All good things must come to an end

The morning of our last riding day together was a strange one. You could tell that everyone was emotionally mixed between extreme excitement as well as regret that our adventures together were about to end. We slept in much later than we ad been over the last week, but were still up early enough that we had plenty of time to pack up for the shortest ride of the trip. We only had 28 miles to go until we arrived at La Jolla Beach (it was also the longest cue sheet we’d had, there was an average of about a mile & a half in between each turn). Our planned arrival time was noon, and we hit the road by 8:45. We had planned on leaving by 9, but everyone was ready and way too anxious to wait that long. We posed for a few group pictures then all left together but eventually were spread out by the traffic lights.

The low for the day for me was right before we got to the prettiest part of the ride, excluding any view we had of the beach at the end of course. We were coming up on a bike path that went through a big valley, so I decided to get my camera out and take some pictures of everyone riding through it. I’ve taken plenty of pictures from my bike before but today that all caught up to me. We were riding down a small service road with no traffic so I moved towards the center to get a picture of some riders from the side when I ran over a reflector on the centerline and wiped out. Luckily I had crashed once before a week prior to the trip on a metal grate in a bridge crossing the Chicago River and gotten really banged up, so I had learned my lesson on how not to fall. Unlike my previous fall, I didn’t try to catch myself so I could tear up my hands and dislocate a shoulder, I just tucked and let my hip & back take the brunt of it. I bounced back up and hopped on my bike right away, mostly embarrassed because about 20 riders saw it happen. I bruised my hip a little and got some road rash on my elbow and one of my fingers, but it could have been way worse. The only real casualty was that my camera broke yet again during the fall, so I didn’t even get to take any pictures on the bike path, the only reason I even had it out. At least I knew my Dad would have his camera ready at the beach to take a couple of hundred pictures. I spent about the next 10 miles kicking myself that I had gone all the way across the country, then 15 miles from the coast I did something that stupid, but I eventually got over it.

We had a checkpoint where everyone waited up for each other a little over a mile from the beach. It was a good thing we left as early as we did because we were actually cutting it kind of close; all the traffic lights slowed us more than we anticipated. After regrouping, we timed our departure from the check point to get us to the beach right at noon. We were less than a half mile away when we finally got our first glimpse of the Pacific while coming over a big hill. I’ve seen the Pacific plenty of times before, but it had never looked so good, it finally hit me then that we were almost done as I felt goosebumbs run over my whole body. We stopped to soak it in and take some pictures, but I didn’t take any of course. After everyone was ready we pushed off again and shortly after began seeing familiar faces as we rode past the park where our lunch was being prepared. The first people I saw were Dan’s parents, who I spent some time with in Savannah before the trip with Dan. Not far behind them I saw my Mom running towards the road we were on with my Dad not far behind. This whole time people all over the place were cheering for us. I’m sure the word had been spreading from our family members waiting there for us, and it probably didn’t take long for other people to figure out what was going on. I don’t think I had ever felt so cool in my life. We rode through the parking lot to the edge of the sand where we all took our shoes off and got ready to walk the last leg across the sand to the shoreline. I got a big hug from my Mom & Dad & Issy when I stopped, it got really emotional but I’m so glad they were there.

We began walking across the sand through the crowds of people who were there enjoying the beautiful day, but we quickly began running as we realized that the sand was really hot. We all got right on the shore and posed for a bunch of pictures and let the moment linger until we would al finally dip our tires and be done. When the time came we were sure to all dip our front tires at the same time, just like we had done with our back tires in the Atlantic. I immediately handed by bike off to my mom so I could run and jump in. We hung around taking more pictures and jumping into the ocean, and eventually made our way back up shore to where everything was set up for our lunch. Brendan gave a short speech to everyone, followed by equally short speeches by myself and the other leaders, and then we toasted with champagne provided by Ana’s parents and had a great lunch provided by Dan Carmody’s dad.

After mingling with everyone and enjoying the great food, we shipped off for one last 4 mile ride to the church we were staying at. We all cleaned out the van and trailer to get our obligations out of the way. I went out for some sushi with my sister, her roommate Tamara, and Angela; then they gave us a ride out to a B&B alumni’s house, Todd Johnson, for a party he was throwing for us. Todd was awesome, he had beer & food for anyone who wanted it at the party. He was also at our wheel dipping and chalked the last couple of turns coming to the beach; he even wrote some encouraging messages mixed in with the turns. We had a lot of fun, one last big hurrah as a group.

The next two days people went out exploring San Diego & La Jolla and started trickling off one by one to go home. I made it to the Zoo and Sea World with my mom, sister & Tamara to see one of their friends perform in the Circ Del Mar show there and check out Shamoo.

It didn’t seem like it was long before it came time for the long drive home. Angela, Dan, Scott & myself all took part in driving back, although I got out in Chicago and Scott got out in Michigan. We were joined by Patrick, Rachel, & Dave Grant. We stopped at some amazingly beautiful places, a great finish to the trip.

We started off driving through Las Vegas, then went to the Hoover Dam and drove through the Lake Mead State Park. I’d been to Hoover Dam before, but there was something there I hadn’t seen last time. After 911 apparently the decision was made that it is too much of a risk to national security to have thousands of cars driving over the dam everyday, so they’re building an over pass a little further down the Canyon. It was an amazing sight, they were just starting the archway that would span the gorge and support the bridge that will stand at least 1000 ft above the river below. After the Dam, we stopped at a scenic overlook of Lake Mead in the park, & decided to walk down a little closer. We stumbled upon an awesome swimming hole in a big crevasse so Dave, Angela & I jumped in. We drove for a couple more hours and camped out just outside Zion National Park.

The next day we went into the park to go hike Angels Landing. It might have been the craziest thing I’ve ever done, keep in mind I just rode my bike across the country. It was a 2.5 mile hike to the top, which was almost 1500 ft above where we started. A bunch of the hike had chains anchored to the sides because you were basically walking on the side of massive cliffs. The view from the top was unreal. We spent a fair amount of time to stop for pictures and enjoy the views. When we finally got back to the van, we took a quick hose shower at a campsite, then moved on.

We had planned to go to Bryce Canyon as well, but ended up scratching it because we were running late and it was quite a few extra miles. It felt like we were driving through a national park almost all day anyway, Utah is one of the most beautiful states I’ve ever been in. Even the ride on the interstate was amazing. We found a scenic overlook just off of it at the edge overlooking a huge canyon, similar to the Grand Canyon. The sun started to set over the top of the plateaus in the distance after passing that point, it was like we were in the land before time as David said. There was a section on the interstate where they needed to put in switch backs! We coasted at 70 mph in neutral for about 6 miles, except for when we needed to slow down for the switchbacks. It was still steep enough afterwards to accelerate back to about 65, still in neutral. This was nice because we were just about out of gas and in the middle of nowhere. We made it to a gas station and stocked up on food & ice to prepare for another night of camping.

The next morning we woke up in Moab Utah, ready to go check out Arches National Park. It was another cool canyon, only there were far more archways than any other park we’d been to, hence the name. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time there as we had already seen so much and we had a REALLY long stretch of driving ahead of us. We took one short hike to see Landscape arch, just one of many contained in the park. After that we started the long drive to Chicago. We decided to drive through the night so we could get there at a decent hour.

About 12 hours later on the dot we arrived at Joe’s house in Naperville, where we would stay for the night. Everyone except for Day who needed to get some work done tok the train down town to check it out, and I stayed back to hang out with Luke & Joe who was back to move some stuff out of the house as he will be selling it soon. We crought Angela, Dan, Partick & Rachel out to Lou Malnoti’s for some good Chicago style pizza when they got back, then called it a night as everyone else was getting an early start on their drive to Detroit the next day.

It was sad to see the Bike & Build van & trailer leaving, it was the first time that it really hit me that the trip was over, I hadn’t really felt anything up until that point. I could feel some emotion coming over me as the trailer went around the corner and out of sight. Since then I’ve been trying to relax, but have been busy helping in the moving out of Joe’s house and getting ready to move to Texas for grad school in a few days. I can’t wait for my next adventure in Austin, but I don’t think anything will ever compare to my Bike & Build experience. It really has been life changing; learning about the housing issues that affect millions in our country and around the world, and seeing first hand how much a little effort to help can effect people so profoundly and make such an impact in so many people’s lives. Seeing just how beautiful a country we live in first hand has also struck me more than I expected. None of the pictures I’ve taken serve any of the things I’ve seen any justice. There are so many natural wonders to see out there, I can’t wait to make the effort to go see more National Parks & other areas of the country in years to come. The friendships I made over the course of the trip may have been the best part of the trip. There were of course times with drama, but I have never seen such a diverse group of people from different backgrounds become so close so quickly.

So I’ll finish my final entry saying thank you to everyone who kept track of me during my adventure. It’s been really touching to hear how many people took such an interest in what I was doing. I’m also so thankful to all the generosity we received from our hosts along the way. It was almost unconceivable how generous some people are capable of being to perfect strangers, I felt nearly at home in so many places on our route, it really meant a lot to me. And of course, if any other riders from the trip read my last blog, it has been an honor and a privilege to share such a great adventure with all of you. Everyone brought so much to the group and really did there part to make it be the best trip possible. I said it at the beach in La Jolla and I’ll say it again, I’ll never forget any of you!

So after the Grand Canyon we encountered miles upon miles of desert which was much less grand. Our rides have become generally shorter and our wakeup times earlier in order for us to stay out of the extreme heat we’ve been riding through. It wasn’t too bad until we left Prescott and lost 3,300 ft in elevation, (gaining about 25 degrees in average temperature!!) We had a lot of fun while in Prescott, it’s a cool town and we had a good build day with Habitat there. We did some landscaping at two houses which was a first for us, but there was a lot of work for us to do so we were all able to stay busy pretty much all day. It was nice because it makes the day go faster and we felt like we had accomplished a lot.

When finally getting into California I kind of thought that most of the really hard work was over, we were almost there after all. I was really wrong because the desert in Southern California is way worse than any desert we encountered in Arizona, not what I expected. The day we crossed into California, I ended up riding back about 4 miles with a few other riders to go swimming in the Colorado River on the CA/AZ border. It was so refreshing and a lot of fun.

The desert in Cali has been unlike any other riding we have done. We’ve been getting into our host sites much earlier which has been nice. We’ve had more time to nap and relax, and we’ve needed it because the heat really took a lot of energy out of us. We had one near 90 mile day into Brawley that was particularly brutal. Our Program director Brendan was along for the ride that day and wrote the best journal entry of the trip documenting it, I highly recommend reading it if you haven’t already, its really long but a good read.

So today we had our last challenging ride into El Cajon, less than 30 miles from the Pacific. We managed to stumble across a cyclists dream while checking the route the day before. The church was in a slightly different location on HW 78 than google maps had placed it so we needed to update the cue sheets, which is the only reason we found it. I had driven the van that day so I decided to ride it myself before finalizing anything to make sure it was all paved. It was a winding back road going down some really fun descents for a while, then one last epic climb up Engineers Road with views rivaling any others we’ve seen on the trip so far. There were great views of Mountains & Valleys filled with clouds, then at the end we came around the other side of the mountain to see a dammed mountain lake below us. I was really happy to ride it twice.

We saw our first San Diego sign today, David & I were sure to have Brendan take a picture of us looking manly in front of it, (we copied the pose from a cool mural we saw at Mile High Middle School in Prescott). While in El Cajon we were treated to some nice surprises from Hannah. She is from really near by so her mom and brother were greeting many of us about 2 miles from the host site with signs, then later in the day she got us all free frozen yogurt from “The Yogurt Mill” where she worked before the trip. It was the best frozen yogurt I’ve ever had and huge portions, perfect for a hungry Bike & Builder. Hannah even got behind the counter and prepared them all herself.

Well I’m about to go out for a pre-celebratory drink or two and meeting up with one of my sisters friends, and hopefully her if she gets into town early enough. This entry was kind of thrown together last minute, but I’ll be sure to add one more good one during the van ride back to Chicago.

The Arizona Desert

So we're well past the Rockies and right in the middle of Arizona now. Our first day in AZ was also our first day in New Mexico & Utah, (The famous 4 corners). We had lunch there and took some pictures in four states at once.


So far the highlight of the desert for me, and possibly the whole trip was going to see Monument Valley. Anyone who doesn't know what it is has definitely seen it, it has appeared in tons of movies including National Lampoons Vacation, Thelma & Louise, Mission Impossible 3, & our favorite, it is where Forrest Gump turns around and stops running across the country. We saw it by tour bus during our day in Kayenta. There was a route we could have taken to ride past it while going from Teec Nos Pos to Kayenta, but it would have been 100 miles instead of 57. A lot of people wanted to take on the extra miles and we debated for a while but eventually decided it was better to not add that many miles on a hot desert day. It worked out pretty well because we wouldn't have seen nearly as much of it as we did riding our bikes on the highway. The tour bus took us through all the dirt roads that go through the park that we wouldn't have dared take our road bikes on. I added tons of pictures to the web page so check them out.

The other obvious recent highlight was the Grand Canyon. My parents have brought me there before so I wasn't quite as excited as some of the other riders, but it had been a long time and it was really rewarding to bike there. The day was actually a total logistical nightmare for me. This past week has been the second of my weeks to organize, and the Grand Canyon day sort of fell apart. We were suppose to camp out in Desert View, a 1st come 1st serve campsite on the East side of the South Rim. Scott was driving the van in the morning and we sent him directly there to get us a few sites, only to find out that they don't allow large groups to camp there under any circumstances. They only allow 4 people & 2 tents per site. To make matters worse the Main South Rim village campsite was full. The next available camp site was 30 miles past Desert View, and about 8 miles outside of the park. The one bit of serenity I found was when I stumbled across the coolest bike path ever paved. I was riding by myself trying to get ahead of everyone so I could sort things out at the new campsite, and I noticed a bike path that went away from the road and closer to the edge of the canyon. I decided to take it and was glad it did, the path had tons of tight turns through the forest and spent about half of the time hugging the rim of the Canyon. It only went for about 3 miles but I couldn't wipe the smile off my face the whole time, a nice break from what was otherwise a really stressful day.

Even though we added 30 miles to that days ride, it wasn't the end of the world because they were all along the road we would have taken the next day anyways, making the ride to Williams that much shorter. I lucked out and everyone rolled with the new plan really well. It actually worked out really well, even though it started raining as we were setting up out tents, and didn't quit raining all night. It made for a very interesting evening, but with the next days ride now being 30 miles shorter, we had a nice relaxing morning before heading off to Williams.

Williams is a fun town, although I really didn't get to do much as I fell behind on my leader responsibilities since my week is coming to an end and we hadn't had Internet for a few days. The 2 pages of notes I needed to write regarding the Grand Canyon day for next years leaders didn't help anything either.

Tomorrow we're off to Prescott for our last build day. Dan and some other riders have planned a scavenger hunt type competition for tomorrow. We've been divided into 3 teams, and will get points for completing certain objectives, finishing the day faster than other groups, and there is a "lunch time bananza" that will include some types of games. There are also some supposed bonus point available, all will be revealed tomorrow.

Anyway, I talked to my parents earlier today, they hosted the Northern US group earlier for dinner as they pass through Janesville. It sounded like quite the event, there were something like 60 people at their house for dinner. They said that they really had a good time meeting everyone. I'm glad that they got a good Bike & Build experience before meeting myself and the rest of us in San Diego, they've said that they're looking forward to meeting everyone even more now. My mom sent a bunch of pictures to my phone, but it died yesterday so I haven't seen any yet. Hopefully I can get it replaced in Prescott.

Riding the Rockies

Our ride from Colorado Springs to Buena Vista on July 5th was probably the hardest we’ve had yet. It started out really well; it was mostly downhill for the first 10 miles which brought us to the Garden of the Gods. The rock formations there were absolutely amazing! I’ve added a few pictures, but check out pictures on the B&B web page to get a better idea, I can’t really explain how cool it was. The only problem with the garden was that we all took way too much time exploring and taking pictures, even though we had a tough century ride entering the Rockies, (it was still worth it). When we finally left the gardens, we immediately started climbing up US 24. There weren’t any really steep climbs, but going out two nights ago, getting to bed to late the night before, and not being acclimated to the altitude might have been some of the factors, but regardless of the reasons, everyone had a really tough time, including myself. The wind didn’t help anything either. Right after second lunch we faced a 20-30 mph headwind for over 15 miles. The highest we got was going over Wilkerson Pass, 9,507 ft, which was about 60 miles in. We also found a tourist center there and a local VFW was handing out free cookies and juice, a very pleasant surprise after a long hard climb. Afterwards we had a short descent into South Park Valley (yes the same as the TV show). I had no idea that the valleys in the Rockies could stretch so far, it was almost like we were in Kansas again, just you could see mountains all around in the distance and the air was way thinner. We had our second lunch in a small town in the valley, then the wind hit us afterwards. I rode the last 25 miles with Patrick, and we were relieved when we found 10 of the last 13 miles of the day were down hill. We were served a great dinner by our hosts at the church we were staying at. Among the members of the church helping were a woman who was originally from near Milwaukee and a retired man who got his physics doctorate in Madison.

Our ride to Gunnison took us over Monarch Pass, the continental divide. We started the morning off at a community pancake breakfast in a park thanks to our hosts. We had a great ride to start off, there were huge snow covered mountain ranges all over the place. I didn’t mention it in the last paragraph but Buena Vista may be the most beautiful mountain town I’ve ever been to, the views were breathtaking. Anyway, we started the steep portion of our 4,000 ft climb at about mile 30. We got well above the snow line, nowhere we went was totally covered, but I was looking down at snow patches about 4 miles from the summit. We finally got to the top of Monarch Pass at mile 42, we were 11,312 ft above sea level, the highest we’ll get on the whole trip. We stopped for a good lunch at the visitors center there, then left to see a big rain storm coming in. I hurried up and got going with Dan Oates, Dave Grant, & Cole. We were sling-shoting each other almost the whole way down. I borrowed a camera mount from Dave Getchel so I could film most of it. It was pretty cool, but I wish I would have had it during some of our descents in the Appalachian’s, they were steeper and a little cooler. It still worked pretty well, I’ll try to put them in another blog entry. We got close to the bottom and got poured on for the last 2 miles of the descent; luckily I had put my camera away and was wearing a raincoat. We stopped in a barn at the bottom for cover then eventually went another mile down the road to a gas station where some other people had stopped. We’ve ridden in the rain before, but it was really cold at that elevation so everyone was freezing. We stayed there for almost an hour and finally decided to move on. We got rained on for another couple of miles but it cleared up eventually. We were happy to find that the rest of the ride was mostly downhill and Cole, Dan & I finished the last 32 miles in well under an hour and a half. Gunnison was a cool town too, we stayed at the high school and I ate at a local pizza place with a few other riders.

I had been looking forward to the ride to Ouray for months, and it didn’t disappoint. Another century that brought us along the Blue Mesa Reservoir for about 20 miles, it was amazing. It was a big dammed mountain lake surrounded by all sorts of types or mountains & cliffs. I was taking pictures left & right until my camera broke, right before the best part of the lake too. We had 1st lunch at the end of the lake by the Blue Mesa Dam and enjoyed one of the best views of the trip. After lunch we began come decent climbs mixed with some fun descents. Dan & I made a small detour to check out another cool Dam further down the Black Canyon. The road into it was surrounded by enormous cliffs and a whitewater river running parallel with the road. It was well worth the detour, quite a few other riders made the trip as well. The last 30 miles of the ride were somewhat boring compared to the rest, but there were some of the coolest snowcapped mountains ahead of us that we had seen. As we got closer to Ouray the landscape became more and more mountainous until we got to the town to find it was located in a small canyon surrounded by massive cliffs, definitely the most picturesque host site yet, too bad my camera was broken.

I drove the van the 4th day in the Rockies, something I ended up wishing didn’t happen. As amazing as the previous ride day was, it was dwarfed by the Million Dollar Highway. Supposedly it was named this because it cost $1 million a mile to build, in the 1930’s. It was all switchbacks and carved into huge cliffs, we were about 300 feet directly overlooking Ouray after the first mile. Then the road turned away from the town and into the canyon, I can’t even imagine building something like this road, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The challenging but rewarding climbs went on for about 12 miles bringing us back over 11,000 ft, then there was a big decent into another cool mountain town called Silverton. I had to shuttle everyone for about ¾ of a mile up the base of the next mountain because of some road work that bummed everyone out, but the rest of the climbs and views didn’t disappoint either. One good thing that happened in Silverton is that y camera miraculously started working again. I didn’t get any pictures of the Million Dollar Highway, but I took about 45 pictures from the van over the rest of the drive.

Durango was still surrounded my mountains, but they were nothing compared to what we had seen over the last few days, we could tell that we were right on the edge of the Rockies. So in 4 days, we pretty much biked across the whole Rocky Mountain Range, not too bad.

The long slow climb to Colorado Springs

OK so we made it to Colorado Springs after riding ­­­­­­­­­670 miles in 8 straight riding days. It was capped off by yesterday’s grueling 125 mile ride that brought us up to 6,700 ft above sea level. It was a tough week but a lot of fun. The ride started out relatively flat and we could barely see the silhouettes of the Rockies far of in the distance as we headed West. They gradually got closer and closer and at mile 80 we turned north and immediately got into the rolling foothills. We hit a few patches of bad weather and extreme winds in a few areas, but the views were worth it. I hit a new speed record going down one of the declines at mile 105, hitting 47.4 mph. Dan was right behind me the whole way too, I’m way heavier which makes me fall a lot faster downhill, but he managed to keep up by staying in my draft. The whole ride was great until the very end when we got into a huge storm which included hail. I was riding with Dan, David, & Travis and we eventually stopped and all piled into a porto potty on a jobsite about 5 miles from the church to stay dry and warm. It was really funny, we needed to laugh because that portion of the ride really sucked, we just wanted it to be over with.

The build day yesterday was really cool. We framed a house like we did in Chapel Hill. Most people agree framing is the most fun thing to do on a build day. The only difference from Chapel Hill is that the house will be two floors, and there was an amazing view of Pike’s Peak and the rest of the Rockies. We also got to meet the woman and her three kids who will eventually live in the house we were building which was really nice. We love when that happens, it helps us remember that we’re really helping someone out and not just working for nothing.

Last night a bunch of us went out in Colorado Springs. We went to a couple of bars but spent most of the time at a place called Cowboys for some $2 beers and line dancing. We kept up for a while on the dancing when it was easy or when Casper Slide was playing, but eventually it got more and more complicated and we ended up looking like idiots desperately trying to copy everyone else. We all had a blast.

A lot has gone on besides that since my last entry, too much to list in one blog entry that I’m writing on the 4th of July, but I’ll go through some of the highlights. Kansas was really cool, for a little while. We were surprised by the landscape we found right after we crossed the state line. The gypsum hills looked like the plateaus we’re expecting to see in Arizona, only there was grass everywhere besides sand. There were some amazing views that kind of blew us away. I didn’t really realize how much of the old “Wild West” Kansas was. We stayed in Dodge city which supposedly was a big cowboy town back in the day. Eventually Kansas turned into what we expected, really windy and farmland as far as the eye can see. By the time we got to Colorado we were happy to be quoting Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

The beginning of Colorado was no treat either. It was really hot and windy, and the landscape was barren & dry almost everywhere. We were still happy to be that much closer to the Rockies, we knew that eventually we would see them ahead. We caught our first glimpse of the mountains on our ride to Rocky Ford. We also got interviewed by a local newspaper that day when we stopped in a town called La Junta for ice cream. You can see the article at http://www.lajuntatribunedemocrat.com/homepage/x1470895995/Bike-and-Build-cyclists-ride-through-La-Junta

Another highlight that happened in Lamar Colorado is that I cut my hair. Don’t worry, the picture shown is when I was half done. It is so nice riding with short hair. When I was descending on the ride into Colorado Springs I could feel the wind through my helmet so much it felt like I wasn’t even wearing one. It will be really nice once we get to the desert.

Anyways, I’m hating that I’m not with my all my cousins in Janesville right now, I really miss all of you. Despite that I’m glad to be in Colorado Springs, I’ve heard that they light off the fireworks from in the mountains which will be really cool if it’s true. I’m wearing my Red White & Blue Volvo jersey I got in Asheville (thanks again Peter) and the American Flag bandana my mom sent me in yesterday’s mail drop (thanks mom too). We have a really tough 4 riding days coming up, but I couldn’t be more excited about it. Tomorrow we’ll ride through the Garden of the Gods just before starting our climb up to Buena Vista. We’re going to ride 289 miles in the next 3 days, IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND OVER THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE!!! I don’t think I really realize how hard it’s going to be, but I’m especially excited for the ride from Gunnison to Ouray. We’ll ride about 40 miles on a dammed mountain lake, go right by the dam, and then the next 60 miles will include some serious climbing and descending. I hope everyone has a great 4th of July!