10-13-06
Start: Beal's Point, CA
Destination: Howe Ave. Bridge, CA
Elevation: 23 ft.
Miles: 24.0
Weather: Sunny and warm! I hear Phillips, Wisconsin got a little snow!
Mom and I slept great last night on a very comfy bed at Brian and Renee's home. Brian made us an excellent dinner when we arrived last night - really good grilled chicken, rice, corn on the cob, and figs grilled with balsamic vinegar. The figs were something new, and I really liked them! We stayed up past all of our bedtimes sharing stories about our adventures. Brian is into biking, and has done a lot of other outdoors stuff, so we had a good time visiting with him. Thank you, so much, Brian, Renee, Sophie and Bailey! :) Great family - great hosts!
Also, we were on KCRA's news a few times today - Brian did a great job, I hear! We had some family and friends watch the live noon broadcast back at home, so it's really cool they got to see us. A lot of people driving by this morning beeped, waved, gave us thumbs-ups, a couple cars stopped to talk... and when we got onto the American River Parkway bike path, we had several people do sort of a double-take, turn around, and say, "Did I see you on TV?" So we tell them they did, hand them a card, answer a few questions, and they send us on with well wishes. We had a lot of fun waving back at people and talking to bikers today. And it's such a great opportunity to spread the awareness a little further and encourage people to donate through the Web site.
The end of our day was a little confusing. I thought we were going to make it to a certain spot, and we made it further, on the north side of the river. We were planning on meeting up with Melissa and Kendall, whom we met at the AA&MDSIF Patient & Family conference in Nashville. Melissa is a PNH patient. Another great person we met at the conference was Annie (AA patient like me), and her parents live really close to where we ended today, so they came out, too, and we're actually staying with them tonight! Then Brandon, the camera guy from channel 10 came out to take some video of us. It was a bit chaotic, because we were cruising to end the day at 5:30 like we planned, and we found out there was another trail on the other side of the river. We were a little confused trying to meet up with everyone, but finally, it all just worked out. We did a quick interview with Brandon, because he had to run for another story, then went for pizza as a group. It was a really good time - we got a chance to talk about our experiences with BMD from a few different angles. So today was an awesome day! Meeting up with patients and families is always very rewarding and it really supports us and keeps us positive and strong.
We didn't get right into downtown Sacramento, but we were pretty close. So we'll hit that tomorrow. We're excited to walk right through the capitol city of our last state!
Anyway, it was a crazy day, but a fun one. We got a lot of miles in and really pushed ourselves through. And we are thrilled to be in soft beds again!
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