Birmingham, AB

7.28.2010

Today we had the first hilly ride that we’ve had in a while. Our crew chief, Nick Breaux, decided he would try to do his ride along today, using Chris Adams’ bike. He had ridden Gear Up Florida in the past, but it wasn’t really the same kind of terrain that he faced today. The highest point on GUF is about 215 feet above sea level, and today we were going up and down the whole ride. Nick made it about 30 miles in, but had to get racked to the first of our two friendship visits today.

The first visit was at a center for the United Cerebral Palsy organization of Western Alabama. They gave us a deli lunch, and we spent some time mingling with the program participants. I met a man name Josh who probably knew every single Elvis and Garth Brooks song that there is, and did a pretty good impersonation of the King. There was another man named Dennis who used a touch screen computer to communicate, and was rocking an awesome pair of bright red sunglasses. He had a smile on his face the whole day, and made his way around to each of the cyclists by the end of the visit.

When it was time to leave the first visit, we hopped in the vans on our way to our second destination. I passed out as soon as I sat down in the van, and was feeling pretty groggy by the time we had finished the ride over. As soon as we stepped inside and saw the participants, however, I perked right back up and sat down to do some awesome arts and crafts. I was speaking with a woman named Regan who reminded me a lot of my Aunt Peggy when she was alive. Regan had the same kind of spunky humor that I remember about my aunt, and I enjoyed playing “Musical Dots” (an accessible version of musical chairs) with her when art time was over. Soon we were lining up to take a picture and I had a brief conversation with the deaf man standing next to me. I used the really poor sign language I had tried to teach myself last summer to tell him my name. He ended up teaching me a few things too, pointing out the signs and words that I was butchering. It was by far the best day of friendship visits so far.

Don’t have to wake up ‘til 7 tomorrow!