Well, I am home and rested and somewhat back to normal life again. The trip was incredible. It was a great time of solitude and reflection for me, enhanced by the awesome beauty of the area we drove through. I really do a lot of thinking, meditating, reflecting, and sermonizing in my mind as I ride. Long extended rides like this one produce great results for me. Thank you very much to you who read my blog and prayed for me. You are the best. I am in the planning stages on what I am going to do next year. Love ya all. Dee

July 21, 2010

Well, I am getting close to home. I am camped at Chelan, Washington. I will get up and ride to my mom's in Trout Lake, WA and tell her all my stories and adventures and then stay the night with her and leave early and be home by 10am on Friday. Just in time to be a counselor at Willamette Celebration. Rode 350 miles today. In every town I rode through the thermometers at banks etc read anywhere from 95-102 degrees. It was a hot one for sure. But I was grumbling about the cold and rain a week ago so I will be happy. My motorcycle has air conditioning anyway. Lift my face shield up, unzip my riding coat, and put my feet up on my highway pegs so the wind blows up my pant legs and go at least 60 miles an hour and it isn't half bad. The only problem is that bugs go up my pant legs, into my helmet, and into my coat. Isn't too bad unless it happens to be a yellow jacket. I really have to concentrate on my riding when that happens. My riding partner, Glen, left shortly after we got into Washington and headed to Spokane to visit family. It was great having him on the trip with me. Where I am camped tonight there is a little concession stand so instead of my usual freeze dried dinner I splurged on a hot dog, diet coke, and a little paper cup of rainbow sherbet. Life is good. The trip has been a great time of reflection, relaxing, experiencing, and growing but I am very excited about being home and winning the world for Jesus.

July 20, 2010

July 20th, Tuesday. We rode 383 miles today. Very hot. Nice for a change. We are camped at Spenses Bridge in British Columbia. We will cross into Washington tomorrow and then home. Yippee!! I had a very challenging day. I have two large aluminum boxes on the side of my motorcycle that I put all my camping stuff in. They are water tight and they lock so I can put stuff like my laptop computer in them and not worry about it getting stolen. This morning as I was packing up my bike I locked my keys in one of the boxes. The key for my bike was in there as well as the key that opened up the lock. I walked around the campground asking to see if anybody had a big hammer and a big screw driver. I had some in my tool box but it was locked up. I finally found somebody who did and I managed to beat the hinge loose that was held on with rivets. Now I hold the lid shut with a bungee cord. Later that day the bungee cord that I use to hold my duffel bag on the passenger seat snapped me in the back of the head. I looked in my rear view mirror and I could see Glen motioning me to pull over. One of the 3/8 inch bolts that hold the aluminum boxes on my bike had broken and the right box was hanging out in space barely hanging on. I brought some nylon cord along and I used that to tie the box back on. I will fix that when I get home along with the latch.

I locked my keys in the storage box, my storage box almost fell in the middle of busty traffic, but there is more. We stopped at a very busy rest stop. Because it was so hot I decided to take off my riding pants. These are special pants that are made out of very tough material and have fiberglass padding to protect in case of a fall on the bike. But they are hot. I wear them over my jeans. I stood next to my bike to take them off. As I got them down I noticed an old lady staring at me. I looked down and I had mistakenly taken my jeans down as well. I quick pulled my jeans back up and waved and smiled at the old lady. She smiled back. I wish I could hear her conversation tonight with her friends.

July 19, 2010

Wow. We rode 521 miles today. A personal best, I think. We are staying in Vanderhoof, British Columbia tonight. One hour west of Prince George. Very nice weather all day today. We rode along the Cassiar Mountain Range all morning. 200 miles of snow covered mountains and we were right at the base of them riding along. I kept singing, "Our God is an awesome God" all morning. I sound pretty good inside my helmet to myself!! As I was looking at the incredible beauty I became so impressed with God's power and wisdom and creativity. I thought these huge mountains are made with billions of atoms that have neutrons and protons and electrons that are moving like little solar systems. All that huge mass of stone was alive with motion and energy and Colossians says that Jesus is holding it all together. As I was pondering that along with the fireweed and the spruce and the aspens and bears and moose, I thought, "who am I?" Here I am a living, self aware being amongst all this along with stars and galaxies. Does God really see me? Does he really care for me? If He can do all this He can certainly keep track of me! He loves me more than I can comprehend. He knows my deepest thoughts and feelings. His thoughts are more numerous towards me than the sand. I wonder what I will be like in 100 years? What will I be doing? Almighty God is my creator, my Father, my Savior, and I am going to live forever with Him. So enjoyable to spend hours just thinking about God and who He is. Boy life is fun.

July 18, 2010

This is Sunday the 18th but I am sending it a day late because there has been no cell service all day. We took a different route today for a little variety. It is called the Cassiar hwy. So far it has been and absolutely terrible road. Miles of gravel and lots of road construction which I hate on my motorcycle. In one section the pilot car was going way faster than we wanted to ride so we got left way behind. Pretty soon he came back from another direction. Everybody honked at us. Then I see this construction truck behind me and he was like an inch from my bumper. I managed to get to the side of the road in the deep gravel without dumping my bike. A near death experience for sure. I kept yelling at the top of my voice, "help me Jesus!" Works good.
We saw a black bear today that had twin cubs. They weren't as big as my dog Russel. They were really cute. Momma bear hustled them off before I could get a picture. We rode 466 miles today. All very hard ones. Trying to make it home by the 22nd so I can be there for Willamette Celebration!!
We are presently trying to build a fire at our camp sight with some quaking aspen wood that is wet. I blew on the fire trying to get it to go until I was ready to pass out and then Glen took over. He got it to go. He must be more windy than I am. Sitting here next to the fire thanking God for my fun life. Doing lots of sermons in my head as I ride. Riding a bike is a great place to think and create.

July 17, 2010

Rode 420 miles today. Lots of road construction and lots of bad road caused from the perma frost heaving the road up. As I said in a previous entry, it is like a bunch of speed bumps and ditches one after the other. My rear end feels like I have been spanked with a 2x4. We are camped at Whitehorse, Yukon tonight. Weather was wonderful all day. A number of times I would point to the sky and yell, "Thank you Jesus!" I couldn't help myself. I keep my water bottle up on my handle bars behind the windshield. Nice little pocket for it to set in. Whenever we stop it is real handy to grab and get a drink from. I drank all the water out of it today. Once I got going again there wasn't enough weight with the water gone to hold it down and the wind blew it out. As it flew out I grabbed it instinctively, WITH BOTH HANDS!!! The bike just went along fine. I didn't know I could ride it with no hands. If I had known that earlier it would have saved alot of hassle trying to get my glove back on after I picked my nose. Boy today was really a tough one on my rear end. Some biker dudes say they have developed an iron butt. Mine is still soft and tender. I try and sit for awhile on only my right cheek and then the left. I do that by sliding as far one way as I can and not fall off the motorcycle, and then the other way. I lean way forward and then lean way back. I even stood on my floorboards for a bit. That is a trick. I was so hungry when we got into camp at 8 tonight that I ate 2 of my freeze dried dinners.