(Editor's Note): Gaylord resident and Grand Valley State University junior Katrina Miller is taking part in the adventure of a lifetime this summer, as she will participate on a charity bike tour named "Sea to Sea" that will take her from Seattle, Washington to the Atlantic Coast of New Jersey. She is writing an occasional blog from the road and Herald Times Sports Editor Jeremy Speer will post her entries online each week. Readers, feel free to comment and participate with the ongoing discussion."

July 7 Entry — Okay, internet is a bit sporadic here, so a really nice person just shuttled us to a coffee shop.

The first week went really well.  I'm really enjoying this tour. 

The last couple days were great.  They were so easy!  We did 50 miles with a great tailwind yesterday.  We had beautiful scenery too.  It was really hot, but it was great.  At one point, a lot of us wondered if we were indeed going uphill.  It looked like it, but sure didn't feel like it.  That was one awesome tailwind.

I rode with a guy named Gerry all day today.  He is a very cool 72-year-old.  You'd never know he's 72.  I think he adopted me.  He kept telling me I should come visit him in Alberta sometime and telling me about all the things he could show me, like the dinosaur museum.  He also cleaned and lubed my chain when we got back, after Joel adjusted my brakes.  Joel's an engineer, and I think he's our unofficial bike mechanic now. 

Oh yeah, on our way out yesterday, we were passed by the RV (one of our SAG wagons), then five guys drafting it.  That was pretty awesome.  They were, literally, inches away.  It was an awesome looking free ride, and I'm a little jealous.  It was so cool.  By the way, those were the guys who routinely jump off cliffs and bridges, go rock climbing, and are good at slacklining.  Slacklining is a hiking thing that's basically tight-rope walking and is really hard.  I'll get pictures later.

The first word out of my mouth when we got to the park yesterday was "Cookies!"  A group from our weekend church had cookies, water, and lemonade for us.  Those were some good cookies.  I had two, giant, chocolate chip cookies.  They were huge and had oatmeal or something textury in them.  They were, like, five inches in diameter, at least, since I'm bad at judging sizes.  Anyway, they were huge. 

There aren't any showers in this camp, so we won't get to shower until Monday night.  I'm just kidding, we have a shuttle to a health club with some pretty awesome locker rooms.  They are amazing!  They're clean, and spacious, and good looking.  We also got shuttled to a Laundromat, so I finally got to do my laundry.   

The celebration service was cool today.  There are some people from Burma who go to the church here, and they sang for us in their language.  That was cool.

Here's the email I wrote on Friday, but didn't get to send. 

Well, Seattle is supposed to be rainy and cold, so it was hot and sunny while we were there.  Now we're supposed to be in a desert, and it rained last night and sprinkled throughout the day.  Go figure. 

Today was a really dirty ride because of all the rain.  We all basically took mud baths on our bikes.  I caught all the spray from my bike and from my riding buddy's bike.  I just started laughing because I was so incredibly dirty.  We only had about 38 miles between camps today, so we got here at about 11:30, after leaving late.  We passed 20 dogs, 14 chickens, a couple hundred horses, and a few thousand cows.  The scenery was pretty boring, so we didn't really dilly-dally today.  The ride felt incredibly short.  Kinsco (KEEN-sho) and I got to camp and we both felt like we were just stopping for lunch and were going to keep going.  After getting here, we set up our tents, then went to Wal-Mart for Gatorade, a tarp, and bandanas to clean our bikes off with.  I was really looking forward to a nice, cool shower, but wasn't that lucky.  The locker room is like a sauna.  The shower heads had three settings: Hot, Too Hot, and Even Hotter. 

Since today was the Fourth, some Canadians went out last night and bought us all American flags to stick on our bikes today.  I've heard a rumor that we'll get to see fireworks tonight. 

Third Entry — June 30

Well, I got to Seattle safe and sound.  I even made my 30-minute connection in Chicago, thanks to the really kind guy I wound up sitting next to on my way out.  I told him I hadn't flown since I was seven and took me under his wing.  I like flying, I just don't know my way around airports.  Flying over the mountains was really cool.  I got some good pictures from the plane; I attached a few.  Oh yeah, on my flight from Chicago to Seattle, I sat next to the sister-in-law of one the tour voluteers/cyclists.  So, I had a very good flight out.

Since being here, I have met a ton of really cool people.  It's nice to be around a lot of like-minded people.  Some of them have really cool stories too, like my new friend who teaches English in other countries.  There is one thing I didn't think about.  I don't know why, but I just assumed I'd be around average-height Americans.  I forgot that almost everyone in the CRC is Dutch.  I am surrounded by blue-eyed, Canadian giants. 

Hopefully these emails will become a little better written, versus whatever I happen to be thinking of right now.  Thinking isn't going so well right now because I'm pretty tired.  It's been really hot and sunny here, which is probably better than the cold, torrential downpours that I've been told Seattle usually has.  Hopefully it stays nice for our tire-dipping ceremony and first ride tomorrow!  I get to get up at about 5:30 tomorrow so I can get my stuff on the gear truck before we go. 

I just got back from our very first Celebration Rally.  One of the things that really made an impression on me was when one the speakers said,

"Every three seconds, a child dies from poverty.  Count with me, One…two…three….  One…two…three….  One…two…three….  We pedal at a cadence between 80 and 90 rpm, that means that a child dies every four strokes.  That is why I'm riding."

Second Entry — June 18

The bake sale this weekend raised about $600!  I'm up to about $5,000 total now!  Remember, I don't get any of the money I raise, it all goes to poverty reduction at home and worldwide.

I'm busy packing up all of my stuff to take down to the gear trucks before they leave, so I don't have to deal with luggage on the plane.  Tomorrow's going to be a busy day.

My parents and I rode the new Gaylord to Mackinaw City rail trail this Sunday.  I believe it's supposed to be 61 miles.  Turns out that it's actually 64.2 miles, though I guess we did do about a mile in detours.  It also ends very unceremoniously behind Burger King.  Not that I'm trying to make it sound bad, it's still a nice ride, it just has a very ironic end :-)  My parents took turns riding with me, one drove the van while the other rode half the trail (actually, Mom rode about 7 miles farther than Dad).

First Entry - June 12

Hi everybody,

I just thought I would let you know how training and fundraising are going for the bike tour I'm riding in for poverty.

The fundraiser garage sale this weekend raised just over $1900!  That puts me at about $4,000 total for donations.  To raise more, I'll be having a bake sale at Glen's this Saturday. 

For those of you in Gaylord, I finally have reusable shopping bags with the tour logo and some facts about the organizations recieving the donations on them.  You can pick up one, or two, or three, at the bake sale and at the Quilter's General Store on Main Street.  They're $5 each and really nice to have.

Every day of the trip, we'll meet in small groups and read a devotional, which you can read too.  The tour is selling the books we'll be using, and all the profit from the books will go to paying tour expenses, i.e. providing us with food, gear trucks, etc.  The books are really neat, they have a map for each day, showing you our exact route, plus showing the elevation of that route.  You can track me on all 3,881 miles of the tour.  Here's a link you can order them at http://www.crcna.org/pages/sea_shiftinggears.cfm (we're picking up some for the Friendship Church).

Katrina

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