Today was a very exciting day for us, because we were heading to Arapahoe. For those of you who don't know, Arapahoe, NE is quite famous amongst 4K riders. But first, we had quite the ride into Arapahoe. It seemed that at every stop, we encountered animals, and some teams encountered animals at just random points during the ride. I think at the first water stop we found a bunch of friendly kittens that everyone went crazy over. But really the highlight was when we stopped to pet some horses on the side of the road. It's been awhile since I was so close to a horse, but they were very friendly and let us pet them and feed them some granola. Trying to imagine this happening in Chicago...
We also ran into a cyclist going in the other direction. He was headed from Denver to his home in Des Moines. It made us a bit jealous that he was actually heading the right way... west to east, getting some help from the wind. As cyclists, it's always really nice to run into other riders. There always seems to be a common bond and willingness to help each other.
Back to our hosts at Arapahoe, the Arapaho United Methodist Church. It's so obvious that they care about us and really want us to have a great time in their town. Let's just say that one of the first things we did once we got into town was go skeet shooting! I've never even shot a gun, but I have to say I did alright... 4/10 targets isn't bad... right? Although I lost out to Brady who hit 6/10... now I have to clean his bike. It was really fun to see everyone shoot, and we felt pretty good about it, until a group of people who actually knew what they were doing showed up. Let's just say that there were several teenagers... possibly children... who could outshoot us with just one arm. But it was really fun to see some serious skills. Plus dinner at the shooting range... hot dogs and hamburgers and skeet shooting... what could be sum up Arapahoe better? We're looking to what they have planned for us tomorrow!
Finally, we were pleasantly surprised by some amazing packages that were waiting for us in Arapahoe. We received sympathy notes from so many people... the other 4K riders and runners, other cross country cyclists like Bike and Build and Texas 4000. It's great to know that cyclists who are spread out all over the country are thinking of us. Hopefully from this tragedy, this country will become even safer for cyclists...
No comments:
Post a Comment