Tour of Texas

As promised, here are just a few of the many photos taken from this week's Tour of Texas. I chose to post mostly large group shots because I really want you to understand just how crazy this was. Imagine 90 energetic, young, hungry people venturing out on 2 buses for 3 days. I'm not going to go into ALL the details, but just to touch on a few highlights...

San Antonio is going Smoke-Free, and we were able to celebrate with a press conference and rally which included many local lawmakers and advocates. 

We visited prominent cancer centers in both San Antonio and Houston. Here we are learning about survivorship research and programmatic activities at MD Anderson. 

We had a lovely dinner at Tim Love's Lonesome Dove Bistro in Fort Worth, where we hosted local supporters and friends of the Foundation to celebrate the trip and other recent accomplishments. 

Then it was on to Dallas for a high-energy early morning stop at RadioShack's corporate HQ. They've been great partners, so we decided to thank them by serving breakfast to their 1200 employees. We seriously cheered and clapped for an hour and a half straight.

Next stop: the YMCA where we learned about LIVESTRONG at the Y and got a chance to workout. One more stop to visit a lawmaker and cancer survivor (group picture!) and it was back to Austin.

While those where the main activities we participated in, there were many other memorable parts of the journey. We heard stories from survivors and people who have been helped through our programs. We had lots of opportunities (planned and unplanned) for team building; competitions, activities, surviving a flat tire on one bus and loss of A/C on the other (it was only 107 degrees out). Most of our meals were boxed lunches, so while our agenda was packed, we were fed and had plenty of downtime to read, chat, and play games on the bus as we navigated our way through this great state. Yesterday and today have been a blur as we all frantically try to catch up on work... but it was totally worth it.