Again, I’m backlogged a bit, exhausted, and it’s Evan’s 21st birthday in just TWO hours so I’m keeping this a bit short. We arrived in SLC, UT after a long journey from Delta. Our van, Black Stallion, had been having some issues… more on that later. Anyway, we tried and failed to get it checked out at Firestone. Thanks Enterprise! We actually stayed at the Vivint Smart Home Arena, home of the Utah Jazz. I was partnered with Emily and Brenna for the miles today and dedicated my miles to Megan Reilly’s fiance, Peter. Hope you’re doing well, Peter! I was thinking of you all day!
The miles were more or less uneventful. Some funny stuff happened that I can’t (or shouldn’t) put on the blog.
Once we arrived at the host (thanks Jazz! Maybe I’ll start rooting for you if the Knicks don’t turn things around), we got settled in. Ryan got very upset when Erin tried to take some of the food that he perceived as “ours.” For the uninitiated, a salty Ryan Litwin is MY FAVORITE Ryan Litwin. His rant produced this gem of a photo:
We wound up ending the day with a game of Knockout. On a fuc*ing NBA court (I lost).
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Day 11 was a rest/service day in SLC. Brenna and I began the day by going to the Goodyear recommended by Becca, our boss (basically). The guy couldn’t do anything for us because the van was still under warranty, so it had to go back to a Chevy dealership. Feels like Enterprise could have saved us all a lot of time by just telling us that the van was still under warranty! Ugh. Whatever.
At 10:30 we went over to the ACS Hope Lodge of SLC, where we helped them out with some tasks that they needed help with (cooking lunch, organizing laundry rooms, etc). Tyler B (my square!) and Aspen and I restocked the laundry rooms and got to talk to some patients at the Hope Lodge. It was cool interacting with them, they seemed happy to see all of us young people. Reminded me of MSKCC. Aspen actually returned to the team on Monday after her sister’s wedding and on her uber ride back from the airport, wound up securing lunch for Tuesday. Her uber driver invited us all to her house for a spaghetti lunch because it “didn’t sound like we were getting enough carbs!” Becky was a delightful woman and showed us such hospitality!
Unfortunately, there was a casualty on the way to Becky’s house. Our beloved Black Stallion crapped out. Blown transmission. DOA. Again, I really feel like if Enterprise had told us about the warranty earlier we would have been able to get the van to a dealer earlier (we had an appointment for after lunch at Becky’s) and avoid this whole headache. Alas, that’s not what happened. RIP Black Stallion. We acquired some holdover vehicles for the next day or so to get us to Idaho, where we got a new Chevy Express. Unfortunately, this one is white. Meh.
After lunch, Evan and I went for a run because NO DAYS OFF! We ran 8 miles around SLC in honor of Gabe Grunewald, a pro mid distance runner who battled Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma for years, training and competing at a world class level even during treatments. She passed away on June 12th of this year (you saw me share a bunch of articles, I’m sure). Gabe was one of the first pro runners whom I really admired and I mourned her passing for days. Please watch the final 1500m race of her career. It’s nothing short of incredible. Wednesday would have been Gabe’s 33rd birthday and runners around the world ran in her honor. Besides running for Gabe, it was fun to run with Evan and to get to see SLC. Unfortunately, I got a pretty gnarly nosebleed on the run, a la Senna Ohlsson! This happens sometimes when I run, I think the dry air out West got to me a bit. Anyway, it didn’t really bother me until Evan and I got a bit lost and asked a young woman with a stroller for directions. She kept looking me up and down really nervously but still helped us out. As I ran away I was like “wow, SLC people are so weird, why was she looking at me like– OH it was the BLOOD!” I probably would have been weirded out too. Oh well!
After dinner I had the PRIVILEGE of meeting up with Erin’s (Schoch, not O’Connor, the 4K director) friend from USD, the fantastic Kiley Morgan! Kiley lives in SLC with her beautiful pup Cricket. So thankful for Kiley, who took me out to sushi, to (FINALLY) meet Cricket, and for some beers. The bouncer at the bar was named Tyler, which was pretty funny. Woke up the next day at 4:30 with no hangover, as promised, and I was ready to rock and roll on into Idaho!
I’m currently in Idaho, catching up on posts. You’ll hear about Idaho later. There’s not a whole lot to tell. It looks the same as N. Utah. People are really nice though! SCHOCH OUT!
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and now we don’t even mention showers….. BE AFRAID READERS.
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