Donating
Spares Needed!Leg 4, like the 3 Legs before it, had a life of its own.
We were able to take a break in Salt Lake City at the home of my son Nick and grandson Mason. Nick’s brother Chris from Oregon took over as navigator and social media content provider while friend Marc Wolding from WI took over the RV driver duties.
We could almost see the finish line in Denver….if it wasn’t for the Wasatch Range we had to cross leaving Salt Lake City and of course, the Rockies in Colorado.
I thought by getting through Provo Pass we were set, but then we hit the section from Heber City at 5,600’ to Hanna on the other side of Wof Creek summit in the Uinta mtns at 9,500’
I climbed 14 miles out of Heber hoping to get through a Forest Service road only to be met by a snowbank wall where they had quit plowing.
I rode back down and we found a different road over the pass. I’ll admit I only climbed the last mile to get to the top after the 14 miles of climbing earlier in the day, I had had enough.
We then had clear sailing to Vernal, UT where we met some great people at an event, meeting the City Mayor, kidney recipient Bruce Tippets, liver recipient Blake and his grateful mother, a representative from US Senator Mike Lee’s office, and a number of other local folks involved in organ transplant. It was a very fun and informative event with lasting consequences as it tied into the End Kidney Deaths Act Elaine Perlman is heading up..
By the end of the day we had entered Colorado and I had climbed 8 miles up a steep, loose gravel road where we stopped for the night.
The next morning I started with a 4 mile climb on the same rocky, loose gravel to the top then a white knuckle decent on the same squirrelly gravel. My brakes had to be changed the next day.
We ended the day in beautiful Rifle Gap State Park.
The next day we met the great folks involved with the Chris Klug Foundation who met us in Glenwood Springs.
Anna was fantastic setting up a meet and greet and allowing us to RV boondock camp in her yard.
Friend Adam Smit from Wisconsin joined in riding to support the cause.
Bob Wade, co-founder of the Chris Klug Foundation and Board Member joined Adam and me as a local guide to help get us up and over Vail Pass at 10,600’ and they stepped in as true friends and supporters riding up Loveland Pass at 12,000’ representing TOT 6.0 as my proxy riders when my Achilles flared up.
Monday morning saw Marc, Chris, and I taking a quick self-guided tour around the Red Rocks amphitheater, joining my High School French Teacher from Prentice, WI, Pat Moffitt-Serrano for breakfast, who allowed me to park my pickup truck at her place for 5 weeks, then Marc and Chris did Yeoman’s work helping me transfer everything from the RV to my truck and clean it up, the last act scrubbing the coffee stains from the passenger side headliner! I’m pretty sure Scream Team on the road to Vegas…? Oh wait! What happens on the road to Vegas…..
Tuesday was a great concluding ride into AdventHealth Porter with Jess, Sarah, Dwight, and Stella. Dr. Wiseman did a wonderful job recognizing all of our efforts to create awareness of the need for organ donors the help save lives and I emphasized again the fact that we all feel it’s a solvable problem or we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing.
Every organ donor involved in TOT 6.0, Mark Hansen, Dean O’Malley, Tim Mullen, Megan Conner, Brian Striggow, and Christina Rivera, demonstrated along with me, that organ donors can truly save someone’s life and live a completely normal life filled with physical activity after donation, at any age.
I made it home last Wednesday early evening. After some much needed R&R I’m feeling great.
There will still be a few follow-up posts coming, so stay tuned.
Again, thank you all for following along to help spread our message.
As a subrange of the Rocky Mountains, the Uinta are unusual for being the highest range in the contiguous United States running east to west,[1]and lie approximately 100 miles (160 km) east of Salt Lake City.
