Wednesday July 1st - evening

Rode 396 miles today and went to the Badlands. Very cool place and lots of fun to ride the Badlands Loop road on a motorcycle. Also went to "Wall Drug". Got a bumper sticker there for every state to stick on my paniers. Hadn't been able to get them in many states as I went through. Cold and clear when I left this morning, but it warmed up real nice in the badlands. Took my wool shirt, gloves, and motorcycle pants all off and wore my jeans. As soon as I left the badlands, a huge black thunder cloud moved in and I put everything back on again. The rain actually felt pretty good. It quit when I got to where I am camping, Fort Robinson Park, 2 miles out of Crawford, Nebraska, which is in the northwest corner of the state. I am planning on riding to Cody, Wyoming tomorrow, which will be close to another 400 mile day.

Now that the trip is getting close to over, I am getting a bit meloncholy. Not that it is over, but that I am already struggling to remember what happened at the start of the trip. I know that next year I can tell my grandkids that I did it, but it will be a fading memory. It is like that with my kids. All those years with them at the center of my life and now they are all gone and I have to struggle to remember all the things we did and the stuff that happened. Makes me sad. Oh well, I guess I have to learn to say with the Apostle Paul, "forgetting the past and pressing on for the goal". I guess the idea is to come up with something next year crazier than this one. I bet I can do that with a little help from my wife, kids, and friends.

Went through some major road construction today. There were several miles of gravel/dirt roads with severe ruts in it. I was having a real struggle navigating it. Going super slow and getting left behind by the group that was being led by the pilot car. I used my technique I learned earlier on the gravel road and yelled, "help me Lord or I am going to crash". I got through it. I thought afterward, boy I have made it this far without a major mishap, it would be a shame to have one this close to home. My morning prayer every morning is, "Lord, I don't want to wreck. Assign some big angels to take care of me today" For my life I don't want to wreck. I am not done living yet, but I am way past the half way point. It would be a shame to wreck my life now. My greatest desire is to say with Paul, "I finished the race".