I got a nice email from Jeff last night. He actually got to sleep in a real bed for the first time since leaving home two weeks ago. YAY. I’m sure it was welcome after his fourth 100-mile day. He also tells about the guy in this photo (which I borrowed from Tom Roepke):

I’m at the Holiday Inn in Cedartown Georgia. What a cool little town. After we took showers, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church where we were going to stay talked the lady who manages the hotel and she agreed to let us stay here tonight for free! I’m in a room with Jay. I’m so excited, no floor or chairs to sleep on, but a real bed!!! Wooohoo!
The pastor knows a guy who is a paraplegic who races wheelchairs. He’s done tons of marathons. Last year he went from San Francisco to Boston or New York. His name is Kenny and he’s from Scotland. He lives here and trains. When he’s here he stays at this hotel. He’s training for the Chicago marathon this weekend. He’s going to go out with us tomorrow morning while we are riding. I think he’ll go for 10 miles or so. You might be able to Google him [I did and found this]. His name is Kenny, I don’t know his last name [Herriot–if I have the right guy]. This little town hosts a bunch of these kinds of racers during the year. They come in from Australia,  Europe, the US, everywhere. This has become a place where people like to train. You might be able to google Cedartown and find out more of what happens here.
We had Mexican food tonight. It was great! We’re all so sleepy after eating all of that.
We all are so excited. This was to be our last night on floors, but God has provided beds and great food.

The team was escorted out of Cedartown by Kenny. They have now made it to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta where they will be participating as a team, raising funds for Joplin and Tuscaloosa. They jumped in the van for the heavy traffic areas so they would make it to the conference on time, making today’s planned 90 mile ride more like 60. Most of them are torn between sadness and elation over this being the last day of riding. May God bless them as they share and soak up messages at Catalyst.