Day 41 - Alpine, CA - Last Rest Day!

Today was our last rest day on this adventure. I wish I could say I slept well last night; it would be a lie if I said I did. I haven't had a good night sleep since we left Phoenix Monday. Not sure why, I have been completely exhausted this week. For some reason I just wake up every 2 hours and look at my watch...then sleep for 2 hours and look at my watch. Today, when I was able to sleep in I woke up at 4:30am and just looked at the ceiling. I am staying up much later tonight then I would normally stay up before a ride day. One reason is so I can hopefully sleep better when I actually go to bed, and the other is we have a shorter day so I can sacrifice another hours worth of sleep.

Today went by pretty quick. The group is staying at the Church of Willows in Alpine. My family, along with my sister in law is staying 10 miles down the road in a hotel. I figured with the kids it would be a little easier to have them separated from everyone at night. It has worked to, when we head to the hotel they know it is time to wind down and go to bed.

We headed to the church around 8am to have breakfast with the crew. By the time we arrived Shannon had already had all the bikes wiped down and ready to roll. POPs was cleaning and reorganizing the SAG vehicle. Karen and Jim prepared scrambled eggs, bacon and French toast this morning. We all cleaned up everything that was put out there. After breakfast Shane and I ran into town to find us a pizza joint, a laundry mat and a barber shop to Shane. We found 2 of the 3 places on our trip. What we also found was a small town full of law enforcement. The pastor of the church explained a little of what was going on this weekend. 2 years ago there was an officer involved shoot out in Alpine. The officer fired and killed a hells angel member, the reason why this all took place is information I do not know. This weekend is the anniversary of this incident and apparently the hells angel gang/crew returns to Alpine. I kind you not I saw 25 squad cars driving from one side of town to the other. I felt like I was working security at the Super Bowl in 07 again. However what we didn't find on our outing was a pizza joint. When we made it back to the church we talked to the pastor and he gave a name and number. We called and let them know we would be coming in with a large group tonight, so be ready.

The morning went by very fast and it was already time for lunch. Karen, Melissa and Sarah prepared country ham casserole for us. Again we cleared almost everything that was made. Another great meal by a POPsRide cook! Thank you Karen!

After lunch we talked about the route for tomorrow, answered some e-mails. I took Sarah and the kids and we went to the hotel to try and catch some sleep. It worked for Sarah and the boys, I just laid there as tired as could be and could not fall asleep! We had to wake up my youngest to get him ready to head back to the church for dinner.

We gathered at the church before we headed to dinner. By this time Jerry and Carole Hogg had joined us, they brought their daughter Emily with them too. She is in college and has a feather in her hair. Not really sure what is going on with that, apprentantly it is a California thing. Once we were all there we headed to
Gaetano's Lakeside to enjoy some pizza! The food was great and the company was even better. We were joined by relatives from both my wife's family and Shane's family. Thank you Uncle Dave and Aunt Jann for coming out and seeing us and being part of this journey. You have been extremely supportive and we appreciate that. Also during dinner we were joined my one of our favorite people. Carl Ames and his son Jordan arrived to town and joined us for dinner too. I think we had a total of 26 people for dinner. We shared stories about the trip and life. It was amazing!

This is the 41st day of this trip; we have been out here living on the road out of a duffle bag and a RV for 41 days. It has been much more then I could every have wanted. Just the fact that we have all been together for as long as we have and we still crack jokes every chance we get and smile is something in itself. The different people we continue to meet blows me away. I met someone tonight for the first time and it was like we were old friends. Turns out she reads my blog and was 100% up to date on what was going on. It was awesome!
I do want to thank all you who read my blogs and follow my/our progress. I know I am a horrible speller and my grammar is not correct. But if you know me you know that is who I am, I am far from perfect. But just like me and real life, my blog is similar. You get all of me, bad spelling and all!
Tell you a quick story, about 4 weeks ago one night I was talking to my wife on the phone. I asked her, "Do you think anyone actually reads my blog?" She said I think there is a good amount of people that read your blog. Then she asked me if there was a way that I could check in my blog site. I searched around some and found out that I could find all this information out. It blew me way to see how many page views I was getting. This may not be a lot to some of you "blogger" out there, but to date my total page views is 4,421. My blog has been viewed in 14 countries. I am completely blow away by this and am very thankful that so many would take the time to check it out.

Tomorrow we ride to the beach. I am not sure how I feel about this yet. I am excited to get back to a routine that I get to see my family daily again. However the transition is going to be harder then think. As for tomorrow I am not really sure what I will feel, I will be excited to complete this journey and cross this off my list. Will I be emotional tomorrow when we hit the sand? Maybe? Will I be numb to the experience, probably. I am not really sure. What I am sure of is I will be surrounded by people that I care for and I know care for me.

After we hit the beach and smile for a million pictures, we have to ride some more. A film crew that Safeway (Shane's employer) hired asked us to ride some more and get some riding footage. Not sure how I feel about that. We have pedaled across the US, now you want us to pedal some more? I am going with the mindset if it helps get the word out about our cause, then let’s do it! Anything we can do to help those with Parkinson's I am happy to do. We are having a party at the Sandbar from 4-7pm, I am sure that will be a good time. I am looking forward to kicking back with family and friend and reflecting on the trip!

If I am not able to blog tomorrow night, I am sorry. It will probably be because I am staying up late watch Justin Timberlake host SNL; don't take it personal, that dude is just funny!

Next time I post I will have completed my journey!