Today I was on food van duty with Helen, and we had a pretty relaxing day. We got a large donation from a grocery store in Franklin early in the morning that allowed us to get lunch for the whole team for the day. We had fun being the "moms" of the team and picking them out food and other necessities. We met up with the group around mile 45 to give them lunch, then headed straight to the host in Arapahoe to unload all of the bags and get everyone settled in. Unloading (and loading) all of the bags out of the van into the host for the whole team is a serious arm workout!
We will be spending two nights in Arapahoe, some of us at home-stays and most of us at a big 'Hunt Lodge'. I was assigned a room at the hunt lodge, which is basically a hotel for hunters who come to Arapahoe. The rooms are awesome and the common area is very cool - you can definitely tell it is a hunting hotel with all of the taxidermy animals hung up and around.
We cheered all of the groups in as they finished, showed them around and where their bags were, then everyone got showers so that we could head over to go trap shooting (provided by our amazing hunt lodge hosts) and have a barbecue at the shooting range for dinner.
Shooting was definitely a new experience for many of us, but it was awesome and our hosts helped us out with teaching us all we needed to know and to get the technique down. It was trap shooting, which means that you use shotguns to shoot at a clay disk "bird" that flies out after you say "pull" (basically saying that you are ready). We got to shoot in groups of 5, and we each got 12 bullets. I ended up hitting 3/12 which I thought was pretty decent considering my lack of shooting experience and hand-eye coordination! We had lots of fun learning about the sport of trap shooting, trying it out, and watching the town kids hit every single one after we all went and quickly embarrass our efforts :).
This city and host, Arapahoe, was also a mail drop so we got tons of mail and packages and it was like Christmas! So after we went shooting we all opened up our mail, which included many letters from alumni, family, friends and other bikers regarding our loss of Jamie. The outpouring of love and support was truly incredible. After opening up all of our gifts, we headed off to bed to get some rest before all of the July 4th festivities the next day!!
We will be spending two nights in Arapahoe, some of us at home-stays and most of us at a big 'Hunt Lodge'. I was assigned a room at the hunt lodge, which is basically a hotel for hunters who come to Arapahoe. The rooms are awesome and the common area is very cool - you can definitely tell it is a hunting hotel with all of the taxidermy animals hung up and around.
We cheered all of the groups in as they finished, showed them around and where their bags were, then everyone got showers so that we could head over to go trap shooting (provided by our amazing hunt lodge hosts) and have a barbecue at the shooting range for dinner.
Shooting was definitely a new experience for many of us, but it was awesome and our hosts helped us out with teaching us all we needed to know and to get the technique down. It was trap shooting, which means that you use shotguns to shoot at a clay disk "bird" that flies out after you say "pull" (basically saying that you are ready). We got to shoot in groups of 5, and we each got 12 bullets. I ended up hitting 3/12 which I thought was pretty decent considering my lack of shooting experience and hand-eye coordination! We had lots of fun learning about the sport of trap shooting, trying it out, and watching the town kids hit every single one after we all went and quickly embarrass our efforts :).
This city and host, Arapahoe, was also a mail drop so we got tons of mail and packages and it was like Christmas! So after we went shooting we all opened up our mail, which included many letters from alumni, family, friends and other bikers regarding our loss of Jamie. The outpouring of love and support was truly incredible. After opening up all of our gifts, we headed off to bed to get some rest before all of the July 4th festivities the next day!!