This is the 6th major bicycle trip that I have taken in the last 6 years. In 2013 my brother Cliff and I rode our bicycles to Fairbanks, Alaska with Kathy his wife driving a support car. Of the 2500 miles we rode our bicycles on 1500 miles and rode in the car 1,000 miles because of weather, road construction, and bicycle unsafe roads. It was a great trip in which we saw 92 bears, hundreds of bison, lots of moose, deer, elk, and even a couple of wolves. The next year I did the Alaska Trip by myself with Patty and my Mom driving a support vehicle. I only made it 600 miles of the 2500 because I had a wreck on my bike, breaking my bike and spraining my knee. Then 2015 John Smith and I rode what is called the “Northern Tier Route” that goes along the norther border of the US to Portland, Maine where we flew back home with our bikes in a shipping box, we did that trip unsupported with everything we needed on the bikes, and our wives mailing extra freeze dried food to us about every ten days. Our wives did go with us for the first week and then flew back and did another week about half way through the trip. In 2016 John Smith, Richard Klindtworth and I did the “Southern Tier”, San Diego to St Augustine, Florida with all three of our wives on the trip with us riding along in a pickup. Last year John and I and our wives rode around the State of Oregon, 2000 miles with 3 others joining us for the first week of the trip.

For the month of May on this trip I had mentally decided every morning that this would be the last trip like this, I was getting to old, but today I am thinking about next year and what route the trip would take, and who would go, and when we would do it. There is the “Trans-America” route which starts in Newport and goes to Yorktown, Virginia, the “Tip of Florida to Fairbanks, Alaska” trip, and then there is the “hit all lower 48 State Trip”, and any number of trips like this year where we do a big circle or triangle.

My Parkinson’s is doing much better and is getting better by the day, I have lost 17 lbs and feeling really good physically, I have been reading, writing, and praying a bunch and have grown a lot spiritually, I have a scary number of new ideas for ministry, and my vision and passion for life, marriage, family, home, and ministry is cooking hot. Life is good and Jesus is coming back and I am ready.

We all have experiences all day long, and as we do we “see them” differently. To “see” something is to “see” it as really, really good or really, really bad or at any place in between those two extremes. It is amazing how two people can have the same exact experience but “see” it totally different, in fact one person will see it as really, really bad and another will see it as really, really good. It is important to realize that how we “see” things affects how we feel and act, the way each one of us looks at events basically determines who we are as a person in the sense of our behavior most of the day. This attitude is amazingly powerful in our life determining to a huge extent how successful we will be in every area of life. How we “see” is a learned “attitude”. We have learned it from those around us who have influenced us over the years, and by various life shaping experiences, but a key truth is that we can change how we “see” things if we want to, and are willing to work at it diligently. The older we are the stronger this “attitude” will be in us, and the more work it will take to change it.

The simple way to say this is to say some people have a “positive attitude”, and others have a “negative attitude”. No one is just one or the other, we all are someplace in between the two extremes, but most understand the terms. The beginning place for change to happen is we must fairly accurately rate ourselves as mostly “positive” or “negative”. This is a huge blind spot in most people’s lives, so it will take some serious self-examination and reflection.

Start with these three simple questions, (1) how much do I grumble about things I don’t like? (2) How often do I get angry or irritated at people who do stupid things? and (3) how regular am I in a grouchy or foul mood?

Most people have long ago accepted themselves as who they are, meaning they don’t think they can change, so their expectation is that everyone around them will accept them the way they are as well, so conflict or failure as a result of their negative attitude is everyone else’s fault.

For those seriously wanting to move the dial in their life toward the “positive” direction the place to start is to memorize Philippians 4:4. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” also 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus,” and Philippians 2:14-15, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world”. Memorize them well and meditate on them over and over again everyday. There is more but this is a great place to start.

I found my handy Dandy doo dad that I can put my SD card from my camera in and download the pictures into my iPad. I looked in every bag, pocket, box, and pack I had so last night laying in bed as I was reviewing the day it popped into my mind that I left it laying on the table in Tom’s RV, I had looked there but I was guessing that it fell off as he drove on some bumpy roads. Sure enough, I looked under the table this morning and there it was, I am so happy now, what a great way to start a day😀!

The first picture shows the road that I peddled up, the second picture shows the view of where I had come from, the third is the summit, and the fourth is a modern day round up, complete with horses and quads. All the land around the area that I was biking in was BLM land, and June 1st is when the ranchers can turn their beef loose in it. Some truck the animals and others who live close enough like this rancher drive them up the road. I chatted with the owner a bit and he said it was a 10 mile walk up the road, so June 1st each year they have a family day of driving cows to to the “high ground” as he called it. As I bicycled up the hill I noticed that there was lots of green grass growing amidst the sage brush so I expected that the cows would have a good day tomorrow.

We have a short ride today, only 28 miles, and mostly a gradual downhill so it feels like a rest day. I don’t normally schedule days that short but sometimes the location of the campgrounds makes it hard to do otherwise. My only other option was to make one day out of yesterday’s 80 miles and today’s 28, and with the amount of climbing in yesterday’s ride I really didn’t want to do that!!

I am going to get confused now because I used the day of the month in May to tell me what day of the trip we were on because we started May 1st, now I will have to do a little math and add the day it is in June to 31 to get the number of days biking – I think!

Well today we biked 80 miles and it was another 9,000 foot summit as part of the day so it was a challenging day. I left at 6:30 am and pulled into camp at 5:30 pm so it was a long day as well, but that is what this trip is all about so I better quit fussing.

One of the results of having Parkinson’s is my sense of balance is very bad so getting started on my bicycle is a major challenge. If I don’t get some speed up quickly I wobble all over and regularly fall. I bought an electric motor that is the hub of my front tire, and it works very well getting me started. It is a small motor so it isn’t much good helping me up steep hills, but I tried to use it for that purpose a couple days ago and burned it up, so now I don’t have my start up help. I can’t start on a hill at all so what I do is head the bike across the road at a downward angle to help get my speed up quickly, and then just before I get to the other side of the road I turn up and then I pedal back across to the right side of the road. Obviously that won’t work if there are cars coming so I watch and when there is a break in traffic I do my start up routine. I called the company I bought the motor from and they are going to mail the burned up part to a campground we will be at in 5 days so hopefully I will get it running in a week.

One of the characteristics of Utah so far is very strong winds. We are sitting in Tom’s motorhome and it is rocking back and forth like we were in a boat in a rough sea. Several times I have had my tent blow away and I have had to go chasing after it. I hope the stakes that I put in it tonight don’t pull out. Once I get in it, it is pretty secure, I have lost a lot of weight but not so much that my tent would blow away with me in it.

I took some great pictures today, but I can’t find my handy dandy little device that allows me to load pictures from the SD card in my camera into my iPad. I put it someplace where I wouldn’t lose it, but I can’t remember where that is, hopefully by tomorrow it will come to me.

We are camped at Millsap Lake Campground just outside of Ferron, Utah.