Rally in Music City, Rally for Chicken, Rally Forever

Staying last night in one of the finest apartments in the Music City, A, C and P were up early this morning, making the final push for the final events of Rally 2008. Vanderbilt Children's Hospital welcomed us and all of our goodie bags at about 9:15am this morning. We went up to the oncology floor and started meeting the kids.
We had a pleasant surprise when several members of the media showed up, including Nashville's local NBC station. NBC decided to extend their stay based on their interest in our story and we had some good coverage in the news tonight on Nashville's local NBC TV station on the 6:00 news. We saw several new faces as well as some familiar ones from years past, and we were once again amazed at the hospital's facilities and operations (some of us vividly remember the big hole in the ground that existed before the hospital was built). A couple of us even got to see Colin, one of our Rally kids for this year, who is still on the heels of his recent stem cell transplant, which has been apparently pretty successful so far. All in all it was a great final hospital visit for RAA 2008.

We left the hospital just in time to get to McDougal's (one of Nashville's finest restaurants to get all things chicken) and to get set up for the guests for our fundraiser there.
Colin's family was there in his honor, as was Joseph and his family, our other Rally kid for 2008. Matthew, our Rally kid from last year's Nashville fundraiser, was also there with his 3 brothers and his parents. We had several guests show up to help out and donate their time and money to the successful event - thanks to all of you.


By 2:00 almost all of our guests had gone and we realized that RAA 2008 had come to an end. We packed up and went back to Austin and Paul's apartment (which is newly furnished) to collect ourselves and relax a little bit. We ended the day at Nashville's finest mexican restaurant, La Hacienda, for some wonderful food and some reflective stories from the event.

Thanks to all who helped make this trip possible again this year - there are, happily, too many people involved in the success of RAA to thank individually here in this blog. We would, however, like to thank all of our hosts this year for allowing us to keep our costs down, which helps to ensure that your donation goes to fund as much research as possible. Another special thanks to Dean, Nicole and Lindley at the Rally Foundation for starting and maintaining what has turned out to be such a great force in so many peoples' lives - the families and individuals that we have seen during this trip affirm, over and over, that this is true.

And one more thanks to my teammates, Austin and Claire; thanks to Austin for using his creativity and perseverance to start and implement Rally Across America, and thanks to Claire for doing all sorts of groundwork for the trip this year and in years past. There is no telling how many hours these two have devoted to this cause (in addition to their full-time jobs) on a completely volunteer basis. Both have been nominated for and won Presidential Volunteer Service Awards for their work with Rally, and both have helped inspire people all over the nation with their hard work and their passion for accomplishing something great specifically to help others in need - just think what things would be like if EVERY recent college graduate did things like this. They are true role models and it was an honor for me to get to participate in such a great event with these friends of mine.

"Thanks, y'all!"

~Paul

Close to Home

The day started with the addition of 2 team members who have been personally touched by childhood cancer. Terry rode in memory of his son Coulter, and Jacquie rode in honor of her brother Christopher.


After a scenic ride with Terry and Jacquie, we parted ways and continued heading towards Nashville. In anticipation of getting close to Nashville, Austin created the first ever Rally Across America helmet camera to record the ride down the steep descent of Mont Eagle. A strong thunderstorm with hail held us up for a while, but soon the sun was back out and we were back on the road to Nashville.


Once in Nashville, we met up with some local cyclists to ride the last leg of Rally Across America 2008. After unloading the Rally car at Austin and Paul's apartment, they were excited to take me to one of their favorite local restaurants. We later discovered that the gas prices in Nashville are not unlike the gas prices in the rest of the country that we have visited during our trip. One Nashville gas station advertised the price of gas like this:


Tomorrow morning we have our final hospital visit to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, followed by our final fundraiser event at McDougal's Chicken. We are looking forward to meeting our Nashville Rally Kids, Joseph and Colin, as well as seeing some of our Nashville Rally Kids from 2006 and 2007.

Rally On!
Claire

Fighting as a Team

After last night's ride, we talked to the Frazier Cycling team about ways they could raise money in honor of their teammate, Russell. This week they are collecting change individually, and next week they are going to decide on a team fundraising goal ... check it out:

ATL: the "City of Rally"

After a load of excitement yesterday, we caught a few extra winks of sleep this morning at Claire's parents' house. We went to lunch with Dean, Lindley, and Claire's mom (Nancy) at Slope's Barbecue in Sandy Springs (thank you, Dean). After some discussion about the upcoming evening's events Dean revealed to the group that Austin had won a United States Volunteer Service Award for all his work with Rally (Dean had nominated him). This was probably the highlight of our luncheon, though the peach and blackberry cobblers were some of the best on record...

We drove back to Claire's (people in Atlanta drive a lot), changed in to our cycling uniforms, packed the car and headed to Duluth, where the Frazier Cycling Club was meeting us at Cycleworks. Austin and Paul warmed up, met some new friends and got ready to ride. Claire acted as the team photographer and did what she does best - everything else. There were probably over 100 people there for the event and about 80 bicyclists took off on a 17 or so mile route around town. The members of the Frazier Cycling Team are not just casual cyclists - many of these fine young athletes compete regularly at a high level and all of them know what they are doing when it comes to bicycling. It was fun to be able to ride with so many people (instead of just Paul and Austin by themselves) and it was great to have so many of Russell's teammates, friends, family and supporters riding in his honor.

After the ride Austin, Paul, Dean, and Claire spoke to the cycling team about fundraising opportunities with Rally in honor of Russell while the kids ate pizza. The RAA team talked to the Frazier Cyclists about the importance of using their athletic abilities to get involved with others and how they could work toward fundraising goals in addition to athletic ones. Russell's dad said a few words as well and expressed his gratitude and excitement for having such an event in Russell's honor.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a great article covering the event:

http://www.ajc.com/gwinnett/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/06/25/rally_against_cancer.html

After all the excitement and many gracious peoples' kind words and cordial conversations A, P and C grabbed a quick bite to eat with Dean and her husband Reid. The RAA team headed back to Claire's to clean up and finish up as usual. Tomorrow we leave Atlanta. It will be a very full day of bicycling and we'll be meeting up with some old friends along the way...

~A, P and C

Rally with Tyler

We rode from Augusta to Lexington this morning.  Once we hit Lexington, we loaded up the car so that we could get to Atlanta in time for Tyler's event.  Many of you are familiar with Tyler's story.  For those of you who haven't heard about him, he is one unique guy. 

Tyler was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma when he was 12 years old.  Now 19, he has been going through treatments for 7 years.  He relapsed this spring, and is using oxygen to keep his energy up.  Tyler's candidness and fearless battle with cancer has led him amazing places.

John McCain and George Bush both follow Tyler.  Each men has taken the time to phone him. Tyler isn't even a swing voter - wow.

The event turned out at least 150 people for Tyler, and we got to hang out with the man of honor at his house afterwards.  When we left, Tyler entrusted us with his own bicycle helmet and a pair of bike shorts.  Gifts we will use for many rides to come.  It was a great night.

~ Austin

Hospital Friends

We visited the children's hospital in Augusta today.  The Augusta Chronicle and one of the local TV stations came to document the visit.  Paul did an interview with the camera man, and then we visited some kids.

Dr. Bell and a patient

We also got to meet Dr. Bell, one of the oncologists.  She has been doing work at Medical College of Georgia for the past 7 years, and one of her current projects involves genetics of survivors.  She is working to understand why some kids have higher success rates than others during and after treatment.  

Rally was able to give her a grant last year, and it was exciting to hear about what she has been able to do with her research.  She told us about the importance of funding and was very thankful for our fundraising efforts.  Meeting Dr. Bell was encouraging to our whole team.  She reinforced what we have known all along - every dollar donated to research truly helps make a difference.

Tomorrow we'll ride to Atlanta and hold an event with Tyler Copley.  Tyler is 19 and has been fighting cancer for 7 years. 

~ Austin

Parker Power

Yesterday I wore a pretty exciting shirt.  It was made in memory Parker, one of my biggest heroes.  I met Parker in 2006 when we bicycled through Philadelphia.  He was starting treatments for neuroblastoma.  Parker lost his battle last fall after two brave years of treatment.

It's been fun to keep in touch with Parker's family.  He loved riding bicycles, and it's exciting to be able to do this for kids like him.  I never would have imagined that riding my bicycle could make a difference in someone else's life.  

I have a bracelet that Parker's family gave me  - never ride without it.  If we keep riding, maybe we can help some kids like Parker. 

Here's a video from yesterday:

~ Austin

Augusta or Busta

We left the capital of South Carolina this morning and headed southwest for the border of SC and Georgia. Austin attempted to blind unsuspecting motorists with his shirt...

...perhaps it was a security measure, perhaps it was because we weren't able to thoroughly wash the jerseys last night - the world may never know. Either way, there were plenty of miles to be ridden and sights to see...



This was also the first day that our riding was significantly impeded by rain, so we arrived in Augusta (after SEVERAL miles of bicycling) without having been struck by lightning a single time.

We arrived at the House of Claire ahead of schedule and cleaned up for dinner. Claire and her wonderful nurse-roommates treated us to a Mexican fiesta-dinner and talked about many things that Austin and Paul couldn't understand (and many things that they could understand). An unusually relaxing evening followed as we prepared for the hospital visit tomorrow in Augusta and the super-fundraisers that will be drawing all the best and brightest in Alanta in 2 days. Nonetheless, we were still tired at the end of the day...


~ Austin, Paul and Claire