we biked 72 miles today and we are back in the cell and internet world. We are at Ennis, Montana which is very famous for amazing fly fishing in the Madison River. Hope you enjoy just a few of the pictures that I took. I will write some more later this evening.

Tomorrow morning we will leave at 6 am and we will camp in a primitive campground, which means pit toilets, no showers, no cell service, no internet, and no running water, cool, I like it. That will probably be the case for the next 5 days so I am throwing in this extra blog just for fun. My next blog will have lots of geyser, mud pit, and boiling pool pictures with maybe some buffalo, bear and elk pictures as well.

I had a few problems today with reserving camp sights. I got the impression somewhere, somehow a month ago that all the Yellowstone camp sights were non-reservation, first come, first serve basis, and then today as I was investigating camp sights I saw that you can reserve them. As I began doing that I found that they were all full except one, so I reserved 3 nights in a row at one camp sight. So that means that the day after tomorrow will be a 105 mile day and then the next day we will ride probably ride around 50 miles as we tour the geysers and stuff. Then the 14th of June we will leave and bike 125 miles to our next camp sight. Wow, that will be an accomplishment if we pull it off. We have the RV as backup so we really haven’t decided for sure how we are going to work that. Might be exciting to set a new personal best on daily miles, and then again it might not😀

This is a rest day for us, and I am enjoying sitting in my lawn chair all day reading sports news, planning the rest of the trip, planning next years trip, drinking lots of coffee, and taking two or three naps. We usually take rest days on Sunday so we can go to church, but tomorrow and the next 5 days we will be at primitive campgrounds, near no towns with churches, the kind with a pit toilet, a central water source and nothing else, so we stayed here so we could get all the cloths washed.

Wow, it doesn’t seem like 40 days have gone by already on this bicycle trip, seems like I have just now gotten into shape. 21 days left until we are home again, 2 rest days and 19 ride days, with 4 days being 82 miles long each day, and the rest less with only 2 days being hard climb days, like the last week has been, which means we are now on the easiest 1/3 of the trip😀 We also are on the most scenic part of the trip, with Yellowstone, mountains, trees, rivers, and lakes as part of the scenery we will be riding through.

I am not sure when zippers were invented, but it was before I was born I am sure, and in all those years hardly any improvement has been done. You would think that with rocket ships, cell phones, computers etc that someone could invent a zipper that works. I have two zippers on my tent, and they both now come apart in the middle after they have been zipped up leaving a gaping hole where there should be none. One on the rain fly which means that if we get into a rain storm at night, it will let a ton of water inside my tent. The second is the screen on the inside wall of the tent which means mosquito’s have a free pass into the inside of my tent at night while I am sleeping, and a free pass to bite me and suck all my blood out at night. And then there is the zipper on my sleeping bag that zips up fine, but in the middle of the night when you want to get out to go to the bathroom it gets stuck, and you are locked into your sleeping bag until you die, but I am not grumbling, I like sleeping in a soaking wet sleeping bag, and I really like waking up with thousands of mosquito bites all over my body, in fact it is one of my favorite things😂😫😩😬

we rode 92 miles today, leaving camp at 6 am and pulling into this camp at Boulder, Wyoming at 4:30pm, so I was really out of gas. But with a shower and a “Mountain House” freeze dried dinner it didn’t take long until I was feeling good again. We saw lots of antelope along the way today. It reminded me of when the kids were young and we drove through Wyoming, and they would have a contest on who could see the most antelope. We can now see the Teton Mountains clearly so it really adds to the beauty of what we see as we ride. This picture is me with my IPad watching the final game of the NBA playoff’s. Often the campgrounds don’t have a strong enough WiFi to do this, but this Campground did as long as I sat in my lawn chair close to the office. Watching the game was a great way to end a long, hard day on a bicycle seat. I am bundled up in the sweats more to keep the mosquitos off than to stay warm. I had my first dog encounter today. He came running out, and ran around me and my bike several times barking his head off, I yelled at him with my loudest, meanest sounding voice, but I think what worked is I just picked up my speed considerably and he couldn’t keep up with me, wimpy dog!

I felt really good and strong today riding my bicycle. Taking yesterday off and resting was a good idea for me. It was a great,day of bicycling, the scenery was awesome, there was very little traffic often with no vehicles passing us for 15 minutes, and we saw lots of wildlife which always gets me excited. We left Utah and crossed into Wyoming today and almost immediately upon crossing the State line we started seeing antelope and elk, Wyoming is a great State for wildlife and hunting. We rode 65 miles today, the first 32 miles was all uphill, steep uphill, up to 14% grade. The second 32 miles was all down hill, nice downhill where you cruised along at 20 to 25 mph with little to no peddling. The first 32 miles took us 7 hours, and the second 32 miles took us 90 minutes. When we pulled into the KOA campground in Rock Springs I was ready for the swimming pool that they had, it only took me about 15 minutes to be in the pool cooling off. Tomorrow is a 92 mile day but there is much less hill climbing then the last 5 ride days have had, the steepest climb is just 4.8% grade. We probably will finish the day in less time than it took to ride 65 miles today.

A major part of the definition of wisdom is balance. Almost every truth or principle that exists is in tension with what appears to be an opposite truth or principle. Most people usually swing to one truth or the other, living their lives out of balance. I just wrote about the balance of getting strength from God and also by resting. There is also a very important balance to be achieved in the discipline of resting. I was born lazy and so were you. Our flesh is powerfully drawn to easy and comfortable. We can become way over balanced and become very lazy and hardly ever accomplish anything worthwhile in the name of or in the guise of resting. Early in this trip I took a day off, like I did this morning, but later came to the conclusion that it was a wrong choice and that I was a wimp for not riding that day because I was motivated by “easy and comfort”, but I think the choice this morning is right. The decision a month ago was made quickly without much thought, and it was made because I didn’t want to get out of bed that morning. The decision this morning to not ride was made last night, after thinking about it for some time realizing that I was truly tired and run out of gas and that I needed to get some extra rest. This is an important “balancing act” to get figured out otherwise we won’t accomplish much because we are either to lazy or to tired.

One of the disciplines/habits that I have now in my life is to ask God for His strength and power in my life every morning and often during the day. Whenever I am feeling weary or down, I ask for strength. Isaiah 40:28-31 says, “Do you not know? Have you not heard, the Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired, His understanding is inscrutable, He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord, will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.”

On the other hand, I rest systematically and periodically as a key to renewal and recuperation of energy; mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical energy. God gives strength to the weary, but there is also a stewardship of my physical body required in order to achieve maximum accomplishment. I am working at learning how to rest, exercise, and eat wisely, to be a good steward of the gift God has given me to serve Him with.

There is a balance in “God’s part – my part” in living life that alludes many as we pursue this energy and strength part of living life. 2 Corinthians 6:1 says, “And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” Before a driving trip we pray and ask God to protect, guide, and provide for us on the trip, and then I get some new tires, change the oil, get a tune up, and fill the car up with gas. No one would see the second part of that “trip preparation” as lack of faith, just wisdom.

All that to say, I was so tired last night when I climbed into my sleeping bag at 8:30 pm I decided that I was going to make today a rest day from biking. So I am riding in the RV to the next camp sight at Dutch John’s Campground 40 miles away while the others ride their bicycles.

We rode 80 miles today and had one big whopping big hill at the end of the ride. It was one of those hills that the road winds around so every corner you think, yeh this is the end coming up and then you see another bend and section of road going up. I don’t know how many time that happened on this hill, I thought maybe it was going to heaven.

I think I might have gotten a bit of heat stroke on this climb. I got really hot as I cranked on those pedals in low/low on my bike, mile after mile going up that hill with the temperature about 94 degrees. After I got into camp I felt a bit woozy and then nauseous, and now just tuckered out. I am cooling off good in Tom’s RV with the air conditioning running maximum, and drinking lots of water with a cup of coffee thrown in for good measure, and am feeling good enough to write this. We are at Steinaker State Park outside of Vernal, Utah, it is 6 pm and still over 90 degrees.

We have a big hill to climb tomorrow but it is first thing in the morning so it will be cool. This week Monday through Saturday are all tough days with lots of miles and big hills to climb, but next week we will be getting into Yellowstone so I purposely shortened the mileage so we would have plenty of time to see the sights.

I am having a tough time getting my reading and writing goals done tonight because I keep falling asleep, but Kathy said she is going to make a salad for us to eat and that woke me right up.

Today we rode 79 miles and climbed over 6,000 feet and went over another 9,000 foot pass and most of the top 5 miles was 8% grade. One of the blessings though was about 7 miles from the top they were doing road construction and had one lane of traffic for 2 miles using a pilot car to lead people through. We couldn’t keep up with the pilot car so they put our bikes in the truck and drove us through. I was riding in the pickup with an older lady and the bicycles were on another truck with Tom on it. I asked the lady how far we were going, and she responded, “2 miles” and I asked how far it was from the summit and she responded “3 miles”, and I said, “any chance you could take us all the way to the top, and let those line of cars and trucks wait a few minutes longer for you to lead them through ?” She said, “sure!” but once we went by the normal stop and turn around place the driver in the truck with the bicycles which happened to be her husband said “NO!” Oh well, can’t blame a guy for trying. Once we got to the summit we had a 30 mile downhill and I never once peddled the bike, just sat and coasted about 20 miles an hour for about 90 minutes, it was very nice after that grind up the other side. We are at a town called Duchesne at Starvation Creek Campground. Best showers yet.

The spirit world around us is very real, it is hard to explain the wicked behavior of many without some outside influence being involved. The biggest advantage demons have over us is that we can’t see them so when they talk to us and we hear them in our thoughts we don’t identify the source.

I can say with absolute certainty that without constant monitoring my mind always goes toward the negative. Is that just my own thoughts, or am I getting some help here? This extra, little voice in my head is determined to destroy positive momentum in my life. This voice is constantly whining, complaining, seeing the negative in every situation, and pointing out why things won’t work out, or why they can’t be done. If I don’t take charge of my thoughts they will take charge of me. It is like an untrained dog, if I don’t choose what I am going to think, it is like my mind decides on its own what is going to think, and that is never good.

I have discovered that my mind can’t out shout my voice. When I “hear” my thoughts going negative I audibly say something positive, and it totally puts the clamps on my thoughts. I watched the 2nd NBA championship game tonight between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland, Cavaliers, and one of the keys to winning is very good defense. That is what I need to do with my thoughts, control them, take them captive, and a major tool is speaking positive words. Quoting memorized scripture that is applicable to a situation is amazingly powerful or simply saying, “I can”, “I will”, “I want to”, “let’s do this” and on the list goes. I don’t have to shout these positive words, just saying them under my breath works well. The opposite is just as true, when you speak out negative words, prompted by negative thinking, such as complaining, grumbling, criticizing it is like throwing gas on a fire, and then our negative thoughts become very powerful and the boss. The biggest problem for most is that they don’t listen to what they are thinking so there is no defense and we become increasingly more negative, sometimes to the point that we are stuck. You don’t want that to happen so play some good, positive defense.