Today was our second day off the bike and it was graciously accepted by all our cyclists. These off days are crucial to letting our bodies recover from all the miles we bike everyday! We got to sleep in until 7:30 and were treated to a sponsored breakfast at McDonalds. After our delicious breakfast we headed back to lodging for some free time. Most of us, like myself, used the free time for a post breakfast nap. We like to take naps on our off days when we can since most days are very busy and tiring and allow for little time to rest. After our glorious nap we headed to a Adventure Cycling for a sponsored meal on the grill! Adventure Cycling is the not-for-profit organization that actually mapped out the Trans America route that we are currently on. Push America modified it a little bit due to going to other cities along the way that have more availability for friendship visits, but the majority of the route is the same! They have routes all across America and currently have 41,000 miles worth of routes mapped out all across America! We took a tour of their building and then they treated us to burgers and hot dogs! After we were done eating some of us headed to the bike shop for some bike maintenance. I had to take my bike there so they could look at my brakes and adjust them so I could start using them again without getting flats! While looking at my bike, the guy their also suggested that I got a new tire too along with new brake pads. But I decided that since the dollar bill patch held up yesterday I would wait until I started getting flats and having problems with the tire! After the bike shop we headed back to lodging and to ready for our sponsored dinner and friendship visit at the Missoula YMCA. While there we were able to take part in a Core Exercise Class, where we did random core exercises. Every time we did something we counted out loud and everyone would count loudly and with so much enthusiasm. And before every challenging exercise the instructor would ask everyone why they were there and they would all respond very loudly with “To challenge ourselves!” It was awesome to see all these people living with disabilities overcoming their already challenging life just to challenge themselves even more! It’s very motivational to see people like that never letting life’s challenges get in the way of making themselves the best they can!! After eating dinner with Special Olympic participants we headed back to lodging with the rest of the night off. Some people relaxed for the next day’s ride. But me and a group of people decided that we wanted to climb to the M. The M is just a big concrete letter M that stand for Missoula on top of this mountain. So we climbed up to the M and when we got there we decided that it wasn’t high enough and decided to try and climb to the very top even though it was getting dark. After about an hour of climbing we finally made it to the top sweaty and exhausted, but it was well worth it. We got to the top and just looked around in amazement looking at the Missoula from so high up! As the sun set lower and lower the more amazing it looked. We stayed up there for about an hour just absorbing the amazing scenery and enjoying another great moment of the Journey of Hope. The Journey of Hope has so many eye opening and amazing experiences that come in many different forms it’s sometimes hard to appreciate and absorb all of them. So we all decided to stand there in complete silence and amazement so we could all absorb, appreciate, and really think about why we were all here and to remember what an amazing thing we are doing. As standing there in complete darkness and silence, with the city of Missoula in the background, I got this incredible chill that ran through my whole body just thinking about where we were at, why we were there, and what we were doing. It was a time to take a step back from everything and really appreciate what we have experienced so far and what we have yet to experience. It was another bone chilling moment of our amazing summer!
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