Slept in till the golden hour of about 7:30 am before getting the wake up to head to a sponsored breakfast. The parents of Tanner Bacon, who works for Push America and oversees construction projects like Build America, live in C-Springs and had us over to their home. Enjoyed the great atmosphere of the backyard as we scarfed down amaaaazing sausage quiche and fruit.After some more relaxation at lodging we got in the vans to head back to the Olympic Training Center for a friendship visit with Easter Seals. Somewhat bittersweet as it was also when we had to say goodbye to Scott Shek, our fearless Push intern and cameraman, as well as Bobbi, Sollner’s sweetheart of a girlfriend. Nevertheless we persevered on to show the Easter Seals folks a good time.
It was mostly volunteers at the visit…they were there to thank us for Push America’s support and
talk about their program for helping kids with Autism develop skills to live a more normal life and interact with others….really cool stuff. Had some delicious chik-fil-a and chatted it up for a little bit before stopping at the Olympic Spirit Store as we headed out (got some sweet sweats for just $5 bucks).Back at the Mullet House I decided (or my body did rather) it was time for another nap (pretty much chalking this up as a recharge day). After a glorious 3 hours or so it was time to head to dinner over at John Pierce’s house. He wanted the team to just have a fun, relaxing evening so we didn’t even have to wear our team shirts. Grubbed on some “Slayton’s” bbq (best in town, for sure) while also watchin some hi-def TV, getting schooled in Air Hockey by John’s son Nathan, playin some Bocce Ball outside…just a great time. John was actually on the very first Journey of Hope team back in 1988…when it was just a group of guys with a very vague idea of what they were doing. Very different pack then: had to use pay phones, planned things as they went, no rules or
safety procedures…hard to imagine when you think of how structured the event is now. It was great hearing stories of the first rides. John also treated us to a viewing of one of his projects…a commercial spot for the upcoming Olympic games. We got to provide feedback and even got to talking about interactive marketing on the web…which he says is a direction the Olympic Committee is definitely trying to take (pretty sweet relating things back to my upcoming job at Modea…maybe we can do some business :-) )After dinner we headed back to lodging….Brent took headshots of everyone for an as of yet undetermined project he’s doing…hmmm. We had a team meeting with Joey Smith, Director of
Logistics for Push America (the one who plans out the trip before it starts) who had flown out to hang with us for a couple of days. Talked mostly about the upcoming SEVEN days straight of cycling (ugh!) as well as a few points we as a team could work on.After the meeting we again were free to relax…and I’m taking the opportunity to hit the sack early once more….ahh glorious sleep…
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