Aurora shooting victims finish bike ride across country as changed men

[Robb]

They had set out 457 days ago to discover a country they felt they hardly knew.

Stephen Barton, fresh from speaking at his Syracuse University graduation, was preparing to teach English in Russia on a Fulbright grant. Ethan Rodriguez-Torrent was heading into his senior year at Yale University, majoring in East Asian studies.

But before they got on with their well-planned futures, the two high school friends decided to bike 4,000 miles together across America, from Virginia Beach to San Francisco, to understand what this land was all about.

Along the way, they discovered beauty — the Chesapeake Bay, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the rolling hills of Kentucky, summer fireworks over the Texas prairies. They discovered unexpected kindness in the strangers who offered warm showers and hot chocolate, who gave them a place to sleep or slipped $20 in their pockets and wished them luck.

Then, on a Thursday afternoon in July 2012, they pedaled into Aurora, Colo. They met up with a friend, hung out at a Starbucks and bought tickets to the 12:05 a.m. showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” at the Century Aurora 16 multiplex.....

Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/aurora-shooting-victims-finish-bike-ride-across-country-as-changed-men/2013/09/06/0e4d5388-14e8-11e3-a100-66fa8fd9a50c_story.html