Team update

We are finally home after three months. Tom and I are spending this week with my parents resting, sleeping late, etc. Nick and Chelsea are in Atlanta finishing up work for the documentary. Matt is in school in Iowa, Claire returned to nursing school, and Mary Beth (who did all of our PR) is working in Nashville. Alas ... the team is busy doing other things.

Tom and I spoke at my church's youth group on Wednesday, and we went to the Rotary club yesterday. Next week we have a few speaking events also ... so we're going to keep Rallying On for the time being. In the meantime, job hunting has commenced - I caught Tom emailing his resume out yesterday. As for me ... I'm going to keep draggin my feet.


Here are our Vanderbilt articles:

Recent grads bike cross-country for cancer research
How I spent my summer vactaion

~ Austin

Finale(s)

So in the past two days, we've had two finales. Our first one was in Nashville, where we had a bunch of people show up at Outback to show their support for our cause. We raised a little more money, and we got to see Anthony, Gabe, and Amelia! They were a lot of fun - Anthony spent most of the time trying to creep up and scare me, Gabe ran around and showed off his somersaults, only stopping to hug everyone he met, and Amelia had fun when Austin picked her up to help her fly. It was a great event.

Then we headed to Atlanta. The Olsons threw us a big wrap-up party, inviting their neighbors and a bunch of other cancer families to welcome us. We ate a ton of food - there was barbecue, a huge cake, and a large assortment of other goodies. It was a lot of fun, but Austin and I looked at each other and realized we're still eating like we were when we were riding. Time to get back on the bikes!

~ Tom

Top 10

Austin and Tom's top 10 reasons for biking across America:

10. Great tan lines
9. Riding in lightening storms
8. Drinking water out of mildewed camel packs
7. Seeing new places
6. Yelling at cows
5. Sleeping on couches
4. Meeting chicks (actually we didn't do this very often :(
3. Learning how to read a map
2. Changing flat tires
1. Avoid getting jobs.

So ... that is the list for today. It is subject to change depending on our mood, but No. 1 will always remain the same :) Tonight we had dinner with some college friends, and we are all sleeping on couches and blow-up beds - enjoying being in one place. Tomorrow we will again dawn our uniforms for a visit to Vanderbilt Children's. Our final hospital hooray.

We are finished riding for the time being, but we are going to hop back on the bikes on Saturday for one last ceremonial ride through Nashville. So for those of you that followed our blog like over-zealous NASCAR fans waiting for the next wreck, don't stop reading now ... more adventure to come. Who knows ... perhaps we will meet Bruise Lee?

~ Austin

Nashville!

We've made it to our final city: Nashville, TN. We left Columbia fairly early to make it to campus in time to coincide with a Vineyard Vines trunk show. We arrived at about noon and got a great reception. We hung out for a little while and handed out invitations to our event on Saturday.

After that ended, we went to our hosts, the Leas (their son, Graham, was Austin's and my roommate) to change, and then we visited the places in Nashville we haven't seen since graduation. We introduced Chelsea and Nick to the bacon cheeseburger at Sportsman's, stopped by Bongo Java, and met up with some old friends at McDougal's. It was a fun day.

~ Tom

Finish line

We've covered over 500 miles in four days. It's 11:30 now, and Tom and the crew are sound asleep. Tomorrow we are getting up at 5:00am so that we will have time to ride to the finish line at Vanderbilt by noon.

I can't believe that we are almost done. After three months, this has become quite a habit. It's going to be an odd thing for us - being finished. We have grown so used to all of this:

sleeping on couches, drinking warm gatorade, coping with saddle sore, fixing flat tires, eating stale granola, staying with people we don't know, getting bike grease on everything, getting lost, asking strangers for directions, having people honk at us, having people yell at us, traveling over 30 mph under the speed limit, traveling over the speed limit (once), riding on backroads, riding on the interstate (once), looking for silverware in people's houses, wearing the same clothes every day, forgeting various things at various homes in various states, begging guys at bicycle shops for discounts, asking people for donations, reading the label of a twinkie and deciding it is a good snack, explaining ourselves, etc.

Man, I'm gonna miss this job. So ... tomorrow is the big day. We're not sure what will happen on campus ... all we know is that we have to be there by 12:00 ...

~ Austin