Today’s ride was dedicated to Joe Wadden. Joe is a friend of Steven’s Aunt Gail, and is currently undergoing treatment for metastatic kidney cancer. Joe has a wife, a 9 year-old daughter, and a 7 year-old son who he is fighting hard for. He rode his bike across the United States about 30 years ago (so cool!) and intends to do it again some day. We hope that Joe is able to follow along with our cross-country adventure and will be able to set out on another of his own soon!

Today was a long trek: 101 miles with a 15+ mile per hour headwind the entire route. It seemed that no matter what direction we turned, the wind kept blowing right in our faces. Nevertheless, we kept pedaling and kept moving. We biked through the rolling hills of wheat that turned into rolling hills of rocks – none of us knew what to expect from this part of Washington but it certainly has not been like we imagined it would be!

Tonight we are staying at Connell High School where we are lucky to be warm (it’s pretty chilly outside – sorry to our IL friends and family going through this heat wave!) and dry and clean because of their awesome facilities that include showers. We also want to thank the Pizza Station for providing the whole team with a delicious dinner tonight complete with a salad bar to make sure we have our nutrients!

Today was tough for a lot of riders, but Viraat especially kept morale very high today and I definitely want to say more about him & his spirit! I remember doing my Illini 4000 formal interview AND physical try-out with Viraat and I was thankful through both that he was very positive and a very thoughtful person. Viraat notices when people are down and always goes out of his way to ask if he can do anything or will just keep up his own positive attitude to spread to others. He is always there to help out, lighten the mood, or simply be by your side through a tough day. Viraat is also our Portraits director while on the ride, which means he is in charge of the filming and organization of our Portraits – definitely the most important thing we do on the ride. We all like to poke fun at him a little bit for his “Portraits Pitch” (he uses the word serendipitous every time he talks about Portraits – Viraat definitely has a large and unique vocabulary!), but I admire his passion for the Portraits Project and know that he believes each and every word he says and genuinely wants to hear people’s stories. He has met so many people on this ride just by starting up a conversation, and many of our ride dedications have been found because of his passion for talking to others.
He is also famous for turning anything you say into a pun (I guess you could say he is punstoppable).