The kids and I participated on Saturday in the Ride for the Children in Paradise Valley, AZ, in between Phoenix and Scottsdale. The ride is benefiting homeless children in AZ. Olivia just wanted to ride the 10 miles distance, but I "convinced" them that it would be good to ride the 25 miles because we came up all the way from Tucson. And when we are going to Germany in the summer, my parents ride this distance on a daily basis, so it would be great training. The ride was great. Similar to our charity ride earlier this year, all riders started together regardless of distance. It was not a race, even though we had numbers. We got passed by a lot of riders that most likely rode the 65 miles option. We initially had a police escort. Once we entered the side streets in Paradise Valleys, there were police stopping traffic on all major intersection. It was a great experience for the kids who never rode in a big group before. We stopped at the 2 water stops along our route which were very well organized. After that we rode pretty much by ourselves. Every once a while we passed some riders or they passed us. The scenery in Paradise Valley was awesome. We finished in 2:15 and the kids were finished afterwards. At the finish line we met a gentlemen from Hearts and Hooves of AZ, who took a picture of us and wanted to post it on his web site. It is a Christian organization that takes care of homeless children as well. As you can see from the picture, the kids and I wore our IC3 jerseys representing Jesus and our club. Some riders saw our jerseys and were interested in the club. It was another great opportunity for the family to get involved, praises be to our Heavenly Father for this opportunity.
