A recap of the past week (some of the things I remember)

Tues July 17th

Lake Village Indiana to West Lafayette Indiana. A week ago... my last blog post. Stayed in two houses belonging to a church where students from Purdue Univeristy can live. We had a radio voice contest since a few were going to be on the radio the next morning. I bought new clips for my bike shoes. The ride itself was fairly uneventful as I recall. Sleeping in a bed! Good nights sleep...

 

Wed July 18th

Lafayette to Plainfield. Corn fields. Good talks with friends (discussing how we've changed/grown/what we've most learned about ourselves through this trip). Detour into town. Got to church and were told we had hotel rooms donated to us (the Best Western gave us 4 free rooms!). So, showered there then came back to the church for dinner (fried chicken and mac'n'cheese) and a talent show. So cool! They had 12 contestants (2 from our group) who sang/danced/played trumpets/guitars/etc.. each contestant had a jar in the back in which people placed their votes (1 dollar= 1 vote). All the proceeds went to Just+Hope. I shared Just+Hope and introduced our team. Awesome, memorable night. 
And check out Ellen's poetry from the event here, a good explanation of why we ride as well: http://vimeo.com/46159180

Thu July 19th 

Plainfield to Richmond. Through Indianapolis. Stopped at big statue in middle of city. Surprised at how quickly we biked through the city (feels so small coming from Chicago days earlier). Rain…. Lots of rain. Thunderstorms stayed north of us though, so we could ride it all out. Actually, very fun time in the rain. Found a small plastic toy dog and mounted it on my bike. Ate well. Beautiful stained glass windows at the church we stayed at. Every once in a while one of us will share our personal life story with the group... the highlights, lowlights, things that made us who we are, etc. I shared my story this night. Kind of late into the ride to be telling people your story (only one or two others left to share yet), but I had already shared quite a bit and this was a very good night. We always pray for the person after they tell us their story, and it was really nice to have the group lay hands on me and pray. Started watching 3:10 to Yuma with Nicholas... one of his favorites.

Fri July 20th

Richmond Indiana to Columbus Ohio. 106 miles. Very foggy morning. Some beautiful riding. Long bridge like stretches of road. Thick forest area (for the first time in a while it seems). Met 3 other cross country bikers following a similar route. Sang happy birthday to my brother with the group accompanying. Riding into city... had never been to Columbus before. Busy road coming into town. Drove through some rough(ish) areas. Church not where we thought (down the road a few miles further). Stayed at giant church in downtown area. A few of us found the sanctuary later at night in the dark, more beautiful stained glass. Finished 3:10 to Yuma with Nicholas.

Sat/Sun July 21 and 22nd

Columbus Ohio to Mt. Vernon Ohio. Short ride, only about 46 miles. Riding fast at first… with Ashley. Only one break. Showers at Nazarine University in the dorms. Got to meet an alumni from Venture. Watermelon salsa (so good! so surprised at how much I liked it). Strawberry/rhubarb pies. Two church services on Sunday. Talking with lots of folks. Took a short walk down main street with Shannon just to see if any shops were interesting... none open on a Sunday. Laughed harder than I have any other time during this trip during some games... one game where you can't show your teeth (more to it than that, but hard to explain. So hard to keep teeth hidden when laughing hysterically) and another game I'll call 'the quote game' that had me laughing into a complete sweat.

Monday July 23rd
Mt. Vernon to Canton. Another shorter ride (62 miles). Amazed how a 60+ mile day feels like a cake walk. Some of the best riding we've had all trip. Beautiful hills. Reached my second fastest speed (didn't think that would happen in Ohio). So good to see a part of Ohio other than the turnpike, which, to be honest, is one of the only parts of the state I've really seen. Found a pair of cheap but sweet sunglasses. Ate some hot dogs at a cool diner we found near the end of our trip. Stayed a church with a huge game room and black lighted youth room. Played some video games with friends. Something we had no opportunity for the rest of this trip. Nice treat.

Tues July 24th

Canton to Boardman (Youngstown). Yes, another short ride. This has probably been our least miles in any 3 day stretch. But hey, I'm not complaining. I don't believe we'll have more 100 mile rides, but we should have several 80's and 90's left. Bike on the shoulder of another busy road… finished out at a nice park and ate lunch at a pavilion. One of us interviewed with a news crew. Road from the park to our host home (usually we stay at churches but today we're all at a gracious host's house) only a few miles further. Bought a new gatorskin tire for my front tire which I've recently started getting a whole bunch of flats on.

So, yeah. That brings me to right now. Hope you enjoyed the brief and incomplete recap. I'm sure much more happened, but it's hard to remember all those details when we do this day in and day out. Somehow, we arrive later next week in New York. 

Already Mid-July?

It's the middle of July, or so they say... I tend to lose track of time (from time to time). When you ride a bike everyday I suppose that happens.

Anyhow... the middle of July means that I've been biking for about 5 weeks and have about 3 left. We've been through temperatures in the 30's and well into the 100's since. We've seen mountains, plains, valleys, recently some big cities (Minneapolis, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago), and more recently corn fields. Welcome to Indiana.

Its certainly not time to reminisce yet, we still have a lot of time together and a lot of miles to go, but its starting to dawn on me that a lot of the summer is already gone. I've been learning a lot about what it means to be within a community, and we are all still learning lots about eachother. We've also been learning more and more about ourselves and our God too.

Today, someone asked me what I've learned so far from this trip. A few things came to mind... one of which was: I dislike change and challenge when I know its coming, but God always provides great growth opportunities in those changes/challenges... and usually I always ending up thriving in what he has put before me. For those who haven't really heard my story, this bike trip really was not my idea. It was something I really felt that God wanted to challenge me in. A cross country bike trip was not something I had dreamed of doing. So, I waited and ignored that voice, but finally signed up for the trip around the deadline. I've been glad I did...
And to be honest, it really has been something I've thrived in so far. Yes, there are challenges, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the people I am with and the miles (and miles) I have ridden. We are all everyday people doing extraordinary things...

Some photos from the last week or so...

 Wisconsin... we had some really hilly days (seriously, I was shocked)

 And we found a giant rooster

 Connor, Nicholas, and Daria

 Shadows

 Wrigley Field (go Tigers!)

 Beautiful shot of Chicago

 The Bean

 Craig and Liz at the Bean

 Yeah, that's a 'stache

 Another view of the city

Indiana!

Halfway!

It seems as if I'm on the once a week blog posts right now, which seems pretty decent really :)
This last week was a good one, and included a much needed break... a long weekend in Minneapolis to celebrate being halfway across the country!!! So crazy... what challenges will the second half of the summer bring? I'm not sure, but I'm excited about the possibilities.

So, this week, we finished our tour of South Dakota and entered Minnesota (tomorrow we'll be in Wisconsin). The week brought some more record setting temps and a lot, a lot, of humid rides. Riding through the muggy days wasn't much fun, but the team was in pretty great spirits during the rides. And the long weekend in Minni was much needed and appreciated...
We spent time with alumni, Venture founders, and the Run Free team that ran across Minnesota. It was a good time filled with fun, laughter, a day at the lake, and a ride through downtown. A highlight for me from this weekend was a spectacular (and I mean spectacular!) lightning show in Minneapolis.

A few photos, and that will be that for this post. Thanks so much for supporting me and keeping up!

The Last Week

Since the last blog post, well, a lot has happened. I've just spent the last several hours putting some of that info together for myself, in a short hand document on my computer so that I have snippets of each day with some photos... so I can remember this trip when its done. Somehow, details of this week alone had already gone fuzzy and I needed help to piece together details. A lot has happened indeed.

Where to start? The heat. We rode 106 miles in 104 degree heat. Luckily, the next day, when the temperature reached an all time Miles City record of 111, we only rode a little bit in the morning. Instead, we were able to swim and stay cool. What a cooker!

The distance. This week we rode about 500 miles. It was a lot of riding. My butt does not thank me for that. My other muscles... no soreness. Seriously. This week felt really good and other than that butt soreness, I've felt physically great. Mentally, it was a very good week too... until this past Friday when for some reason the 90 mile ride felt more like 150. We all seem to have had at least one day like this during the past while, for me it was that ride into McLaughlin (and Indian reservation).

So, details of where I've been are: Billings to Forsyth MT, this was that 104 degree day.

Miles city was the next day, 111 degrees, but was cut short. We hit gravel roads at 20 miles into the ride (was going to be a "short" 50. But, to backtrack on bikes would have been an additional 30 miles or something crazy, and well, it was 111 degrees... so a huge blessing in disguise that we didn't ride far. The day was relaxing (though scorching hot) and we were able to rest off a little more from the previous days 100+ miles.

After Miles City, we headed to Baker ND. Unfortunately, here another adventure began...
Accidents happen. And unfortunately we had a decent one that required an ambulance ride to the hospital. I'm not going to write all the details, but it was a two person incident caused by a horsefly in the sunglasses. The two girls hit into eachother and tumbled around. It was pretty scary, and I was sweep (the last two riders are called sweep since they stay behind the rest of the group to make sure everyone gets through, and help with flats, etc), so I came up to it before the rest of the group knew what had happened. The one rider does unfortunately have two fractures in her wrist, but the other is back riding. Our group was a little shaken, but we really came together, praying through it as well. Anyhow, it was a scary moment but things are okay now. Pray that Shannon can get back riding soon.

From Baker, we hit South Dakota. Hettinger, McLaughlin, and Ipswich have been the cities here so far. Below are some photos from these rides.

Whoever, and there have been many, has said that North and South Dakota are flat, have been wrong. We've had some really hilly days. That, combined with several days of head winds, has made for a tough week. But a good week. We're all learning a lot about eachother and about God too. We're really learning to rely on him for strength each day. 500 miles will test your spirits! We're staying strong.
If this post is discombobulated, I apologize. It came in a tired state. Thanks for reading!
Much love,
In Christ,
Rob