Carnegie, PA

I am currently sitting in Carnegie Free Library in Carnegie, Pennsylvania typing my own blog for the first time since DC. My sister Kim has been updating it the past few days but with a short 30 mile day today I've found internet access at the local library and have photos uploading while I type!!

We spent last night in Murrysville, PA where the Calvary Lutheran Church provided us with an amazing meal. One of the members of the church then went out after dinner and bought us breakfast food for this morning ensuring we left energized for our ride today!

While we have not gotten the get-up-get-out practice down to an hour just yet we are getting closer and closer. Today we were up at 6am and had our bags packed around 6:45. Compared to many of our recent rides I felt today was rather easy although the fact that it was only 30 miles probably had some effect. Today was also the first day in about a week that my legs felt fresh on the bike so I'm hoping that means I'm getting stronger! We did not take a water break today as Amy and Jay needed to visit a bike shop and we were riding through areas where we could get water if needed so after a few stops here and there the group I was riding with arrived in Carnegie a little after noon. The church where we are staying has continued the streak of generosity and will be providing us with dinner tonight and breakfast in the morning. It's really amazing to see complete strangers go out of their way to help us doing everything from opening their churches and places of worship for us to sleep to providing us with meals and opening their homes for us to shower. I can't seem to say thank you enough for all that everyone has done in just over one week on the road.

Yesterday while I was waiting for dinner to begin I got a phone call from a Denise Richardson a staff writer at The Daily Star (my hometown newspaper). The story she wrote can be seen here however it was a question she asked me while on the phone that got me thinking. I can't remember just how she asked it but she asked me something about what this experience has taught me about cancer. In a way I really didn't know how to answer the question as I have a hard time putting the experience as a whole into words. When we meet people that have been affected by cancer and hear their stories day after day it’s a truly eye opening experience. It makes me realize that some of the things that seemed so hard in life really are not that hard after all. The one thing that I seem to find in common with many that we talk to is hope. They are all fighting the disease the only way they know how and they all seem to have faith that they will beat it! They are who I ride for and for the hope that soon doctors will find a cure so that even the toughest cancers will be beatable!