Day 14: Pullman!

So this is our ninth day with the cyclists and today we headed towards Pullman, WA. It is about a 115 mile trek which for the Crew meant tons of stops and water refills. We made it to Pullman for the day and we had our typical crew chief lunch which usually consists of a two-meat-one-cheese sandwich or a PB&J. If any of you know me, you know my extreme dislike for PB so I always choose the prior of the two. Once we arrived in Pullman we had snacks and showered up at the Theta Iota chapter house of Washington State University. It was the second Pi Kapp house that I’ve been able to step foot into and each one leaves me wishing more and more that Zeta Pi had one to share with the JOH when they pass through Huntington. Once every one was squeaky clean we got together and headed towards our friendship visit with a local church. We sang karaoke, ate pizza, we tossed around little footballs with the kids and we also played with the parachute thing that we were all so enthralled with as children where you threw it up in the air and everyone ran to the other side before it fell down.

One of the interesting aspects of the friendship visit was that some of the children brought these little pink strips of paper to each table with some tape and told us to make the longest chain we could by joining the pieces of paper. Each table did so and at the end, the members of the church took the chain and placed all the cyclists in the middle of the circle. They did this to symbolize that we were in their thoughts and prayers for safe travels. It was very creative and thoughtful of them. Once everything was over we helped clean up, we stacked chairs, and we moved the tables to their rightful places before heading to lodging.

Once we got to lodging it took us a little bit of time to figure out where to park. We eventually got it together and as soon as we stepped foot into the gymnasium where we would be sleeping a wave of nostalgia came over me. The gym was decked out in blue and grey colors all over. I also found out their mascot is the Greyhound and it truly blew me away. How ironic that the gymnasium we stayed in was the same mascot and colors of my alma mater. The high school itself was a lot larger and they were fortunate to have their own football stadium, baseball field, and a ton of other amenities.

After we all got settled in to the gym we had our first weekly team meeting. These are held once a week and its basically an opportunity for cyclists to talk about things they want to see other cyclists improve on like speed, calling out objects, turn signals, etc. It is also a tradition for two awards to be given out. There is the G award which is for attitude, morale, and enthusiasm. This time it was Nick Eckstein, a cyclist from Purdue University. He’s riding the bike that belonged to David Riley Feltner, a guy from his chapter that passed away one year ago from tomorrow (June 5). His attitude is astounding and he is always so full of life. He can light up a room by just walking in to it. The second award given away to Sloan Dickey and it was in the form of an American flag bandana. Sloan tied it to his bike and will give it away at the next weekly meeting.