Help us meet our $50,000 Goal!!

(Superman asks for your support)

We're still raising money through the end of September in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month to help kids like Andrew ... Rally with us by clicking: DONATE NOW!

We're only a few dollars away!!

~ Austin, Paul, Kelly, and Claire

'07 Wrap Up

After a hearty breakfast at one of Nashville's finest restaurants, the Pancake Pantry, Austin, Claire, and Paul made their way over to the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital for the final event of Rally Across America 2007. There were more kids, including one of last year's Rally kids (Anthony), more goody bags, more whale hats, more songs and more families in for treatments. Ashley, the child life specialist, graciously showed us around as we made our visits. We all checked in at Austin's house after the event and cleaned up the car, organized the remaining Rally materials, and tied up any other loose ends we could find. Austin, Claire and Austin's mother drove to Chattanooga, where Austin's mother's car was parked. They even had all the loose change that was donated to Rally counted at First Tennessee Bank in Chattanooga, and then Claire and Austin made their way back to Nashville.

Rally Across America 2007 has been an amazing experience. At this moment in time we have raised almost $37,000 (we are STILL accepting donations for RAA 2007 through the end of this month), biked over 1,500 miles as a team, gave out over 200 goody bags, and rode in honor of 6 very special Rally Kids. Unfortunately this blog can only communicate a fraction of the experiences we have all had as a team. The amount of planning, riding and "rallying" has been overwhelming, but every minute has been worth it. The "success" of the trip will be measured with each incremental success that comes from newer and better treatments for pediatric cancer victims - successes that would not have otherwise been possible without the financial push from the Rally Foundation. We are all so proud and honored to have been at the forefront of such a wonderful and collective effort, and we thank everyone who has been and continues to be involved in the fight against pediatric cancer.

~ Rally Across America 2007 team members

(peace)

We finished riding!

We finished! Today we rode 59 miles from Shelbyville to Nasvhille. The ride was good although we were cold at the start. You see, ... last night I took the liberty of hand washing our jerseys in the sink of the inn where we were staying, but apparently I didn't do a very good job of drying them ... they were soaking wet this morning. Wet jersey's make for a chilly ride (it was 58 and windy). Oops. Sorry Kelly and Paul.

We got some pretty good donations on the road today. My mom (who has been driving the chase car) got a surprise when she went into a gas station to buy a bottle of water. She gave the attendant 98 cents, and the lady gave her $20 in return. She told mom, "Put that towards the cause!" And then Kelly's mom Cheryl got another $18 from an employee at a Hampton Inn. Can you believe that? Pretty good results for the last day biking.

We made good time going into Nashville, and then we geared up for the fundraiser. We met Matthew and his family. A great crew (4 boys) ...
Matthew's family and friends turned out in force (like Star Wars). We had a big group of kids ...... and many of our own Nashville friends stop to support little Matthew. Cheryl organized a great meal for everyone who came, and we ended up raising over $2,700. This doesn't even count other Nashville donations that have yet to be tallied ... Way to go Matthew!!

Tomorrow we're going to Vanderbilt Children's at 10:00 am. Our last event ...

~ Austin

Riding for Matthew

Today our ride is for Matthew. He is in Nashville and was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma (a solid tumor in his bladder) in January. I found out about Matthew several months ago when I was out training for this year's ride. I was wearing my Rally Across America jersey and had stopped at a gas station for a break.

A guy who has stopped in for gas looked at my Jersey and asked, "Did you ride across the country?" I told him about our charity ride, and we started talking about childhood cancer research. He told me that one of his coworkers sons had been fighting cancer. I gave him my email address and that's how we connected with Matthew and his family.

So after thinking about Matthew for so long, we're excited to finally meet him and his family. They will be at the fundraiser tomorrow. We have heard it from a reliable source that Matthew is a Star Wars aficionado ... so Paul, Kelly, and I have been honing our Jedi powers.

If you are in Nashville, we'll see you there:

5:00 - 7:00 pm
Gilda's Club
1707 Division St
Nasvhille, TN


~ Austin

Up The Mountain

Today, rejoined by Kelly, we rode over 80 miles from Chattanooga to Tullahoma. Mrs. Bauman and Mrs. Hibbard were our two support drivers, because two is always better than one. On our way out of Chattanooga we encountered the Trail of Tears Remembrance Motorcycle Ride, which happened to be traveling on our route out of Chattanooga. Since cars are not motorcycles (though this is also true of bicycles), the law enforcement people were not going to allow our support cars to follow us if we rode with the motorcycles. This was a big problem and was going to require some major rerouting ...

(consulting with the guys at the local service station)

Luckily, the longest line of motorcycles that I have ever seen came to an end sooner than we thought and we were back on our way.

We three bikers rode several miles and took a quick breather at "Dixie Freeze," our unofficial base camp in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, right before we began our ascent up the huge mountain that was to be our next leg of the trip. Amazingly, everyone made it to the top, one way or another, and no one got altitude sickness even though it felt as though we had just increased our altitude by about 8 billion feet.

Our stops along the way included the historic University of the South, also known as Sewanee (from which siblings of both Austin and Paul graduated), and the Polly Crockett Festival, a small-town arts festival that was taking place today in Cowan, Tennessee. We eventually ended our ride for the day in Tullahoma, which will be our starting point tomorrow. We then hopped in the cars and made our way back to the beautiful Adams Edgeworth Inn at the Assembly in Monteagle where the owner generously offered to house the Rally team. We then got a few more supplies in preparation of the final leg of the trip tomorrow, went out for some pizza and pasta at a new pizza joint in Sewanee called "Crust" (joined by Austin's brother's inlaws) and mentally prepared for the final day of biking.


~ Paul