The next day Debbie writes:
So far we have traveled nearly 1100 miles from the East Coast to greater Kansas City, Missouri.
Tonight is our last night enjoying the creature comforts of home,
as my sister Jeanne & her husband are hosting us this evening in their lovely home;
we are grateful for their accommodations.
We have nearly 450 miles to travel tomorrow to the Colorado state line,
where we will hop on our bikes to ride the 15 miles to our
first camping location in Sharon Springs, Kansas.
The real fun will begin on Saturday morning.
It has already been an exciting couple of days.
Lee, Cathy & I have had hours together to plan our strategies.
Most of them have revolved around consuming enough calories.
We ate enough in the car today to sustain us for the entire week.
We had some stressful moments yesterday,
as our daughter was giving birth to our first granddaughter Meara.
Did everyone know that Cathy is a retired Aire Force Pediatrician?
Her knowledge has calmed me down more than once in the last 24 hours.
All three of us want to thank you for the love & support
you have shown to us the last months & weeks as we trained for this event.
We hope you have enjoyed our pictures & training logs
as much as we enjoyed getting them to you.
There is very little else to do except to let the game begin.
We hope to be able to provide you with a narrative &
pictures of our adventures every day for the next week.
Please remember that it is never too late to support
National Airedale Rescue through our Rolling effort.
There are several people whom we would like to mention
before we take off for our adventure on two wheels
Andréa Denninger created not only our ROLLING 4 RESCUE website,
but many others to help various groups raise money for the breeds we love so much.
Without her commitment, none of this would have been possible.
Her husband Neal provided many of our incentive prizes
and paid shipping to send them to Christine Sheffer;
Tim Sheffer paid all postage costs to send them to the winners.
Christine Sheffer has spearheaded most of the fundraising efforts behind the scenes.
She organized the incentive contests and made sure that prizes were shipped out accordingly.
She has been our most loyal morale supporter on top of all that.
Every time we thought we couldn't pedal another mile,
she reminded us of how much money we were bringing in per mile.
She has been a huge support to all of us.
Denise Lucas suffers from terrible writer's cramp from
writing thank&45;you notes to all of the donors of this event.
I can't even imagine having to keep up with that task.
Paperwork is not my forté.
Denise, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.
Sidney Hardie has kept track of all the check & PayPal donations that came have in.
I have no idea how she kept that all straight,
but it is straight and it is a job that few would want to do.
We thank you.
My webmaster & friend Lisa Simon has cropped pictures,
and will be sending in our email reports to Andréa this week
so you can follow our trek across the state of Kansas.
I've asked her personally to make sure that she PhotoShops
at least ten pounds off me before the end of the week.
My husband Lee has willingly given over a week of his vacation for this adventure.
When we found out we would likely have our first grandchild during this ride,
he stayed true to our plan. He donated the iPAD 2
given away last week, which raised over $1100.00 for NAR
More than that, he is the greatest supporter of dogs in need that I have ever known.
So, my dear friend Cathy Biersack, my husband Lee & I will ride
our first miles tomorrow on ROLLING 4 RESCUE 2012.
I have plans for this to be a yearly event.
Look for news from the high plains of Kansas in the next day or two
and if you haven't made a donation or a pledge, please do it now.
You can also send us notes or photos of encouragement to Andréa this week thru the website.
Happy trails to us.
THE ROUTE IS HERE
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