Left Muscatine, Iowa this morning and entered Illinois, and the most observable fact was it was pretty much flat!! Yeh!! A few minor rollers, but nothing to difficult. The biggest difficulty today was it was very cold. Didn’t get above 50 degrees today and the wind was blowing at 10 mph from the North. We were pedaling East so the wind was hitting us on our left side. Didn’t hinder our riding much, but it did seem to blow right through us. By the time we finished riding today I didn’t think I would ever get warm again, but a very hot shower thawed me out and warmed me up good. We pedaled 80 miles today and saw corn, more corn, and more corn. I have never seen so much corn in my life. We are in Kewanee, Illinois tonight.

I am enjoying Patty being with us, and hearing all of her praise about my muscles and good looks 🙂 but she flies back home on Monday ;-(

Tomorrow is our rest day so I am going to sleep a lot, read a lot, do some writing, spend time talking to Patty, but I won’t even look at my bicycle!!

i love you all very much! Dee

Here is a picture of the Mississippi River from a high point above the river that we have biked along for almost a week. It has been a very beautiful part of the bicycle trip. In fact all of the trip has been so great in terms of seeing the country. Pedaling along at 10 mph you see everything and smell everything on both sides of the road. It truly is an awesome touring experience. 

Another aspect of a bicycle trip like this is the hours and hours of solitude, and the thinking, pondering, reflecting, creative thinking that goes along with that solitude. It is marvelously renewing and rejuvenating for me. I am very much an introvert by nature and though I love everyone at JBC very much, I get drained emotionally little by little over time and lose my passion and fire for ministry and don’t even realize how much until I get away on a trip like this, and start to feel the fire coming back with more heat each day. Pastoring is a teaching job, but mostly it is a leadership responsibility, and the leadership is a modeling style that requires enthusiasm and a contagious attitude that draws and attracts people to a way of living. A tired and dull man doesn’t motivate and attract much. 

This trip has been an experience of a lifetime and I am so thankful to The Lord and all those in my life that I have been able to experience what most just dream about. 

Today we we started pedaling at Dyersville and finished at Muscatine, Iowa. We went 87 miles in about 10 hours. Rained a little at the start and was overcast all day but cool is good when you are pushing hard on those pedals all day. Some favorable winds today. The worst was a side wind that occasionally would swing around and give us a good push. Lots of fun having a 13 mph tail wind occasionally. The hills were as many but much less steep and tall. We had a good day. The ladies drive up 10 miles ahead of us and when we get to where they are parked reading, talking or sleeping they jump out with water, bananas, gator aid, cookies, etc, and I always get big kiss from Patty, and a comment on how macho my legs are looking 🙂

tomorrow morning we cross the Mississippi River into Illinois and say goodby to Iowa. We are planning on an 80 mile day. The roads look way flatter and it is forcast to be clear but cold with a high of 60 degrees.

I love you all very much. Dee

We pedaled to Dyersville, Iowa for lunch. Nice having Patty and John’s wife Mary Ann along with us. We finished lunch and they took off in the rented car to find a camp site for tonight. We heard from the owner of the Resturant that big rain was coming tonight so we called the ladies and said, let’s find a cheap motel instead so we don’t have to camp in the rain. They were very much in favor of that. We left Dyersville and pedeled 20 miles to Farley and found the road we needed to go on was under major construction and closed. We asked around and found out that the only way to get where we wanted to go was go back to Dyersville and take a different road. The ladies called and said that they could find no camp sites, or motels any where near where we wanted to be and the only place that had anything was Dyersville. OK, back to Dyersville. We were planning on 88 miles today, but only ended up with 60 that counted. Oh well, tomorrow is another day. Looks like we will be riding in the rain tomorrow, but the hills look like they will be much smaller from the profile of the route on my iPad, and wind is minimal. The goal is 90 miles tomorrow as we try to reach Muscatine, Iowa. We have been heading South following the Mississippi River, but when we get to Muscatine we head straight East into Illinois. Flat maybe??? We can only hope 🙂 love you all. Dee

Here is what the day is like. I thought Iowa was flat!!! Lots of 8 % hills up to 2 miles to the top. Plus 10 mph head wind. We are used to it but we can’t get the miles we need to stay on schedule. We have one more sluff day and we can skip a rest day if we need to, and last resort would be to spend $150 to change our departure date. The hope is we will get some flat and some tail wind and make up some miles. I have lots of energy now with my Patty smiling at me 🙂

Wow, what a nice surprise!!! Patty flew in and joined us. I was totally surprised!! What a great wife 🙂

Today there was no wind, there was no rain, there were no bugs, there was no heat, about 70 degrees most of the day, there were no hills, and there were no panniers on our bikes, Mary Ann had them in the car. We bicycled 70 miles in about 5 hours. It was the number one easiest day of the trip. Very, very nice enjoyable day. We are camped tonight on the Mississippi River again at Lansing, Iowa.  Iowa is corn, corn, corn and more corn.

I said no bugs, but there was one exception. I had a bee or yellow jacket fly into my mouth. I didn’t know what kind of bug it was and I was trying to spit it out as it buzzed around frantically in my mouth. He stung me and I chomped down on him and then spit him out. Boy, that hurt like crazy! 

We pulled into a gas station to use the bathroom and just as we got our bikes on the kickstands about 50 motorcycles came roaring in and parked all around where we were standing. Being an ex motorcycle dude I started talking to them, and I got the coldest, rudest response. One of the young girls with the group said don’t mind them, they think that because you are riding a bicycle that you must be some kind of environmentalist or something!

tomorrow we will be going about 80 miles and it looks like from the weather report that we will have a 10 mph head wind, and the profile shows a bunch of big hills. Oh well, I guess one easy day is all we get this week. 

Love you all. Dee

Today, Saturday is our rest day and I am enjoying it very much!! We were at a campground last night but this afternoon we moved to a Motel in Winona. Several reasons we did that. First reason is John’s wife Mary Ann is flying in and renting a car and will be with us for a week, and she hasn’t had a chance to buy any camping stuff, so, you know, we needed to stay in a Motel, at least that is John’s story and he is sticking with it. The second reason, and this is very important, is so I can watch some football!!!!!!!!

Every year in October I set my goals for the year. I set the goal for this bicycle trip last year. I set 65 goals because I turned 65 last October and this year I will set 66. A lot of the goals are basic discipline goals that I set every year like my Bible reading goal, pray with Patty 3 times a week goal,  pray for all my kids, their spouses and grandkids everyday goal. I have job/ ministry goals, fishing goals, honey do goals, etc. I also set at least one BHAG, a “Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goal”, a goal that is very hard, stupid possibly, and a real stretcher. This bicycle trip was my BHAG for this year. It will be October 3rd when I get home, so I have been thinking a lot about my new goals as I ride.

Goal setting where you write your goals down clearly described and measurable, goals that you read every day so as to motivate yourself to pursue them, goals that are an expression of the desires of your heart, and most important, goals that you have seriously thought and prayed about until you are convinced they are God’s will for your life, are incredibly powerful to living a focused life,  that results in doing and accomplishing significant things with your life so that you have a great sense that your life matters. Goals also are powerfully effective to producing rapid life change and character development in ourselves so that we become the person on the inside that we want to be and we know God wants us to be.

So the burning question is, what should my BHAG be for this next year. It doesn’t have to be physical, a number of years ago my BHAG was ” go to school and get my Masters degree”, but because of having Parkinson’s, and wanting to do all I can to slow the progression down I have made exercise related goals the focus of my BHAG, and probably will for the next several years. So again, what should my BHAG be?

At this point, I think it will be to sign up and participate in the Ironman Triathlon in Coeur D’ Alean, Idaho, June 25th, 2015. This requires that you swim 2.4 miles, bicycle 112 miles, and then run a marathon. I am a terrible swimmer so I have signed up for swimming lessons that will require swimming an hour, three times each week, and I have worked out a schedule where I will bike and run 14 hours each week. I have purchased 3 books written especially for beginners and wimps, and I have signed up for an “on line coach”. My goal will be to complete the race in 15 hours; 2 hour swim time, 8 hours for the bike ride which will require riding at an average speed of 14 mph, and 5 hours for the marathon which will require that I run the 26.2 miles at a 11.5 minute a mile pace.

My intention is not to lose the physical conditioning that I have achieved on this bike ride, but to start right out with my training schedule the day I get home, well, OK, I will take a couple days off. This BHAG will probably be as difficult as this ride across America, just not so crammed in a short amount of time and I can stay at home on this one.

The one thing I still need is another person who would want to do the same Ironman Triathlon so I have someone to help motivate me, compare notes with as we train, and that I could compete in an informal way, comparing times etc.

After my birthday, October 27th you can have a copy of all 66 goals if you like.

Love you all. Dee

Yesterday it was in the 90’s and today it is 50 degrees. And people say the weather in Oregon changes! We rode 40 miles today and are camped in Winona, Minnesota 10 feet from the Mississippi River. Tomorrow is our rest day and I may be wearing all the cloths that I brought to keep warm! I see they have canoe’s to rent. Maybe I will rent one and see if they would rent a fishing pole and see what they have in the Mississippi River to catch.  The last two days probably have been the most energy draining days of the trip for me. I was seriously all done in at the end of yesterday. But short day today after sleeping in until 7 am and a lazy afternoon in camp and I am feeling all refreshed and I still have all day tomorrow to sleep and read and maybe fish. I think I will live! Need to do a little tuning on my “shifter” tomorrow. The second and third lowest gear on my bicycle keep hoping around when I am pushing hard going uphill, and it is a major pain! Generally the bike is working good. Tweek seat height and angle constantly trying to find the perfect spot as well as my handle bar height hand angle, but decided that the change is what feels good. Lost some more weight in spite of eating like a horse. Down to 202 lbs from 225. My goal was 188 but I might keep on going down to 180 lbs. John’s wife, Marry Ann is flying in tomorrow and will be our support vehicle for a week. It will be nice to do some biking without that 60 extra lbs to lug around. We had talked a bit about Patty coming with her. It is a good thing she isn’t because I have been so tired I wouldn’t have been able to shake hands with her!! 🙂 well I will write some more tomorrow when it is warmer, I think it will be warmer! Love you all. Dee

Today was a close second for new worst day of the trip. We planned on going 92 miles today but we only went 70 and that was being on the road at 7 am and not getting to camp at Wabasha, Minnesota until 7 pm. About 3 pm we new we were to far away from our intended camping spot in Winona so we decided where we could get to and I started phoning and here we are in Wabasha. It was an all time record high temperature for Minnesota today! We would pedal for a ways and then it would thunder so loud it would startle me and then pour rain. Then it would quit, the sun would come out, and it would be 90 degrees and 90 % humidity. I would get soaked from the rain than soaked from sweat.

everything was up and down today. We went up a bunch of hills that were 8 % grade and steeper. I can’t bicycle that steep so I would walk the hills pushing my bike. The last one I walked for two miles at 8% grade.  None of the hills,passes, and Mountains we had in Oregon, Montana, or Idaho were near as tough as the ones here in Minnesota.  We are going to sleep in until 7 am tomorrow and have a short and easy day of 30 miles, and then we are having a rest day in Winona, Minnesota on Saturday. These back to back to back killer days are wearing me out. I am ready for a rest day!

love you all. Dee

This is what I look like after peddling up a big hill. Today was a new worst day! Started out with torrential downpour all morning. It did some serious raining. It rains 17 inches a year in this area and it seemed like it was going to do it all today. I put a bunch of mosquito repellent on this morning and I put a bunch in my hair because the mosquitos get ento my helmet and drive me crazy. The rain was running into my eyes with mosquito repellent from my head mixed in and it burned like crazy. I kept stopping and rubbing my eyes because they hurt so bad.

i imagine things happening all day long, and with my creative and crazy imagination it is usually pretty crazy. Today I kept imagining that a nice old lady who saw us struggling in the rain out her window would come out and yell at us to take a break, and come in and drink a cup of hot coffee, and rest for a bit. Every house we rode by I would look at expectantly and longingly but to no avail. 

it was super hilly today. It was a series of hills one after the other and a bunch were super steep. I had to get off and push my bike 5 times, that is a new record for me.  Usually when I get off and walk John keeps on pedaling right by me. Today he did  that and he got to the top of the hill and was so cold that didn’t get his feet unlocked and fell over. I looked up the hill and he was on the ground with his bike on him. If I had thought faster I would have taken a picture of him.

besides the rain and the hills we also had wind, like in head wind, like in strong head wind. We biked 10 hours and still had ony bicycled 63 miles, lowest mph average for the day for the trip. 

We called to reserve a spot in the campground and the lady said all the other tent campers had pulled out or cancelled because a big storm was coming in tonight so we decided to stay in a motel. Good choice because it is pouring outside as I write this.

so tomorrow we need to bicycle 86 miles to get to the camp sight we reserved. I hope it doesn’t rain and that there aren’t a bunch of hills, but I know I can’t control that  so I will “Enjoy the Suck”

i don’t know it was great scenery today as we ride next to the Mississippi because I couldn’t see anything most of the day! 

Now this may sound like grumbling, but I am not, really. Just sharing with you the circumstances of our day so you can feel sorry for me, no, no, just kidding 🙂 So you can pray lots of strength for me!

love you all very much. Dee