Hopkins 4K for Cancer

June 9, 2005

Chicago, IL
We started off today in Michigan City. The day was dedicated by Father Eugine to one of his parishioners who had been really sick the last couple of months and was expected to pass away that very day. The day’s ride was made with his friend in our hearts. We had so much fun at the beach yesterday that we decided to make a detour from our directions to climb Mt.Baldi. It was a really really cool sand dune. We struggled so hard to climb up, but when we finally made it, and the view of lake Michigan was absolutely amazing. You would think that as much as we bike, we would have no trouble climbing a sand dune, but unfortunately that was not the case. Our spirits were so high that day because we were all excited to go into Chicago and to top it off we were going to have a day off the next day. At the morning meeting all the riders were instructed about our ride through Gary Indiana. Apparently it was a dangerous and rundown town and the best thing for us would be to ride through without stopping. On our way to Gary I had a flat tire and made my group fall behind the rest of the team (oopppss), but in my defense it was my first flat. It actually worked out in our favor because about ten miles outside of Gary we got a call that the group ahead of us had been stopped at an intersection in Gary by the president of the rotary club and invited to their weekly meeting to have lunch with them. We had a wonderful lunch of spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad with the privilege of meeting some nice people. We’ve had some pleasant surprises on our trip so far and this will definitely stay in our memories. The growing children that we are, we also stopped and had a second lunch with the rest of our group. Being one of the two vegetarians on the trip, I felt very loved by my teammates when Sandra who was driving the lunch van had two sandwiches and chips ready for me when I arrived. What can I say, I’m loved! Our adventure continued when we got lost into the city, but lucky for us, the entire team got lost together. As if Gary wasn’t scary enough, Amir chose south Chicago to have a flat splitting up the team once again. Not very far into the city we took a bike path along lake Michigan. It was so beautiful that Weijie made us stop every two miles for a picture because the city skyline kept getting closer and closer. You can see some of those pictures on the website. We regrouped closer into the city and were escorted by our very talented drivers safely to the dorms of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). It sort of felt like a homecoming for me because I used to live in chicago and my mom attended the university. The dorms were really nice, actually it felt more like a nice hotel so we got spoiled a little bit, but at least we can have that memory when we’re stuck in a tent in the middle of the desert. Just to give you an example of how lazy we’ve gotten, the dorms were shaped like a rectangle and our rooms were all the way on the other side. So when me and Kacey got out of the elevator with our bikes on the floor we decided it was too much effort to walk and rode our bikes to our rooms. That evening we had dinner at an amazing Thai restaurant called Wild Ginger. I’ve had some really good Thai food but this place definitely ranks in the top three and the owner is a sweet man who fed 27 of us for free. We went to bed as very tried but happy and satisfied children in nice comfy beds.

Dhara Amin