Thursday - June 11

I've been riding through The Ozarks today. This blog will be shorter than most because I don't have sending capability for the texts. Have to get through these mountains to where there are more towers.

Had an adventure today I was hoping I could avoid on this trip. I had parked the bike on the shoulder of the road so I could take some pictures. It was on an incline and the bike tipped over. I tried for a long while to get it up but wasn't having much success. God sent a person to come help me and we were able to get it upright and it runs just fine. I think I'm going to have a sore back tonight, though.

I brought a little one-burner back packer's stove for this trip. It burns regular gasoline which is cool because the 2 gallons of gas that I brought in case I ran out of gas (motorcycles don't have very big gas tanks) would work for my stove as well. There is a little reservoir that you let fill with a little gasoline. You then light this small amount of gas and it heats up the manifold and then the gas vaporizes and it works just like propane would. I tried lighting it the other morning without my reading glasses on and I couldn't see when I had enough gasoline in the little bowl. I filled the bowl clear full and quite a bit ran over as well. When I lit the gasoline it made an inferno about three feet high. The lady who ran the camp came running out of her office saying, "Sir, sir. Campfires are not allowed!" :-)

Do you know what is the most aggravating invention of man? The zipper! It always gets hung up at the worst times. I have two zippers on my tent and one on my sleeping bag. A couple of evenings ago it didn't look at all like rain so I decided to leave everything out. That would save me a lot of time in the morning. At 3 am it started to rain. I woke up with a start as I heard the rain hitting the tent. The zipper on my sleeping bag got stuck. I managed to get out of it without unzipping it, and then the inside zipper hung up on the tent. I finally got it down and the outside zipper hung up. I finally got outside, and dried out all the stuff that got wet the next day in a big KOA dryer. Cost me 3 dollars in quarters.

I'm learning and growing. Praying that all of you are doing the same. Looking forward to what tomorrow brings. Dee