At 4 am I woke up to loud thunder and lots of lightening flashes and then rain falling on our tent.  My thought was, “Oh great, we get to ride in the rain today, I hate riding in the rain”. Then I rolled over in my sleeping bag and went back to sleep. At 6 am I got up gathered all my cloths and stuff and went to the shower room, showered and put on my bicycling cloths including my rain coat and rain pants. After eating the pancake and drinking the coffee Patty fixed for me we were off on our bicycles for the day. It wasn’t very long before I decided that I didn’t need the rain gear and took it off and tied it on the pack behind my seat. We rode 72 miles today and it was mostly flat and mostly straight, fairly cool, and no rain all day. There were lots of yellow pine trees, oak trees, green fields with nice fences with various kinds of beef cattle and horses and other livestock. Because the day was easier and even a bit boring it was easy to think, ponder, and meditate about stuff as I rode along on my bicycle at 12 to 14 mph. One of the regular thoughts is “why am I doing this?” It is funny how really illusive understanding our own motive can be.  Sometimes I think I am just an old man trying to hang on in a weird, dumb way  to his macho youth, then as I think about that I think, ” I am sure that motive would not be strong enough, long enough to do this”. One thing I know for sure is that I am drawn to do things that are a challenge, and are hard, very hard.  Why? I am this way because God made me like this. I don’t know for sure, but I think He made everyone like this. Why? God’s main goal in my life now is to have me grow to become more and more like Him in character.  Hard, very hard challenges are great tools to grow in character as we conquer them.  My physical health also is one of the motives, as well as my mental and emotional health especially as I Pastor people for God. We have 23 days left before we head home, I think I will finish this and ride in the rain if I have to. Tomorrow we are riding 85 miles and will leave Texas finally and camp in Louisiana. By the way, many people opt out of doing challenging things in their life because it is hard.