Carrollton to Atlanta
Carrollton to Atlanta was a shorter ride that had about 15 turns. It seemed that we stayed on no single secondary highway for over 3 miles. Clearly, this was pretty inefficient and contributed to many delays to set up the route and many route changes. Because of this, we had to rack at mile 40 to get into the city for our arrival at time. We arrived a little while later at the Emory Autism Center where we were greeted by our largest and most enthusiastic crowd thus far. We spent a few hours at the EAC, getting to interact with 3 different classes (differentiated by age) and meet plenty of kids. After departing the EAC, we had dinner with a large group of Pi Alphas and Alumni at Lori Ebert’s house. Lori is the Pi Kappa Phi national risk management director and was rated the number one college speaker last year. We swam and had the best steak dinner of the trip at her suburban Atlanta home. We then returned to the Pi Kapp house at Georgia Tech, our lodging for the next two nights.
Atlanta Day Off
Our day off in Atlanta wasn’t as resting as it could have been for me. I had to wake up about 2 hours before wake up time to visit the Emory Sports Medicine Doctor about 20 miles away. My knee has been bothering me for a while now and I just wanted to get it checked out to get some prescription pain medicine and of course to make sure that I was doing no permanent damage. Well after about 2 and half hours at the clinic, I was diagnosed with Quadracept Tendonitis and given a prescription for Naprosyn, a prescription-strength version of Advil, which also acts as an anti-inflammatory. After this visit, the day improved. We had a friendship visit at Mad Mad Whirld where we played laser tag and Whirly ball with the kids from the Autism center we had seen before. After this we had some free time where we visited the World of Coke in downtown Atlanta. Here they detail coke’s history and have a tasting room with over 50 carbonated coke products. Following this break time, we headed to a friendship dinner at a bowling alley. Here I met Melanie and Marc who both were in wheelchairs but absolutely loved bowling. I am not ashamed as well to say that they beat me both games that we played! This was a fantastic visit and probably one of my favorites so far.
Atlanta to Athens
Today was a very unorthodox day in structure: just about everything was different than normal. We began by racking 40 miles to the Twin Lakes Camp to arrive there by 10am, our scheduled friendship visit time. We got a tour of the expansive camp and got to meet loads of campers (it was Sickle Cell Anemia –week.) Every week they cater to a different disability and bring in specialists to support those campers. We had a very unsubstantial lunch at camp and were off for the final 35 miles of the ride in the peak heat time of the day: 2 pm. These combined factors made this short ride horrific. After this, we arrived at Georgia and visited the Pi Kapps house for dinner. After this, we headed to the Best Western and prepared for the second to last over 80 mile day (yes we keep the countdowns going!).
Athens to Clemson, SC
Today was one of our three last days over 80 miles and we can’t be happier. But, unfortunately this ride was not easy and had temperatures climb well into the 100’s with a large amount of humidity. After the hot ride, we arrived at the Clemson Outdoor Lab, an oddly named camp that caters to individuals with disabilities. There, we dropped off our stuff in camp cabins that were actually fantastic lodging (8 to a building – 1 big room, each with its own attached bathrooms and showers). We then got a tour of the facilities, unfortunately with no campers there, which were a little older than those found at Twin Lakes, but still nice. We then watched a slideshow compiled from the summers camp programs which was fantastic for the first 15 minutes and then a little bit repetitive and exhausting for the next 45. After the eventful night, we were off to bed at about 9:30, plenty tired for sleep.
Clemson to Spartanburg, SC
The ride to Spartanburg began early in preparation for the early 11:00 am scheduled arrival; but, we still had to wait for the sun to come up of course. The highlight of the next two days will surely be Bruce Rogers who arrived today after flying in from Colorado. Bruce was the first rider on the Journey of Hope: he solo rode across the US in 40-odd days in 1987 and then went on to start his own company that became the major sponsor of the trip in the 1990’s, KRG Capital. KRG currently sponsors our cars, our gas, and any other incidental expenses of the trip. Without them, the trip would be very different. So clearly, meeting and riding along with Bruce is a fantastic experience that only the Journey of Hope could afford us. The ride was rolling hills for 60 miles, but we were racked at mile 40 in order to arrive for the lunchtime friendship visit on time. After lunch, we headed to lodging at Wofford College, where homemade Strawberry Ice-cream was waiting. We stayed in the dorms that night, which each had a main room, two private bed rooms and a large bathroom with a shower and two sinks. Definitely the best dorms so far. That night, we had another Miracle League baseball game which was a lot of fun. My buddy was Torrey, a blind 12 year old who absolutely loved radio. He has satellite radio, HD radio, and even listens to internet radio. Despite living in South Carolina, he knew more radio stations from the CT area than I did, including WEBE 108… After the game, we had some terrific barbecue for dinner and I ate across from him. He is incredibly modest: when talking to the Miracle League board member, it took him about 5 directed questions to finally admit he was the first one to ride across the US and begin what is now the Journey of Hope. In normal conversation, it came up that I was from Southeastern CT, by New York City in Wilton. Guess where Bruce is heading later this week to check out an advertising company to potentially acquire? Wilton of course. Even though KRG capital is located in Denver, Colorado I may now consider applying for an internship there next summer because of my meeting with Bruce. Today was a good day.
Spartanburg to Charlotte
Today we had another ride along with Bruce Rogers in which I actually had a chance to ride with him for the last 20 miles. He is a great guy and definitely made the close of the ride a lot easier, even if we sped up a little bit to keep up with him. We arrived at the Pi Kappa Phi and Push America headquarters in Charlotte and had the building to relax in for a while. We had lunch there, went on a tour and got to explore old founding documents from each of our chapters which were very interesting. After we left the HQ, we went to our hotel (the Omni) in uptown Charlotte and showered to get ready for our friendship visit. At this crowded visit, we had a dance and a Mr. Journey of Hope Contest (like a Miss America Contest). After the dance and visit we headed back to the hotel and took advantage of the night off. We ended up celebrating Chelsea’s Birthday and having a few interesting elevator rides; even catching some of the Olympics.
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