Hopkins 4K for Cancer

July 14, 2006

Escalante, UT
73 miles

Hot damn! Literally hot!

Ross gave me the task to wake people up at 4:30 am. So the night before, Ersin and I ran around the campsite trying to complete as many of the "morning" duties as possible so we could hit the road near sunrise.

All night I had trouble sleeping. I didn't want to mess up the wake-up duties. Can you imagine if I overslept? I would have felt a fool!

So I accidently woke up at 3:30am thinking it was 4:30am. I woke up Lauren Jia, who slept soundly atop one of our vans, asking her for the van keys. I planned to turn on the van's lights to help wake people up. She let out one of those indulgent morning exhales, looked at her watch, and said, "what are you doing? it's 3:30am."

Woops! I went back to my tent. Could I really sleep for just one hour and wake up right on time? You see, I was having trust issues with Katie Ross' wrist-watch alarm. I've never worn wrist-watches. I don't believe in them. I used to think it was like wearing death on your wrist, but once I outgrew the thought, the habit of staying watch-free remained.

So I allowed myself to doze off for 5 minutes at a time, keeping my eyes on the wrist watch, which didn't say the time, but simply said "AL ON", which I took to mean, "Alarm On". You can see my issues with the watch: I didn't know the time, I didn't know what time the alarm was set for, all I knew was "AL ON", which could have meant "Alright, On with sleep!" in the crazy world of wrist-watches. After what felt like 30 minutes, I started figiting with the watches buttons, until I saw the time.

Needless to say, I was awake at 4:30 and we were on the road around 6:15, as the sun was completing it's rise.

Termite and I made a pit stop before reaching lunch at the "Magic Flute Store". We were on the outskirts of a heavily Native American area of Utah, and this store was a Native American artifacts store. They had rainsticks, carvings, and a really nice cat that cheered us up a lot. It would have been nice if we could have had a 4k pet. We would have to get something small, maybe a turtle, that takes little to live, and can survive if we left it on the side of the road.

The first half of our day was beautiful. The mountain we climbed in Utah resembled the Rocky mountains. The sights, smells, and feelings were all awesome and uplifting. We had lunch in a heavily Native American town called Boulder, UT. Termite and I were the first ones to arrive to a Native American Museum parking lot, which was also hosting a town fair with live music. The lunch van pulled in just as we had, without lunch. Termite and I took the initiative and got some lunch supplies from two different stores. It felt really good to be able to provide for the group.

The second half of our day was trecherous. We got some of the steepest and hardest climbs we had seen yet. But the kicker was we got to see devil's backbone and some really wild Utah sites at the top of these climbs.

As we were pulling into our town, with limited information of our hosts, we passed three cyclists. They wore white, and I assumed they were with the Texas group. But there were only three of them. I waved hello and they smiled and waved back. Later I found out this was another awesome group cycling across America, West to East, called JANE'S APPEAL (www.janesappeal.com). We had hear about this woman, but weren't exactly sure what she was all about.

When we reached our host later, we were able to read her website and learn that she is terminally ill and biking across america to raise money for various charities! We were all inspired and privaleged to have passed by her and see her in action.

We arrived at our hosts, and had the opportunity to stay with a very kind individual who has been hosting us for years now: Whinnie! She was extremely generous and very wise. I was astounded to learn that she was persuing her doctorate in secondary education in her 70's. This was just another example of the awesome people across this country and the amazing stories they have. She was motherly, doting, supportive, and even allowed us to turn her garage into a barbar shop. Dave cut a bunch of hair in the garage, free of charge, and none of us received lollipops.

The only bad news of the day occured around 8000 miles away. The city I was baptized in and spent many summers in growing up as well as the home to most of my family, Beirut, was attacked by the Israeli government. While I won't go into my political opinions on this matter, it was very difficult for me to pick up the newspaper and see that city under a cloud of smoke. Even after 73 miles in the Utah heat, nothing hit me harder than the news from Beirut. It was an awful feeling, but I'm glad steps are slowly being taken towards a ceasefire, and that my grandmother got out safe.

-Raffi