Today takes over first place for the hardest day of riding for the trip even though we only rode 65 miles. We had almost 30 miles of up hill, most very steep, and then when we got to the downhill part we had a huge headwind, and we had to peddle hard to go even downhill. When we got into camp tonight I was totally exhausted. Our daughter Sally, her husband Aaron and their 3 wonderful kids, who live in Hawaii are here on vacation touring this part of the US, and they came by to see me and we went out to dinner together. I was probably awful company as I kept falling asleep. I took my iPad with me this morning in one of my bicycle panniers because the camera on my iPhone doesn’t work and I wanted to get a bunch of great pictures as we get into this beautiful part of our country. Because of the balance issues I have because of Parkinson’s I can’t get started on my bicycle without falling over, it is kind of embarrassing if people are around. To help solve the problem I bought and installed an electric motor that is the front hub of my bicycle. I use it when I start up on the bike by pushing this button that gives me power and gets the bike up to 4 mph very quickly. Once I am up to 4 mph the centrifugal force of the bicycle keeps me up and going. Well, this morning I got into one of the panniers for a bottle of water and inadvertently turned the battery off that powers the motor. I got on the bike and locked my right foot onto the peddle and pushed the button, but nothing happened and before I realized that I had no power and got my shoe disconnected, I fell over flat on the ground. I bruised my right leg pretty good, but the worst thing is I broke my iPad that was in the pannier. I need to get a new one quickly because I do most of my work on it, so Aaron my son-in-law is going to take me shopping for one in the morning in St George, where we are camped.

Well, today is officially one third done on the trip, we have been gone 20 days, and have bicycled 1,100 miles, have climbed about 50,000 feet in elevation, and I have lost 13 lbs. we have not yet seen Zion, Bryce, or the Grand Canyon, and we haven’t gone through Yellowstone, so the scenic part of the trip is yet to come, but the scenery has been beautiful so far.

Everyone Cliff, Kathy, Tom, and I are all in good health, and feeling good, and all are borrowing my little travel scale regularly to see how much weight they are loosing. Cliff has lost the most so far, but he was the fattest starting out 😀 (brothers). The bicycles are doing great with nothing breaking or wearing out, no flat tires, or any such thing. I have read about 500 pages, written about 10,000 words, and spent about 15 hours memorizing Bible verses, not counting all the hours of prayer, reflective thinking, and creative thinking that I have done as I ride along for 8 hours each day on my bicycle.

Today we are at Young’s RV Campground in Caliente, Nevada, and it is a rest day. We are going to have bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of our usual oatmeal, and then we are going to walk one mile to “Agape Baptist Church”. My goal is to not miss more than 2 times of going to a worship service each week during the year. If I miss making the goal because of circumstances, I am not going to get upset with myself, but I do want to establish a priority and a value in my life. My primary motive is an act of submission and obedience to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Many today who say they are followers of Jesus don’t take attendance, involvement or love for their church seriously, which illustrates the Biblical principle that what we value and what God values are usually opposite of each other.

One of my life axioms is “Don’t make a decision to make a major change in direction or quit anything until the very last moment so you have had all the information possible, and every second possible to think about it, so as not to be impulsive or reacting to ‘difficult’ or hard’ “. About 2 am I woke up with severe leg cramps from the 112 mile day with all the hills, and I knew today was 88 miles with even more hills than yesterday, so I decided that I would take the day off and ride in the motorhome. I tossed and turned until 4:30 am and got up and packed all my stuff. While doing it I realized I was feeling pretty good, and I could probably do it, but the decision to not ride was so “comfortable” I couldn’t bring myself to choose to get on that hard, ugly bicycle seat. A few minutes later Cliff and Kathy got up, and I told them my decision, half thinking that they might follow my lead and ride in the RV as well, but, no, off they went on their bicycles. All day long I kicked myself for wimping out, especially when we passed them chugging up a long hill. Oh well, I feel really good right now sitting in camp. In my personal journal that I write in most days, I rewrote my axiom so that I don’t forget it in the future. Choosing to ride a bicycle or not is not that big of a deal, but there are many other decisions that are a big deal, and living a life of faithfulness and endurance is a really big deal to God. He is the one who gives assignments in life, and He gives the important ones to faithful people who don’t quit, and I really want to be considered by Him to be worthy of significant responsibilities.

I don’t have much service where we are camped tonight so I will make my blog tonight short and go longer tomorrow night. Well we made the 112 miles today and summited 5 different passes, that means we went up and down 5 different times. Here are a couple pictures of the summits.Lloyd

Today we rode 70 miles with lots of climbing, but we had a nice tail wind all day. I think a tail wind is about my favorite blessing while riding all day on a bicycle. Here is a video of me chugging up a hill, and I use the word chugging fairly literally. We are at Tolopah, Nevada tonight and tomorrow we will be in Rachel. Tomorrow we are going to ride 113 miles with 4 big monster hill climbs, in fact we will either be going up a hill or coming down a hill, not much flat tomorrow. We are going to start at 6 am and probably won’t pull into camp until at least 6 pm so it is going to be a 12 to 14 hour day, whoooeeeee. The nice thing is we are going to stay at an Inn so we won’t have to set up tents and all the rest when we get into camp, and we will get to sleep on nice beds, and they have dinner and breakfast for us so no cooking either.

In the 4 previous long bike rides like this that I have done it seems like day 21 is the tipping point. Every day before that is a grind and I mumble a lot during the day about being crazy, and never doing anything like this again, and act your age, and what are you trying to prove, and on on it goes. This year has been similar except that I am expecting that all to change on day 21 like in past years, so I kind of humor myself as I grumble, and focus on the end of the ride and how much more enjoyable it is going to be. My life is like that now, I am well past the “tipping point”, and I am on the end of the trip now. The main difference now is that I have a peace about life and don’t get all uptight about difficulties, unexpected trials, conflicts, and all the rest of the pressures of life, because we have gone through so much and it has turned out. There really isn’t that much new coming around, same old stuff often in a different format, but the same. At this point there is a very strong sense and faith in the fact that everything has happened according to God’s plan and will continue to, so it is all good.

we have been riding through Nevada for several days now and we have 3 more to go before we get into Utah. This is what most of the scenery looks like. It is beautiful in it’s bareness, but it is hard to image anything living in those mountains, but I am sure there are lots of deer, sheep, and probably javelinas as well. We rest on Wednesday’s and Sundays, and in another week we will rest just on Sundays, so today was a rest day. Today I changed my tires, and put on brand new “Gatorskins”. The ones I took off had about 6,000 miles on them without a single flat. I checked and the wear indicators were gone so I thought I better put the new ones on.

I enjoy our rest days very much not only because of the rest, but because of the uninterrupted reading and writing that I get to do. My brain seems to work better than usual when I am doing as much exercise as I am doing now, and there isn’t much else happening in my life now to distract my brain so my thinking and pondering is very focused. The older I get the more I enjoy writing, putting words and phrases together that are a clear expression of what I have learned from life, others, the Bible, and what God has put into my mind and heart over the years, that would have the wisdom to guide, motivate, and teach others who will eventually read it.

I am well aware of the fact that much of what is communicated today both verbally and in writing is foolishness. I don’t write that as a judgmental statement of being better or smarter than others, but discerning that often words are said as an emotional response to an offense, a hurt, or a perceived violation of personal rights, and usually are way out of balance if not simply not true. Those words usually prompt more of the same from others which are out of balance in an opposite direction.

I truly want to communicate wisdom marked by gentleness, and truth that is full of grace.

Today was the shortest in miles that we have peddled on our bikes, than any day so far or yet to come for the trip. We only rode 35 miles, but we had a strong head wind all day and several big hills so it didn’t seem like a light day when we rolled into camp, I was tuckered out. I am really tired every day when when my “Bicycle Mapping Program” on my bike computer says, “You have arrived”. After we go through the formalities of checking in at the office, finding out what spaces are ours, and getting instructions on how to operate the lock on the bathroom doors and what the combination is, how to hook up to the Wi-Fi and what the pass word is, and the other camp rules about pets, fireworks etc, the first thing I do is pull my very comfortable camp chair out of the back of Tom’s RV, set it up in the shade, sit down in it and take a nap! Then after about 20 minutes I go take a shower, change out of my biking cloths, and go sit in my chair some more. If the office that we checked into had a store I will buy something cold to drink, usually a Pepsi. After that little “recovery ritual” I will set up my tent, air mattress, sleeping bag etc, and enjoy the rest of the evening. I don’t sleep very well at home because of my Parkinson’s and rarely get more than 5 hours of sleep so I am always sleepy. On this trip I usually am in my sleeping bag on my 2 inch blow-up air mattress by 9:00 pm and wake up and take a shower at 4:00 am which is 7 hours of sleep. It has been a long time since I have regularly, each night slept for 7 hours, and it is feeling really good. Obviously what is making this happen is the hours of bicycling I am doing each day so I am determined to increase my normal 1 hour of stationary bike riding to 2 hours when I get back home. I can read, listen to sermons and audio books, and pray while I ride so it won’t be time lost. The question is, will I have the self-control to do it? What do you need to do more of in your life? Bible ?Prayer? Make it happen.

Today I tried a new strategy to deal with the neck pain I have been having as I ride my bicycle, a neck brace which I bought at Walgreens in Reno. We rode 77 miles today and this picture was taken at about mile 60 with virtually no neck pain, that is why I am smiling in the picture. The main negative thing was that my neck was hotter than the surface of the Sun. But a hot neck is an easy trade off for eliminating that neck pain. It was so much more fun today riding with little pain in my neck, butt, hands, legs, and knees. Hopefully the rest of the trip will be as good and even better as I get in better and better shape. It was overcast and very cool when we took off this morning so I didn’t put any sunscreen on, and the sun came out and I forgot all about no sunscreen so tonight My face is feeling as hot as my neck did during the day. As we rode South today in Nevada the terrain was high dessert with lots of sage brush, barren hills, and sand. Today was a major challenge because of rumble strips. They were 12 inches wide with about 12 inches of pavement to ride on between the rumble strip and the dirt. It was so high pressure trying to not veer off in either direction and hit the rumble strips and shake the bike apart or go out in the soft dirt and risk wrecking. There was so much truck traffic that none of us felt comfortable riding on the road side of the rumble strip which put you beyond the white line which will earn you many negative responses from drivers, and also those trucks going by us inches away and about blowing us over in the backwash created. The cool thing about a trip like this is that there are always challenges and problems to solve, just like life.

Today was a rest day in Fallon, Nevada. We rode 5 miles to a church nearby, named Grace Bible Church and had a good time worshipping and listening to good preaching. On the ride back to camp it poured rain on us, and tomorrow it is predicted that it is going to rain most of the day. In the morning before we leave at 7:00 am I will throw my tent in the dryer and possibly my sleeping bag as well. I didn’t think it rained in Nevada, but it got right with it today. I bought a neck brace at Walgreens, one of those cheap ones that you buy and use if you get whiplash in a car accident. Several of my Parkinson’s friends have e-mailed me and reminded me that muscle cramps and pains are a Parkinson’s issue and a key is to keep the muscles warm so I think this might help, and I was also going to stop at a Walmart’s and get some of those chemical hand warmers that I have used when fishing, and put it under the neck brace right where the muscle pain occurs. Tom Zilverberg who is on the trip has a 28 foot RV that he is following us with. The campground where we are at today has free Television cable hookup at each sight, and Tom has a Television in his RV so today when we got home from church Tom, Cliff and I watched an NBA playoff game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics, that was a treat, especially since the Celtics creamed the Cavaliers. I think I have told you this before, but Tom’s routine is to leave in the morning, ride 20 to 30 miles, then ride back, and drive the RV to the next camp, he usually gets to the camp about the same time as Cliff, Kathy, and I do. Tomorrow is a 75 mile day, and it should be a great day of riding in spite of the rain that is predicted, I have good bicycling rain gear.

A bicycle is an instrument of pain, the Seat makes your butt hurt, the handle bars make your hands, wrists, and neck hurt, the peddles make your feet hurt, and the whole bicycle makes your legs burn. Why would anybody in their right mind choose to expose their body to 8 to 10 hours a day to such a machine of pain. I played a variety of sports in High School and College, and the training and practice sessions were very intense and hard and brought a lot of pain. I remember guys stopping and throwing up in a garbage can as we ran the bleachers in the gym. Many of my friends chose not to participate in sports because it was to hard. There were several mottos that the coaches used to quote to us over and over, “No pain, no gain”, “Pain is the gas peddle or the brake pedal in our life, we choose”. I hear some people say of themselves, “I have a low threshold of pain”, and I wonder if they think that they were born that way, and that they are stuck there. Our threshold for pain goes up as we choose to move over the line a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more, and a little bit more. As our pain threshold goes up so does our rate of growth in character and also our potential for accomplishment. Pain is not our enemy, and it isn’t our friend either, but it is an adversary that we compete with, pain wins if we quit because of it or we avoid certain choices because of it, but I win if I endure in spite of it, if I grow because of it, and if I accomplish more as a result of it. Challenge is doing something hard and winning. Someone asked me if I enjoy the pain that bicycling long distances brings, and I responded, “No, I hate the pain, but I love the challenge”