Today brought a flatter route and cooler temperatures. Everyone was very, very happy about both.As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the team checked out Little Falls after we got settled at the stay over. It was a cute little town with some pizza places, a couple bars, and an ice cream shop. The group that went to Ole Sal’s had a particularly good experience that they were excited to share with our readers. All of the employees were really excited to hear about our ride and wanted to follow along on the blog this summer. One of them, Bethany, is doing her own 100 mile ride for cancer this summer. Experiences like these remind us of how universal the fight against cancer is and how many people are showing their support in so many different ways. This morning we got on the road around 7:30 and rode 80.6 miles to Syracuse. Our ride today was dedicated to Catherine Kemp’s friend that passed away from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The breeze was cool, the roads were flat, and at some points we could ride two by two and talk to each other. It was a casual ride and a nice change of pace. The team stopped by the Oriskany Battlefield in the Mohawk River Valley, the site of a battle during the revolutionary war. One group also stopped by an ice cream shop called The North Pole, where they conducted our team’s first portrait! Portraits are interviews we record and upload to portraitsproject.org. These interviews are with anyone that has been affected by cancer. This can include patients, caregivers, children of people that have passed due to cancer, etc. In doing these interviews, we hope to provide the opportunity to talk about their experience as well as create an online database that can be a resource for others going through similar struggles. The woman we did a portrait with today, Dava, has a best friend going through cancer right now and her mother also passed away from lung cancer. Her main piece of advice was to be positive and keep the patient laughing.Our stay over today provided us with an amazing dinner and another opportunity to do a portrait. We are still overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity. Margaret, an active participant in a group at St. Paul’s in Syracuse, was kind enough to allow us to ask her about her experience with breast cancer. She said she was always a positive person but had a difficult time remaining positive at the beginning of her diagnosis. She said she found peace in the serenity prayer and accepting what she couldn’t change and focusing on what she could. For her, what she could change was her attitude. She stayed positive and has been cancer free for 12 years.Lastly, we were the recipients of many friendly gestures today. A lot of cars gave us friendly honks and two different people said they saw us on the news and encouraged us to continue our mission. Many of us were interviewed on Monday when we arrived in Bethlehem. Click on the following links if you want to see the news clips!http://news10.com/2016/05/30/cross-country-cyclists-raising-cancer-awareness-make-stop-in-bethlehem/ http://www.wktv.com/news/College_students_bike_cross_country_to_fight_cancer.html http://wnyt.com/news/bikers-from-a-student-run-non-profit-at-the-university-of-illinois-make-a-cross-country-journey-to-fight-cancer-----/4154621/DR