July 17th
I realize there is lots of our trip missing at this point but I felt this section needed to be posted now. I promise you, I will fill in from the last June posting and catch you up as soon as possible. I was so impressed with this group, I thought you might enjoy the story.
We left Walsenburg, Colorado a little later than planned this morning. We had originally planned to ride a scenic mountain railroad through La Veta pass this morning but found out a little late that the tour we wanted was not available. As a result we packed up and decided to continue our journey homeward. This delayed our departure until about 10:00 AM when the weather was quickly heating up.
By the time we were well on our way through the Oklahoma flatland the temperature had risen to115 degrees! Don’t ever let anyone tell you that dry heat is a lot easier than the humid heat in states like Florida and Texas.
Heat is heat and dry heat will take the wind out of your sails, make you dry, cause burning and make you just plain miserable! The interesting thing about the dry heat is that you do sweat, but don’t realize it until you go inside an air conditioned building. The dry heat outside, absorbs the sweat almost instantly. Heat stroke can hit you fast because you don’t realize you are sweating. Keeping hydrated is critical and if you have water, whether it’s cold or hot, you drink it!
We stopped today at a Days Inn, in Guymon, OK. When we checked into the hotel we noticed some young people in the hallway, repairing tires for bicycles. I asked them if they were part of the group crossing the United States by bicycle and they said yes they were. The leaders of the group were two young college graduates who indicated they had been doing this for the past four summers.
Anna Henkel is a graduate of Washington University and Peter Harrison is a graduate of Amherst College. Since Amherst College is in Massachusetts, my home state, I mentioned that I was from Worcester, MA. I inquired further and found out that Peter was from Concord, NH which is where my Uncle and his family lived and since I am also familiar with Concord, thus another connection. Anna is from Missouri and I hope she will forgive me for not remembering what city/town she is from.
Here’s the interesting part! The name of the organization is “The Overland Group”. These two individuals have ten high school students from around the country that they are guiding through the tour. The two of them are completely responsible for the safety of the group, repairs, schedules and miles traveled on this journey. They are given a format to follow, a route, destinations and miles to travel per day. The rest is up to them. They depart at daybreak and ride approximately 80 miles per day. Today they had ridden 97 miles! EGAD!!! I was exhausted just hearing how far they peddled!
John asked how many stops they made and the answer was, NONE! Are you kidding me? They do stop briefly for a quick lunch, but the stop is very brief because they must get in the necessary miles! (Oh to be young and fit again!)
I asked if they had hotels scheduled throughout their route and Anna informed me that most of their stops for the night were at churches and community centers. This evening, they would enjoy the luxury of a nice comfy bed!
John and I were incredibly impressed, because these two young people had those ten students completely under control. When Peter told them, shut off the TV, and lights out, I didn’t hear a single peep from one of those rooms. You could hear a pin drop! Of course, the fact that they had just ridden 97 miles in the intense heat had nothing to do with that!
They do not have a service truck following them, they carry parts with them and Peter and Anna do all the repairs themselves. I asked Peter how many repairs they had so far and he thought they had about 17 flat tires, plus repairs on brake and gear cables, but fortunately, this time they had not had any broken chains.
I asked where they started and where they are heading and they told me they started in Savannah, Georgia and will end up in Santa Monica, California. They are anxious to leave tomorrow because they will cross the border into New Mexico. I asked if they took pictures at the border crossings and Anna informed me that yes, they did take pictures of the group at every state welcome sign.
We thought this was a huge responsibility especially with all the bike repairs, but Peter informed me that he had one student who seemed to catch on fast and was helping with repairs. He said, he’s sure the others will be catching up soon.
They began this journey 3 weeks ago from Savannah, Georgia and here they were already in the Oklahoma panhandle. Peter and Anna informed me that they would arrive at the south rim of the Grand Canyon in 2 weeks. Amazing!
What an amazing opportunity for these young high school kids and what a great contribution by Anna and Peter. No question, these ten kids will remember them for giving them one of the greatest experiences of their lives!
July 18th
At about 5:00 AM, I began to hear doors opening and closing at the hotel with an undertone of conversation. I realized that it was probably the “Overland Group” preparing to depart the hotel for their next phase of their trip. Being captivated by their adventure, I got up and left the room with my camera.
The hotel offers a light breakfast with a reasonable selection of dry cereals, oatmeal, biscuits & gravy, miscellaneous breads, muffins, coffee and juices. It was a little after 5:00 AM and the group had assembled in the breakfast room to eat and prepare to leave. They were reminded by their guides, to drink plenty of water and get themselves well hydrated.
Shortly after breakfast they removed their already packed bicycles from their rooms and began to assemble outside in preparation for the departure. Each bicycle had two compact bags for only the most necessary accessories mounted on either side of the rear tire. They also had drinkpacks mounted on their backs to keep the hydration constantly satisfied.
Mounted to every rear tire axle was a long flexible pole extension that had a bright orange iridescent triangular shaped flag. This provides oncoming traffic and other vehicles traveling on the roads the ability to easily spot their caravan and allow them the freedom to travel safely.
Before they even got started, one of the students had a flat tire. This required a quick repair by Peter, then someone had brake problems which Anna immediately adjusted. Next, a misaligned tire which was quickly remedied. They were told to check their brakes and adjustments to cables were applied before they were all ready to leave. It took no more that 20 to 30 minutes for every person and every bike to be ready. As the dawn began to offer enough light, Anna called for everyone to move out and they filed in behind her in an order that was changed daily to precipitate thinking and co-ordinating.
The lineup format for today was, that the first letter of the name of the youngest sibling in each family represented should be in alphabetical order in reverse. In other words, from z to a. Every day they have a different format, either by age, birthday, siblings or whatever they come up with, just to keep things interesting. This way, the same person isn‘t always in the front or the back and position is changed every day.
These are high school kids ranging in age from 15 to 17 years old, guided by two young leaders, who are doing something that less than a miniscule handful of the population of this country can even imagine! This trek is something that they will remember well into their senior years, reminiscing to their children and grandchildren about their incredible feat and amazing achievement of bicycling, completely across the United States of America! Fantastic!
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