Off to Mitchell we go to see the one and only CORN PALACE! Not quite what I expected…but we stayed in a home right behind it so I got a few good pictures. We all dedicated our ride to Julian Golden, the grandson of some of the neighbors who hosted us in Minneapolis. Leukemia took his life before he reached the age of 4. When his grandfather told us the story at our picnic, I think most of us were brought to tears. His family hosts a fundraiser called Joggers for Julian (joggersforjulian.com) which we are all wearing on our wrists. I’ve thought about Julian a lot since then, terrified by the idea that something so horrible can touch such an innocent life. My thoughts are with his family, always.

On our day off in Mitchell we visited a nursing home, played bingo and had some good conversation. One lady was telling us all about how there is a huge hill going down into Chamberlain (our destination for the next day) and that it looks like you’re going right into the river…but don’t worry, we didn’t! Bingo was fun…some of those ladies sure knew what they were doin! It was really nice to meet the people there and they all told us how much they enjoyed our visit.

Jose turned 19 that day, so he went to a nearby lake with some of the team to enjoy the afternoon while another group went out and got an ice cream cake that we all surprised him with later! We have tons of summer birthdays on the team and we have yet to fail providing a cake for each! We played ninja, and frisbee and threw a football around by the lake for a while and then went back to the host to rest up for our next day.