pretty relaxing day to reward the team for a tough and successful bike ride.

Ontario, CA - Victorville, CA

The day started out a little slow, since I was tired from getting only 6 hours of sleep the night before. However, we were greeted in the parking lot by a group of police officers on motorcycles, who would be escorting us out of the parking lot and to the city border. The ride started out fairly easy while we were still in the city, but got more difficult as we left the city and into the desert, our first experience of the trip in scorching heat. After a little while, we were stopped at an interstate on-ramp by our crew chief, who gave us instructions and cautioned us to be safe while riding on the interstate shoulder. However, the CHP officer that had been monitoring us decided that it was too dangerous, and we hopped in the vanso to get pulled ahead a few miles to our next crew stop. I felt bad, since a lot of the other cyclists had to ride on the freeway shoulder through lots of debris and some very fast moving traffic. When everyone gathered together at the next crew stop, we all began our long and slow climb up the next mountain pass, which seemed to take forever. However, with the support of my paceline (Evan Lin of University of Washington, and Jeffrey Brooks of Colorado State), we all made it to the top without stopping, and were treated to a very nice downhill thereafter. We hit another crew stop for lunch a few miles later (Little Caesar's Pizza) and got to relax for a bit at Serrano High School before finishing the last 25 miles of the ride. What I thought would be an easy, downhill finish turned out to be one of the most miserable experience on a bike I've ever had. We had an incredibly strong crosswind pushing us sideways, punctuated only by headwinds pushing us backwards. After what seemed like forever, we finally arrived at our destination, a local community center in Victorville, CA. When we had showered and cleaned up, we went over to the High Desert Church, our lodging for that night.

We all dropped off our belongings at the church and made the trip over to another local rec center gymnasium, in an area that slightly reminded me of something out of 'The Hills Have Eyes,' with lots of old abandoned housing in the middle of the desert. The team seemed to be in low spirits from the tough ride that day, but our general mood was greatly lifted upon greeting the participants at our scheduled Friendship Visit. We had a potluck dinner sponsored by the family members of the participants there, and had an awesome dance party--even in the desert heat, we all had a great time. After cleaning up and saying our goodbyes, we all went out to get ice cream, and then back to lodging for a good nights rest.

Rosemead, CA - Ontario, CA

After a very restful day off, it was back on the bike and back on the road again, heading to Ontario, CA. Mostly city riding today, which means lots of cars on the road and lots of stoplights. The ride turned out to be shorter than we had anticipated, and we went about 35 miles instead of the scheduled 50. Our arrival was at the Double Tree Hotel, which was by far the nicest place we've stayed in so far. The rooms were sponsored by one of the City Council members in Ontario, who was a Pi Kappa Phi at USC. When we got settled into our rooms, showered and changed up, a few of us went over to the nearby In-N-Out to grab some lunch. After eating our fill of Double-Doubles, a few of us went over to the local bike shop, where I had to get some new tires (the one I was using had a hole and was patched up), a sweatband, and some CO2 canisters. When we got back to the hotel, we all relaxed in our rooms for a bit and watched Maury (great show) before heading over to dinner at an Italian restaurant, where we were treated to a pasta feed. After dinner, we all went over to the Ontario City Hall, where the mayor read a proclamation commending our team for our philanthropic efforts on the Journey of Hope. However, the highlight of the meeting was definitely this one elderly woman chewing out the City Council about road safety, accusing them of pocketing taxpayer money and of all being immoral scoundrels. After the meeting, we went back to the hotel for free time for the rest of the night. One of the cyclists, Adam Cella, turned 21 that day, so we all made a trip to Dave & Busters in town to get a few drinks and play some games--I even won him a Care Bear in one of the games! After we had our fun with Police Trainer and House of the Dead 2, we decided to head back to lodging to make curfew and get some sleep.

Thousand Oaks, CA - Rosemead, CA

Howdy everyone,

Today's ride, on June 19th, was from Thousand Oaks, CA to Rosemead, CA. I rode today with Matt (guy from TCU from the day before), Cory (from Michigan State), and Brent, who did JOH-South the year before, and was from CSU-Long Beach. The ride was moderately difficult, featuring a few hills to start out, and then more intense city-street riding. The terrain was mostly flat, but we had to keep an eye out for traffic and debris/cracks in the city streets. I got a flat tire with about 2-3 miles left in the ride, but decided to ride it out until we got to our lodging at St. Joseph's Center to fix. We all got settled into the dorms there (reminded me a lot of something out of Full Metal Jacket), and had Quizno's Subs for lunch, provided by our sponsor, a Pi Alpha (someone who has done Journey of Hope before) from 2007. We had a quick friendship visit with 2 individuals with Downs Syndrome who were prominent actors in Hollywood, and had met quite a few celebrities and had been on lots of TV shows, including E.R., the West Wing, and Glee. We all hung around and kicked around the soccer ball, tossed the frisbee, and ate some snacks with our new friends for a while until it was time for them to leave. After our friendship visit, we all went over to the house of a Pi Alpha in Pasadena, CA, who had an awesome backyard set-up for our make-your-own-burrito dinner, complete with smores for dessert. When dinner was over, we all went back to lodging for some rest time. A few of us decided to head over to BJ's to have a few beers and wind down for a bit, since we had a day off the next day. Found out through talking with one of the other cyclists, Scotty (from CU-Boulder) that he had my Uncle Craig for math class in the 8th grade (small world...). After a few pitchers, we decided to head back to lodging to get some rest for the next day.

The next day, June 20th, was another day off. It felt really weird being able to sleep in--we all woke up at 9 AM and had no idea what to do, since we weren't used to having a slow morning where we weren't being pushed out the door and on the road by our Project Manager (PM). We all took our sweet time getting ready and hanging around our dorms, enjoying not having to be out of the door by 6 AM. I got a nice surprise visit from Michael Hervey, my chapter's President and a Pi Alpha from the Soiuth route the year before, along with his girlfriend, Gayle, and his parents, who were very generous in their donation to my JOH fundraising. After talking for a little bit and catching up on life, we said our goodbyes as the rest of the team and I headed over to the local IHOP for a breakfast generously sponsored by my own mother. Everyone seemed to be really happy with their meal and was thankful for my mom's generosity. After breakfast, we took the cars to a car wash to give them a much needed scrub-down, inside and out. We went back to lodging after breakfast for some relaxation time, where I put on some music and took a nice long nap before heading over to our friendship visit that day. Our visit was with AbilityFirst, a Southern California organization that hosts a wide variety of activities and programs with teens and young adults with disabilities, including field trips, after-school activities, and much more. After getting a tour of the facilities, we helped set up for the carnival that we would be putting on later for some of the participants at AbilityFirst. We set up a popcorn booth, a snow cone booth, face painting, and a few games with prizes. All of the kids there were really excited, and even showed me up in a dance-off when two of the participants there busted out the entire Thriller dance! When the carnival was over, we all cleaned up the parking lot and went back to lodging for a great dinner of flank steak, rice, and beans, with a delicious pineapple pie for dessert. A few of the guys went to go see a movie after dinner, but I decided to stay at lodging and clean my bike, call my parents/girlfriend, and go to bed early to prepare for the ride the next day.

Santa Barbara, CA - Thousand Oaks, CA

Hey all,

Finally got Internet again, which means more updates on my wacky adventures across the country on my bike!

Our next stop after Santa Barbara was Thousand Oaks, CA, an 85 mile ride that we weren't really looking forward to after a day off of cycling. I had a great paceline that day, riding with Matt Riesen, from Texas Christian University, and Matt Calardo, from George Washington University. We talked a lot during the ride and joked around for the most part, which made the ride go by a lot quicker than I had expected. Unfortunately, I ran over a nail in Ventura, CA, putting a hole in my tire and setting us back a little bit. The patch held up until about mile 70, when my inner tube popped a hole and we had to stop again, causing us to lose a lot of the momentum we had gained. After fixing the damage, we began our climb up one of the steepest, most difficult hills I've ever had the (dis)pleasure of riding. The two other guys I was riding with and I spent a good part of the climb yelling and cursing the terrain, and after what seemed like forever, we made it to the top of the hill, only about a mile away from our lodging destination, the Thousand Oaks YMCA. This YMCA was one of the nicest I had ever seen, matched only by the friendliness of the people there. We unloaded all of our stuff in the dance studio there, and were treated to a great Mexican food dinner (make-your-own-Nachos) by our generous sponsors. To make things even better, we had our first mail drop today, and I was very grateful to receive letters/goodies from my parents and girlfriend. After hanging out for a while and doing a bit of reading, we all went to bed to get some rest for the ride the next day.

Monterey, CA - Santa Barbara, CA

Hey everyone,

First, let me apologize for the scarcity of my blog posts. I mentioned this on Facebook, but good internet that lasts more than an hour is hard to come by on the road, so updating the blog on a regular basis is near-impossible for me (especially since I don't have a smart phone).

 It's been about 2 weeks since my last post in Monterey, CA, and a lot has happened since then. We had our first 100 mile day from Monterey to Cambria, CA, which was really tough, especially with all of the rolling hills along the Pacific Coast Highway. The longest ride I had done before that was maybe 75 miles, so the prospect of waking up at 4 AM and going 100 seemed insane. Although it was a struggle, we made it to our destination, the middle school gym in Cambria, CA where we would be sleeping that night. My legs were just about dead when I collapsed onto the grass near the gym with the other cyclists, who were just as tired as I was. After a pizza dinner, we all went to bed to get some rest.

Nothing too exciting happened on the next day's ride to Santa Maria, CA. I thought 75 miles would be easy after doing 100 the previous day, but my legs were incredibly sore and not yet recovered from the long ride, making the 75 seem more difficult than I had expected. It was our first day of what could be considered a "hot" day, especially after a week of foggy/cold San Francisco/Northern California weather. We stayed in a Senior Citizens' Center, and had an awesome Friendship Visit with some Special Olympic athletes. We finally got to do some laundry at a very shady laundromat in the nearest town, and went to bed early again.

The next day was a 70 mile ride into Santa Barbara, CA, where we would be spending two days, which included a much needed day off of cycling. The ride itself wasn't bad--warm weather, a nice coastline, and good cycling partners, as always. Our friendship visit was at the Jodie House, a center for individuals who have survived and are recovering from traumatic brain injuries. The stories that the individuals there told about their roads to recovery were incredibly inspiring, and make me realize that I have a lot to be grateful for. After the visit, we arrived at our lodging, the Quality Inn, with rooms sponsored for us by the hotel manager, a Pi Kapp from CSU-Northridge. We had free time for the rest of the night, so a group of us decided to go grab dinner in downtown Santa Barbara, as well as visit a few of the local bars while we were there to enjoy our first night out on JOH.

The next morning, we all woke up late (8 AM wakeup!) and ate a nice continental breakfast at the hotel. We went to visit a local community center with an organization called 'Lose The Training Wheels', which was dedicated to helping kids with disabilities learn how to ride two-wheel bicycles without training wheels. Our job was to help the kids get used to riding with smaller or no training wheels around the gym and outside in the parking lot. Some of the kids picked up cycling without training wheels quicker than other, but they all tired us out, since we had to chase them around beside their bikes. After a lot of running around and smiling faces, we had a BBQ and carnival to congratulate the kids on learning to ride a bike successfully. We hung out there for a few hours before heading back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

It's getting late now and I've got to go to bed, but I'll post more entries when I get internet again. I'm writing this in Lakeside, AZ, so needless to say, I've got some catching up to do. I've begun posting pictures on Facebook, so be sure to check those out.  Overall, JOH has been a blast. I've got a very distinct tan line from my cycling jersey/shorts, I've heard Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO about 5 times a day for the past 3 weeks, and me and the other cyclists have found that random quotes from Lord of the Rings or StarFox 64 can make a long ride go a lot quicker.

Thanks for reading, and Go Bears,

Ethan