Happy Fourth of July!!
Due to the late hour (12 AM) I am going to keep this fairly short and sweet.
Two days ago we left Rapid Cities to head towards Mount Rushmore. As I felt alive with patriotic spirit, along with the enormous amounts of people waiting to get into the National Memorial for the fireworks, I felt it a great opportunity to show our Illini and American pride. Mount Rushmore, although was built up to be much more than it turned out to be, was a great stop on our trip to Wyoming. Meeting awesome U of I alumni, I realized that this world is truly small and that you can meet anyone anywhere at anytime.
Riding through the Black Hills, I also learned an important lesson in perserverance. Struggling, due to my lack of sleep (which is one reason why I am trying to keep this short), and not having rode through mountains or large hills recently (other than the Badlands), I had several problems. I realized that although I wanted to give up several times and just wanted to quit I had to push through to not only prove it to myself, but to prove that through perserverance and a goal in mind I can accomplish anything.
As the day ended in Newcastle, WY I was also fortunate to take part in our Portraits Project where we got to talk to Scott and Susan Wiggins who were both survivors of cancer. With Scott's advice ringing very clearly in my ear, which is to always stay positive and have a good attitude, I vowed to make the next day better.
As the Fourth started, we cruised through our ride to Gillette, WY and ended in an amazing recreation facility that let us use their equipment. After playing a hilarious game of basketball and some intense raquetball sessions, I was extremely exhausted. However, that would never stop me from going to see one of my favorite things, fireworks. As few of us rode to a park to see an upclose look at the fireworks they were correlated with great patriotic rock music, which my day was complete. After a firecracker popsicle and a nice air conditioned area to sleep, there is nothing else I could ask for, except for a nice tailwind tomorrow.