A Taste of New York

Well, I'm delighted to inform everyone that today the Rally Team was working off of 8+ beautiful sleeping hours...more than the first 2 nights combined! I don't know if it was the additional sleep or the fast-paced streets of NYC, but the Team seemed to be in a trance today, but we were still extremely productive.

(Rally Across America team with Helen, Volunteer Manager at the Ronald McDonald House)

Our day was filled with delicious NY bagels, a traditional NY deli experience, the beginning of a beautiful relationship with the Ronald McDonald House, 30 miles in the bustling Central Park, an authentic Thai meal which was quite tasty and might I add that the Team was excited to make a transition from Chick-fil-A...to top everything off we joined one of Claire's high school friends for some delicious dessert at the esteemed Magnolia Bakery...it was Magan's favorite meal of the day.


We are now off to sleep with an attempt to gain another great night's sleep, hopefully we will be bragging tomorrow about 8+ hours. We will be in route to Greenwich, CT tomorrow morning, so we will touch base with all of you later tomorrow. Happy reading and thanks for all of your support as we rally for childhood cancer research!

Rally On,
Magan, Michael, Jai, and Claire

New York Time

We started off with an early morning radio interview on Raleigh's WQDR 94.7, which was broadcasting live from Chick-fil-A. After some delicious Chick-fil-A biscuits, we told their Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area listeners about Rally Across America, and then we were off to the hospital.

The kids at NC Children's Hospital were curious about the bicycle and spandex-clad cyclists, but they were all excited about the goody bags filled with fun stuff from our sponsors - vineyard vines and Aflac. We gave out 35 goody bags to the kids there fighting childhood cancer, and then we were off to lunch!


Bob, founder of PAC2, and Jane from St. Baldrick's took us to a great lunch at a local Chapel Hill favorite. Sweet potato french fries...sweet! Then it was time to hit the road for New York City!


Our 9 hour drive turned into a much longer one since we hit the south side of DC at 4:55pm on a Friday afternoon.....that explains this late night post..... NYC is a challenging place to drive, but it's even more challenging when you have 3 bikes on the back of your SUV and you can't see out the rear-view mirror due to all of the stuff in the car! Living in Atlanta has given us a good training for driving in traffic with crazy drivers, but Michael did an exceptional job of navigating the Friday night crowd in NYC. We all swear that Michael was a taxi cab driver in a former life.


After a late-night bite of New York pizza, we returned to our host home to blog and are hoping to get to sleep soon! Rally Across America has a great way of bringing people back together - it is amazing who you will call to ask for donations or to ask if they can host you. Tonight we are staying with family friends of Magan's whom she hasn't seen in 15 years!

Tomorrow we have a more relaxed day planned, and we're looking forward to visiting the NYC Ronald McDonald House.

Rally On!
Magan, Michael, Jai, and Claire

Meet Raleigh Rally Kid Brittany!

Vibrant, energetic, beautiful, athletic, courageous…that was Brittany from day one. At 19, she was the picture of health and on her way to the future of her dreams. Brittany was a college sophomore, a gymnast and a coach. Until September 2006. At first, the nagging cough and lethargy was more a nuisance than a concern, but after 2 months of various doctors, diagnoses, and medications, an open lung biopsy was finally done. Three days later Brittany was diagnosed with a lung cancer so rare in her age bracket that a leading cancer center had only four cases total in their records.

A double lung transplant looked to be her only option, but the cancer was very aggressive and she began declining very quickly. Soon, due to her decline and the unusual nature of this cancer, the transplant was no longer an option and she was to be treated with a new targeted chemotherapy drug that had shown some quick results in clinical trials. However, the cancer didn’t respond as quickly as we had hoped, and she just didn’t have the amount of time needed for the treatment to take effect. Three weeks after being diagnosed, Brittany lost her battle with lung cancer.

Brittany’s mom writes, “This beautiful young lady, not quite 20, was a fighter right up until the end. A role model of grace and dignity, she’s left a wonderful legacy for her siblings and friends to follow. Our prayers now are that her legacy lives on through us. Brittany’s Battle is far from over…we are fighting on until the day NO ONE has to fight anymore.”


Magan, Michael, and Jai riding through Raleigh with Joel in memory of Brittany

On the Road Again!

The 2009 Rally Across America team saw the sunrise from the interstates of Atlanta this morning. INTERSTATES?!?! No, we weren't riding our bicycles on the interstate - we are driving up to New York City to begin the Rally Across America tour there.


Our first stop was Joe Gibbs Racing outside of Charlotte, NC. After touring the impressive facility, we met with JD Gibbs, whose son Taylor has leukemia.



Joe Gibbs was having a book signing of his newly released Game Plan for Life, so of course we stopped by to meet him and he thanked us for what we are doing for kids like his grandson.



After squeezing back into the car - which was even tighter now with four new books - we started the PB&J assembly line. After Michael and Jai carefully crafted six delicious PB&J sandwiches, we quickly devoured them and got on the road to Raleigh, NC. Soon we will be joining a local cycling club for an evening ride before heading to our Raleigh host family. Tonight the team will be riding in memory of Rally Kid Brittany.

Be sure to go to http://twitter.com/rallyfoundation and follow the Rally Across America team on Twitter!

Rally On!
Claire, Magan, Michael, and Jai