Quote of the day... “It took an hour for my butt to find a place on the saddle today”.

Day 5 (Denver, CO to Lincoln, NE) was another really long day, with each team having over 130 miles to ride. Some teams had to brake off riding early to get to the event at Berean Church on time. One team had a break down. Even though not as much cycling took place, the teams still had some interesting stories...

“We stopped at a burger place in Nebraska after we finished our ride, and the place was staffed by what looked like survivors of the Donner party or something. All the locals looked at us like we were aliens. While we were sitting down we could see into the kitchen, and man you don’t want to see that kitchen. When our food came, I noticed something sticking out of my burger. I gave it a tug, and it turned out to be a black, crusty hair that must have been twelve inches long. And you know that wax paper that comes inbetween frozen patties? Well Jay’s burger still had the wax paper stuck between the patties on his double cheeseburger. During this whole ordeal Kelvin was outside, so we decided not to tell him about it until after he ate.” –Phil Hankins

“Susan Brown from Berean Church was at a local restaurant, asking if she could put up a poster for the Ride for Hope. The person who was working called their supervisor in the back to see if it was okay. When the supervisor learned that the ride was benefitting orphans, he immediately got his friend from the back, who was pregnant and considering an abortion. Susan was able to talk to her and establish a connection that could result in the girl deciding to keep her baby.” –Steve Caldwell

At the end of the day we had a fantastic celebration at the Berean church, where we had a great response.

Almost everyone went to bed around 11:30. One of the exceptions was Brett Martin. Brett, being the shredder that he is, decided to go for a midnight bike ride since he didn’tget to ride during the day.

"One of the great things about this ride is that we do get to meet all kinds of people. We pulled up to a rest stop and there were three old men there so when they asked what we were doing I pulled up a chair and started telling them our story.

Anyway we got to talking about the military and Donald, who is on our team and had just gotten back from a tour with the Navy in Iraq, started talking with them. Then one of the old men stood up and shook Donald's hand and thanked him for serving our country. Then he took an American flag pin off his hat and gave it to Donald, who in turn said he would always wear it. It was a touching moment and the camaraderie made me proud to be an American!

Now on the lighter side, during our travels we have made certain observations and we have come up with the top 5 things you find most often on the highways/freeways of America. They are:1) Rubber from semi truck tires2) Bungee cords (probably seen 1000 of them)3) Road kill (everything from deer to baby birds)4) Water bottles and Gatorade bottles filled with urine.5) Ice chest lids" Collie Christianson