Rosie

I know that I go on and on about the good people we meet. Well folks here I go again, this time I would like to introduce the enormous readership of the Blog on both sides of the Atlantic another great person. In fact a number of them.

As you will understand, the ride is bound to mean a team effort, one man or group could never do what had been done already without the very substantial help given by those that support, they make it all possible.

As a good example we came into the town of Leavenworth a few days ago, we know no one there but had been contacted by Rosie. She is a keen cyclist and a person that gets things done. She had seen us on Facebook and emailed to ask if she could help, well help she did, she was able sort out a great route for us, fielded more cyclists to the group and, joy of joy, gave us accommodation and fed us for the overnight we had in the town.


This is Rosie....

She was joined by her partner, Joe and other members of the Cycle Club...

From the Left...Alvon, Rosie, Joe, Steve and Tom

The next day Joe joined Alvon and Tom and cycled the longest day yet, 132 miles.

Yes Fort Leavenworth, famous for its prisons, it seems that the town has no less then five, one for woman, one for high security, one for juveniles and so on.

Before the local council tells me to paint a balanced picture, here is the downtown Ice Cream parlour in Leavenworth, The Corner House Drug Store, still in the same ownership since 1912 it seems.  Great Ice Cream as well.

The town is also home to a large army base, it was because of that and our link via our sponsor First Command, that saw us having our remembrance ceremony in the town at the sponsor's offices. Here we were joined by a number of people with special reasons to be there that evening.

Some were the mothers and some the grand mothers of soldiers killed in the fighting since 9/11.  Families who lose family members in this way are recognised as being 'Gold Star' families. This recognition was first started after World War One.

It brought me up with a shock to realise that he first Gulf War started over 21 years ago.

The mother of a young man killed in Iraq was able to read his name with others that had died from the state of Kansas.  It was hard to hear her give the age of her Son in years, months weeks, days and hours.

After the ceremony Mrs Drexler asked Tom if he would except the memorial plaque her family had made to commemorate their son.

This will be with us at all  future ceremonies each day for the remainder of the journey.

Another great guy we met, and this is an amazing story but one that typifies the nature of the folk we meet is this man....

Rosie was trying to find us an RV site but there was just not one where we were going, the local Chamber of Commerce had advised her this this man was, quote, "I think is a cyclist, why not call him?...."

Well it turns out he is a semi-professional competitive rider and a great guy as well.

He opened up his home to us, shared dinner with us, gave us beer and allowed us the use of his loo etc.

Eric we thank you very much. And good luck in the Chicago races.


In America people often ask me in what way is the US is different to the UK, well that's not an easy one to answer in a couple of sentences, but one obvious difference is its attitude to religion, perhaps this particularly so  is in this part of America, sometime called the Bible Belt.

As an example I cannot imagine a commercial company in the UK offering up a prayer as part of the offering they make to passing trade.

Now I am aware of being somewhat remiss, no Alvon photographs for a while, fear not reader more will appear, but here is one of Alvon riding the post box...

Thanks Rosie, Joe, Eric, you made it great for us...