Wednesday, July 24th- Black River Falls to Westfield

We are fortunate to have 4 webteam members on Team Oz this year. All four checked in with a report today.
and Edie Kalweit has been a St. Joan of Arcer for 25 years now. Now that her children are grown, there is time to participate more fully in activities taking place at St. Joan's.	Bridget Gaeleigh became a SJA parishioner in the fall of 2000. Bridget lives with her two cats in Richfield. During the day she assumes the role of a business/techie in corporate america, but at night she's obsessed with satellite tv medical shows, working out, reading, listening to music and doing fun stuff with friends and family.	Michael Reinbold is a professional photographer and banquet caterer with an extensive theatre background in acting, writing, and directing. He loves all aspects of the arts, staying fit, and helping and inspiring people. A passionate believer in St. Joan of Arc's mission of social justice, Michael is a continuing AIDS Ride participant, Grace House volunteer cook, mass reader, and Joan of Arc choir member. He looks forward to web reporting and photographing for the website.
and Rick Spaulding is a photographer specializing in digital photography for the theater and works for National Camera Exchange. He is also an antique dealer and eBay afficianado who enjoys collecting marbles but his true joys in life are his two boys and his beautiful wife, Tinia.

Cranberry Bogs
The smell of pine permeated the air for the better part of our morning as we rode through the Black River Forest. Cranberry juice was one of the offerings at Pit Stop #3, the native cash crop in this part of Wisconsin. The ribbon of roads we traveled today through cultured cranberry bogs was tattered at best. But the sun shone, the sky was blue and the temperature once again was close to perfect for biking.

Some photos are included of the lunch crew clowning around with Steve Kremer, of Jim Cassidy and Becky Rose distracting Marty from her motor cycle safety duties(right), and of your hard working web reporters. In other photos we hope you get a flavor of the ride today.

edie

Crewing Day 2 and 3
Day 2 - I'm up at 5 AM for the day. Last night was cold and clammy in the tent. I seriously considered breaking out my emergency Mylar blanket, but managed to tough it out!

Our crew is scheduled to leave each morning at 7 AM. Once I'm up, I have to repack my duffel bag, eat breakfast, take a shower (conveniently located in modified semi's), take down my tent, haul the tent and my gear to the gear truck, pick up the medical supplies needed to replenish the stock at our pit stop and get to the upload lot to meet the rest of the pit crew.

We drive about 75 miles to our pit stop. Once there, it was pretty much a repeat of the previous day. Unload the trucks, put up the canopy, set up the cots, unpack supplies. After the pit stop is set up we have a couple of hours of down time before the first rider appears.

Edie Kalweit with former SJA Peace and Justice Coordinator Jim Maurer.

The riders are doing the first "century" a ride of 100 miles or more. Today is 110 miles. Liz, our charge RN told us to expect to be very busy today, and we were!! For a solid 4 hours I worked with riders. We saw a lot of exhaustion, dehydration, sore knees, and sunburn. At times we had every cot and chair filled with patients - many who needed vital signs checked every 15 minutes.

Our pit was supposed to close at 5:30 PM, but there were still 80 + riders on the route . We stayed late to evaluate the riders as they came in. At 6:30, all remaining riders were picked up and brought back to base camp.

I got back to base camp at 8:15 PM - tired, hot, hungry. I had some dinner and went to set up my tent. An angel named Karin had already set my tent up for me and retrieved my gear!! I could have kissed her, but she was busy serving dinner to the masses. That's the kind of camaraderie that I keep seeing here - it's fantastic.

I was in my tent and sound asleep at 9:30. Day 3 was better than day 2. We got lost on our way to the pit stop and had to really rush once we got in to get everything set up before the first rider. The weather was good, and we had fewer medical problems today. Things went well, and we were back in camp by 7:30 PM. Stay tuned for more reports from the road - and pray for no rain!!!

Bridget Gaeleigh

Michael on Day 3
Much warmer this morning, it was quite nice not to have my teeth chatter for the first two waking hours. Heading towards Westfield, we rode our flattest ride today. Would have been a breeze to get through, but yes, again high winds replaced that gentle breeze. Much of the day became an arduous push towards camp. I started out at 6:30 AM. I turned into camp at 5:10 PM. Had we had tail winds, I could have easily knocked 90 minutes off of my riding time.

We rode a total of 110 miles today. I'm exhausted. My writing has become a primitive scrawl and my scabby knees won't get a chance to heal until I return to Minneapolis. By the end of the night, 300 people had to "sag" into camp. Thank God the temperatures have been fantastic, 79 degrees much of the day.

Michael Reinbold

Cranberry Horseradish??
Day three turned out to be as beautiful as the rest! It was another 110-mile ride with partly sunny skies and a mild head wind. The memorable stops of the day included the Cranberry Museum just outside of Warren WI, the Hawaiian theme at lunch, and the Watermelon Man at Pit 5.

At the Cranberry Museum and gift shop we were given complimentary cranberry ice cream cones. In the shop you could purchase chocolate covered cranberries, cranberry chutney, cranberry salsa, and cranberry horseradish! ( the horseradish is out of this world!).

The lunch pit was quite a hoot with some pretty wild costumes to help take our mind off the road for a while.

The Watermelon Man is an AIDSRide celebrity and is worth a separate story to himself so stay tuned.

It’s getting late and we have another 98-mile ride tomorrow so I better call it a day.

Your friendly web reporter, photographer, and AIDSRider,

Rick