As I had guessed, today was a gorgeous day of riding as we followed the Blackfoot river for most of the day. When I saw this sign I watched hard for big horn sheep, but all I saw were the ones on the signs. There were at least 100 drift boats and rubber rafts pulled by pickup trucks that passed us today. I guess if you live close to this river that having a boat is part of the deal. Near where we are camped tonight I checked to see what it would be for a guided fishing trip on the river, and they said $500, and I said, “Oh, well, thank you, but I will pass”. I wonder how many fish I would have caught.

We rode 90 miles today, and it was all up hill, which is a lot. I decided that on all future trips that I plan that I am going to limit the longest days to 60 miles. I feel good and have good energy up until 60 miles and then it starts to drop off rapidly, and by the end of 90 miles, I am having a near death experience. The good thing is that we had a strong tail wind all day, it must have been around 10 mph the way the flags looked that we saw along the route. Besides being a beautiful ride, with a great tail wind, it didn’t rain, it was cool and comfortable, not a single dog chased me, not a single mosquito bit me, there were no rude drivers, and the shoulders along our route today were very wide. Now I am sitting in the RV writing my blog, eating mixed nuts and drinking quinine water, doesn’t get much better than that.

Today is Friday, June 21st and we are sitting around camp drinking coffee, eating mixed nuts, gluten free crackers with peanut butter, and canned sardines. Tom bought some nice steaks and is going to barbecue them for dinner tonight, along with some corn on the cob that Kathy bought at a road side stand. We took today off as an unscheduled rest day because the previous 3 days were long with lots of climbing and we were done in, also because we rode in the RV yesterday 40 miles to get to an alternate camping spot so we gained some miles, and also because the weather has been so cold, windy and rainy and we are hoping to wait it out. We are leaving in the morning at 6:00 am for Lincoln, Montana regardless of the weather. It will be a 90 mile day and it is all uphill though fairly gradual, we will gain about 2,000 feet in net elevation in the 90 mile day as we follow the Blackfoot River upstream. I expect it to be another beautiful trip as we ride along this wild river.

Yesterday at the end of the ride I was physically very, very tired, out of gas, weary, exhausted. But another kind of tiredness is mental fatigue. I get physically tired almost every day, it is part of being 70 years old, and I cope with it, but I very rarely get mentally tired because I work so hard on positive, healthy, and Biblical self-talk. But yesterday I was mentally tired as well. For me, a clear indicator of mental weariness is I want to quit, so yesterday I spent most of my riding time trying to figure out how to do that, that is ride in the RV for the rest of the trip with dignity. One of my personal rules is to never quit or make major decisions while mentally fatigued, because they are almost always a choice that I later regret. Today, everything is super, and I am ready for a great ride tomorrow. In thinking about my mental state yesterday, I came to the conclusion that the all day long pain was what drained me mentally. My feet hurt from the cold, my shoulders and neck hurt as the constant vibration from the road went up the front tire, through the forks, the handle bar and then into my arms and upper body, my butt was on fire from sitting on that little, bitty seat for hours and hours, and numerous stops to apply “Butt Butter” didn’t help a bit, and my legs and knees were killing me. I have had a relatively pain free life physically, and I haven’t learned very well how to manage it mentally so this is a very good time for me to develop some new character, and thinking skills. I think the difference between this trip and the previous ones is my age, my body just isn’t as tough as it used to be. So, a new life purpose statement I have written for myself is, ” As my physical body gets older and weaker, my mind, soul, and spirit will get stronger”.

2 Corinthians 4:16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

We haven’t had cell service or Wi-Fi for a couple of days so sorry about no blog yesterday. The last 3 days have been tough days with 80 plus miles a day with lots of hills to climb. Today we rode in the rain all day and I froze to death, well, not really, I am still alive, but I was really, really cold today. We were scheduled to camp at Lolo Hot Springs, and all day long I was thinking about the hot tub that I was going to sit in and get all warm again. When we got to Lolo Hot Springs they said the pump had gone out and no one could stay until it got fixed and they didn’t know when that was going to be. I cried for awhile and then we loaded the bikes on the RV and drove 40 miles to the KOA campground in Missoula, Montana and they had a swimming pool and a great hot tub, so I was happy again. Because we have had such hard days for the last 3 days we are going to take tomorrow off and lounge around here for the day. We have been seeing lots of deer the last few days and Cliff and Kathy saw a moose today. The scenery these last 2 days has been amazing as we followed the Luoksa River right up to the lake that was the source of the river.

With the miles we have been putting on I have been sleeping really good. I climb into my sleeping bag and before I can get it zipped up I am asleep. In fact I am so tired and sleepy as I write this I am going to call it a night.

Today we biked 83 miles. We went up one of the longest and steepest climbs of the trip so far today, it was a killer. And besides being steep and long it was very hot, and I was exhausted when we got to camp. But, a nice shower and a big rib eye steak, and I am ready for another day like it tomorrow. We are at Grangeville, Idaho staying at “Bear’s Den” campground, and it is the nicest one we have stayed in so far.I rank camp sites on the price, how nice the showers are, how friendly the owners or hosts are, and how much shade there is.This was an exceptional campground in every area.wIn the first picture you can get an idea of how steep the hill was we climbed today. The second picture is the head waters of the Little Salmon rive which flows into the Salmon river which is famous for white water rafting. We road along it most of the day, it was beautiful. The third picture is this morning as we got started, it was super foggy, but our red blinking taillights show up pretty good. And the last picture is me with the valley that we were riding out of on our monster hill climb behind me. Notice I am smiling in spite of the climb.

Today I spent most of the day as I rode, reflecting about my character and things I need to work on. As I thought about things I consistently do wrong, the selfish motives that often go undetected, and the drift at times into being a “professional pastor”, going through the motions, but not fervently serving the Lord and caring for people with a true shepherds heart, I was especially thankful that God is in the business of taking men with flaws and making them into champions for Him if they want to, and I do.

Rest days are super, but the day after the rest day is a day of will power. I didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag at 5 am this morning, but I did, I didn’t want to get on that torture tool called a bicycle seat, but I did, I didn’t want to pedal as hard as I could all day long, but I did, and the list goes on. A couple of days ago I wrote about the 7 things I hate on bicycle trips. I was being sarcastic and using hyperbole in an attempt to be funny and entertaining, and imitate my favorite short story writer Patrick McManus. In reality those 7 things that I said I hated are the reason that I have gone on these bicycle trips for the last 8 years. If none of them were a reality these trips would be easy and boring, because there would be no challenge. It is the challenge, the contest, the fight, the opponent that makes these trips attractive, just to see if I can win. I want to grow in character, and that only happens when we are forced to will our lazy bodies to do what they don’t want to do. This picture represents the 8th thing I hate on bicycle trips, and that is a head wind. Today we rode straight into an 8 to 10 mph head wind all day long. Head winds like today’s make it so you have to pedal even when you are going down hill, aaaaarrrgghh! Fairly regularly while riding I coast for a minute to rest, but not with a head wind, when you attempt to coast you just stop, so it is all out hard as you can, push all day long. But, just to even it out a bit, there were no mosquitos, no dogs, and no rain today. Yikes, that almost sounded boring!

We biked 55 miles today, and besides the head wind it was all mostly uphill climbing so I was tuckered out when we got to camp. We are in a town in Idaho called New Meadows and are at a campground called “Creek Side Campground”. Tomorrow will be a long one in that we will be going 80 miles with a bunch of climbing. I think tomorrow I will splurge and instead of a freeze dried dinner I will go to a restaurant and have a steak.

This Sunday, June 15th, Father’s Day, is a rest day from bicycling for us. I found a church in Cambridge on line and we attended there this morning. The Pastor said they usually have about 70 in attendance, but today there was about 20 and all very old. The reason for the low attendance was because June 15th is the day that the Government lets the ranchers move their cattle to graze on BLM land for the summer so the ranchers and their families were all on a big cattle drive moving their herds to free grazing. Most of the BLM land we have been riding by has been very green, with lots of grass because of the above normal snowfall they had this last winter and above normal rain this spring so they are all happy. During the service they honored fathers and gave little prizes for varies things, I won a prize for the Dad with the most grandkids. It was a very nice little church and we had a good time worshiping the Lord and talking to people.

The picture is one of our in camp bicycle repair spot, on a picnic table in the shade. All the little things that need fixing or maintenance on, such as oiling chains, adjusting shifters and brakes, we do on rest days. We usually also do laundry on rest days, but this camp doesn’t have a laundry place available, so we will take care of that in the next camp site that does. I usually wear my bike cloths in the shower, squirt a little “body wash” on them, lather them up good, rinse, wring out excess water with my hands and hang them on my bicycle to dry.It has been a good Father’s Day for me as my kids all sent me a text or email telling me what a great Dad I am😀 Today I will do a bunch of reading and writing in my IPad as I work on my sermon series for this Fall in Philippians and Colossians. I have my lawn chair under a pine tree in the shade.

I don’t have kickstand on my bicycle so when I want to stop for a break I look for a guard rail or a post to lean my bike on. Notice the top of the post has become a dinner table of sorts as I lay out the various snacks that I had put in my bags. Now I am deciding which one to eat, I think I ate all three of them. Also when I opened the black bag attached to the front of my handle bars, my camera fell out and rolled to the bottom of the gulley and I had to climb down and retrieve it. Also on the very same day my cell phone fell out of the little pocket on the top of that same bag that is attached to my handlebars. It bounced along the road for quite a long way, and I got stopped and went back an go it. I have the phone in one of those “Otter Cases” that a friend gave me, mostly because I drop my phone in the water so much when I am fishing, but it worked good as a guard to protect it when it is dropped from a bicycle on a road, the phone was fine.

Today we biked 70 miles leaving from Vale, Oregon at 6:30 am. We went through Cairo, and Ontario and then crossed over the Snake river into Idaho where we went through Fruitland, Ingard, Payette, Crystal, Weiser, Midvale, Cambridge, and stopped and camped at Mundo Hot Springs. The swimming pool is 99 degrees and the soaking pool just above it is about 105 degrees. I spent about an hour in them shortly after getting here at 1 pm. We are going to take tomorrow off from biking and stay here for another day so I look forward to several more hours in the hot mineral waters doing their magic on my old, achy body. Both Tom and Cliff had flat tires today. Tom’s pump that he carries on his bike broke so he had to hike into the closest town and buy a pump and hike back to his bike. He didn’t get a lot of miles riding today. I have ridden over 10,000 miles without a flat tire, and I wouldn’t mind riding another 10,000 without one.

Notice the sleeping body in the lawn chair😀! In the picture. Tired boy!

We have now pedaled 288 miles give or take few, we will just round it off to 300 miles with 1,700 to go. We are camped in Vale, Oregon and tomorrow we will be at Mundo Hot Springs near Cambridge, Idaho, and we will be there 2 days as we take a rest day on Sunday. So far it has been a great trip with not to many of my major hates having happed so far. I think you know what those are, “The Seven Things I Hate on Bicycle trips”. (1) bugs of all kinds; mosquitos in camp are super annoying, yellow jackets going down your shirt, up your shorts or in your mouth are always a near death experience especially if you are barreling down a hill at 35 mph, and black flies, deer flies, or horse flies bite hard and they can fly faster than I can pedal, and when you try and swat them while riding the cars following behind will be sure to honk when you swerve unexpectedly out in the road, especially when they bite you on the ankles, back, or butt. (2) Rumble strips are a very close second. One millisecond riding on them shakes all your teeth loose and every bolt on your bicycle. I am convinced that the engineers who tell construction people how to make them and where to place them on the road have a deep loathing for bicycle riders. They often are put less than 12 inches from the edge of the pavement, and if you attempt to ride in that narrow smooth place you run the risk of running off the road and once your front tire hits that loose gravel it is road rash supreme. So if you ride on the other side of the rumble strips the cars that go by yell, swear, salute rudely, and honk their horn at you, having no clue why we are riding on the road side of the white line. But I wave politely, smile, and yell, ‘have a good day, Jesus loves you”. (3) Rain, it isn’t so much the rain as it is the huge wave of water that buries you when a truck passes by, and setting camp up in the rain or taking it down is a pain, but I am not complaining, just stating the facts, mam. (4) Grumpy campground hosts are a terrible way to end a long day in the saddle slaving away up steep hills in the blazing hot heat. We try to tell them that our tents are super small, miniature even, and that we can easily fit them next to the RV or at least on one tent sight, but no, that is against the rules, so we have to rent 2 sights and another one for the RV, and then when I suggest, politely of course, that, that is highway robbery, they act like I am depriving their grandkids of their college education. (5) Rude, stupid, and/or careless drivers are a major distraction while riding along enjoying the scenery and your thoughts. The worst ones are those who must think that if they clear you by 1 inch they are doing good. It is illegal to pass a bicycle when there is a car in the oncoming lane so that there are 2 cars and me on the bicycle together, doesn’t leave much room for error, but cars do it all the time. It is especially bad when one of the vehicles is a truck or motor home, and if both are, I hug the shoulder and pray. The rudest of the rude are those in big pickup trucks who have really loud horns and lay on them when they get right next to you. I pray for them that they won’t make it to the next rest stop before an awful case of diarrhea hits. (6) Dogs that chase you are a pest, but most just bark and chase me for a little bit, some make me break into a sweat pedaling hard enough to outrun them. So far I have not got bitten, but some have come close. And last but not least is (7) “chip seal” especially when they use gravel the size of baseballs, or so it seems, as you ride on it. Some “chip seal” is just about as bad as rumble strips, but you can’t get away from it. Cliff and Kathy ride in the road on the smoother part where the car tires have flattened the gravel down a bit, keeping an eye on their rear view mirror and then dart to the side of the rode when they see a car coming. That totally ruins my ability to enjoy the scenery as I watch for cars, trucks, and RV’s sneaking up behind me so I stay over on the rough pavement. There are others on my growing list of things I hate while bicycling but I will end here so that you don’t think I am grumbling.

we had a major, big time problem today! The 6th game of the NBA championships is tonight so I got a room at the place where we were scheduled to camp because they have a 6 room motel as well as the camp sight so we could watch the game on the TV in the room. We got all paid up and went into the room and no TV, I thought all motels had tv!?!? The manager said the they have no satellite dish. The closest place to try and watch it is 60 miles back to Bend, oh well, I won’t grumble, I will cry but no grumbling. Cliff and Kathy decided to keep the room and have a nice and comfortable nights sleep.

We went up and over 3 passes today with each one being a climb of about 1,000 to 2,000 feet. We actually make better time in the hilly stretch than we did on the flat stretch of road today. On the flat riding we go about 12 to 13 mph, and on the uphills we go anywhere from 4 to 7 mph and 25 to 35 down the other side. So going with 6 mph up and 30 mph down that is 30 plus 6 equals 36 divided by 2 equals an average speed in the hills of 18 mph. I would much rather bicycle on flat ground but I won’t complain when it is hilly. Going down the hills I stand on my pedals and give my very sore butt a break.

We bicycled exactly 60 miles today and if it had been a mile further I am pretty sure I would have walked it and pushed the bike, I was all done in when we got to Juntura, Oregon where we are staying tonight. But a nice shower, and then sitting in Tom’s air conditioned RV while I read and write on my iPad has pretty much refreshed me, and I am ready for tomorrow. 2 more days of riding and we get a rest day, and it is at a place with a swimming pool! Yeh!

In my Bible Reading tonight 2 verses in the same chapter in Proverbs 13 stood out to me.

Proverbs 13:19 Desire realized is sweet to the soul,

Proverbs 13:12 Desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

And then also Psalms 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.

The Bible talks about noble desires that are pleasing to God, and then there are selfish, worldly, and evil desires. When I get a desire to do something I write it down in as much detail as I can, put it away for 30 days, and then get it out and read it, if I am still passionate about doing it after 30 days I write it down as a goal and go for it. This bicycle trip along with the previous ones were strong desires in my mind, heart and soul. It has been very rewarding to accomplish each one. I have a bunch more strong desires that I am going to write as goals in the days and years ahead.

Man, I had to think for a little bit what day this was, it sure seems like we have been riding longer than 3 days. It usually takes a couple of days for the soreness to get bad, well today was the day, by the end of our ride today I was hurting every place on my body. But having done this kind of ride 6 times already I know that it goes away as I get in shape on the ride, so I will endure with help of ibuprofen. There really isn’t enough time before a ride like this to ride enough to get in good shape so I just do it the first week of the ride. The picture was taken back toward the way we had come this morning, and was about 30 miles from Bend. One of the major pluses of bicycle touring is the beauty of the scenery that is so much more obvious on a bicycle as apposed to a car. The reason is we are traveling so much slower, we are sitting out in the open with no windows, doors or roofs to obstruct our vision, and there isn’t anything else to do but look around as you ride. We stopped at Brothers for lunch today. I doubt whether there is a dozen people in the whole town. The orders we had today were the biggest and the best I have ever eaten. I plan on stopping there every time I drive on highway 20 through Brothers, Oregon. We are camped in Burns tonight, at Burns RV campground. It it has been in the 90’s all day and now a huge thunder storm is blowing in with lots of lightening and thunder.

I had my first significant trial today, my fine, very comfortable, easy to blow up, and very compact and light when deflated air mattress has a leak. There isn’t much worse than waking up sore because you have been sleeping on the ground with no cushion. What makes it really bad is that it has been a very comfortable friend for the last 10 years. Oh well, the next bigger town we are in I will buy a new one and throw my faithful friend in the garbage can. That sounds bad, but it is just an air mattress, not really my friend.

Proverbs 17:17 A friend loves at all times,

Proverbs 18:24 There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 27:10 Do not forsake your friend.

John 15:13-15 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

I have a lot of good friends. I will never throw them in the garbage can. I will love them, be faithful to them no matter what, and I will faithfully pray for them.

I want to be the friend of Jesus, not everyone is, even if you are a Christian, even if you go to church. Jesus said, you are my friend if you do what I command you. I read the Bible and look for principles and commands in the Bible, especially the New Testament and I work hard to obey them, and I ask the Lord for the strength from Him to be successful. It is pretty simple, but there must be a desire to know Jesus intimately as a friend, and the recognition that obeying Him is not an option.