Nutty Putty Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we were short six people: two of our sons and their wives and two grandkids.  But, we gained four through a happy circumstance.  Matt's wife's sister is friends with two young men who are bicycling the width of the country from Huntington Beach, Virginia to San Diego, California, with two other friends.  It just so happened that their path led through El Paso and that they would arrive the afternoon before Thanksgiving.  We happily offered them rooms and Thanksgiving dinner with us.

I knew they would be interesting to talk to, but they surpassed my expectations.  Dan, Eric, Jon and Oliver are four of the nicest young men you could ever wish to meet.  They are all BYU students, but they have taken off a semester to do this ride for the adventure and for charity.  Dan's sister, Emily, was widowed a year ago yesterday when her husband was stuck upside down while exploring a cave and died.  She was left with a 13 month old daughter and pregnant.  Dan wanted to help his sister so that she could go back to school, but she told him people had already been so generous in helping her that she hoped he could help other widows with young children. So, they signed up with the Liz Logelin Foundation and they have raised over $7000 already.

They are called the Nutty Putty Cyclists because it was the Nutty Putty cave where Dan's brother-in-law died. They have a website at http://nuttyputtycyclers.com/. If you click on this link and then click on the word blog you can read about their adventures. There is also a map showing their trail and you can even donate to their worthy cause.

These guys had ridden across empty West Texas before arriving in El Paso and had ridden 110 miles the day before.  Yet, they got up early and ran in a Thanksgiving 5K race here in El Paso and one of them came in 2nd in their age group.  After they came home from that they went with Bill and Chelsea and helped clean up after the annual Thanksgiving parade which is what our stake does every year.

The next morning, since they were only going to Las Cruces and spend the night with some people there, they left at 11am and Bill and I rode with them.  We rode a little over 9 miles with them when Bill got a flat tire.  They fixed it for us, they're quite expert by this time, and although we had considered riding all the way to Cruces, I had talked to our kids and everyone had gathered again for left-overs so we decided to turn back and spend time with the family. 

Later we took Emma to see "Tangled" at the movies.

I hated to see those boys go.  They were so incredibly nice and helpful and polite and thoughtful.  It was a pleasure to be with them and I look forward to reading about their further adventures.