I have been thinking a lot  the last couple of days about my next trip, and what I will do differently. I don’t have a goal or a date, but I would like to do this again in the future before I die. It would be cool if I could bring one of my grandsons with me and give them some “grandpa wisdom” on the trip if their parents would trust me to get them back home.

1. I would make the “Warm Shower” hosts a much bigger priority on the trip. The time spent in the homes with the various hosts was a major highlight of the trip for me. They all were so gracious, friendly, and helpful, and even seemed interested in all the pictures of my grandkids that I showed them.  We were locked into the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier Route and didn’t want to go off route very much so as not to add additional miles, and in so doing we eliminated most of the people who were signed up as hosts along the way. I would work hard at being in a “Host” home almost every night. That would require some zigzagging, but it would be worth it and would save a lot of money.

2. I would do the research and spend the money to buy the best rain gear to wear while biking in the rain. That was really the only negative part of the trip including the hills. We only rode in the rain about 7 days but it was very unpleasant. What I had for this trip was cheap and didn’t work very well and didn’t breath.

3. Make our own route instead of using an established one. There is information “on line”where we could determine the size of the shoulders of any road in the US. I would make that the priority in choosing the route. The established bicycle routes make traffic the main issue, but most of them have very little shoulder, and even a little traffic especially truck makes riding  hairy! Choosing our own route would make it easy to connect with Warm Shower Hosts as well and hit places that would be fun to see.

4. Make the daily mileage goals for the trip less than what we did on this trip so the evenings would be a bit more enjoyable and relaxing. On this trip I usually was so tired at the end of the day that I didn’t read much, visit much, just eat and go to bed.

5. Save my pennies and buy a recumbent trike to ride instead of a traditional bicycle. My biggest problem with my Parkinsons is getting started, stopping, and going slow up hills because my balance is now so poor. With a Trike I wouldn’t have to worry about that. It would also eliminate almost all the butt soreness, the hand numbness, and the neck pain that was a constant on this trip.

Almost everything else about this trip was perfect, and very enjoyable and rewarding.

Ilove you all very much. Dee

Well, we pedaled the 28 miles this morning to the Super 8 Motel in Portland, Maine that we are staying at tonight which gives us a grand total of 4,018 miles for the trip. We will pedal 4 miles to the bike shop in the morning to make it 4,022 miles. As we pulled into the parking lot I felt a great sense of relief that we made it, we finished the whole trip. Once we got into our room I called Patty and told her and she started crying and was getting me all emotional so I told her I would call her back this evening 🙂

I am feeling sad that is over, feeling a great sense of fulfillment that the trip was successful, feeling excited about all that I am going to do when I get home, feeling very thankful that I got to do something like this, feeling very grateful to all those who prayed for us, our safety, and that we would make it. It still hasn’t fully sunk in that we have accomplished the goal, I think on the airplane ride home as I have a number of hours to replay everything in my mind that it will hit.

love you all. Dee

Our plans were to bike all the way to Portland today but about 10 miles after starting this morning John had a blowout on his bike tire. We were going down a hill into a town about 25 mph and John ran over something and his back tire blew. I was behind him and I heard the tire blow, it sounded like a gun shot, and his tire went flat immediately. I thought for sure that he would wreck but he was able to get the bike stopped quickly and dragged up on the sidewalk. We were crossing a bridge with zero shoulder, and had he wrecked he probably would have been hit by a car. We got across the bridge into a parking lot and spent the next hour working on the tire. It made a pretty big hole in the tire and when he pumped it full of air the tube pooched out so we knew that he needed a new tire. I called Jim, the fellow who hosted us last night, and asked if he could check on his computer and find the closest bike shop for us. He did that and discovered a shop right on our route 11 miles away. We headed off hoping that the tire would last until we got there, and pretty soon a car pulled off the road in front of us, and Jim got out asking if he could take us to the shop. I thought, “Wow, what a nice guy, to drive out where we were and see if we needed help!” His car wasn’t near big enough to hold even one of our bikes so we said we would make it which we did. After getting the new tire on we realized that we didn’t have enough time to make Portland. I called Jim again and asked him if he could locate a cheap motel about 30 miles from Portland. He called back a few minutes later and found a nice and cheap motel in Cornish, Maine so we made that our new goal. We biked 63 miles today and it was a very nice day of biking in spite of our slow start, very few hills and in spite of the forcast we had no rain.

We went to a Resturant next to the motel to eat dinner and found it was a very nice sea food Resturant with a big tub full of  big lobsters. I decided to have my celebration dinner of lobster one night early. It was an incredibly nice dinner with amazingly tasty bread and lots of lobster meat. I probably gained some of my weight back, but it sure was fun!!.

We are going to sleep in until 7 am tomorrow morning and after breakfast head off to Portland which is 27 miles away. We can’t check in until 2 pm, and once we are in our room we will sort through stuff and throw a bunch away and get everything packed into a bag. Friday morning we will be at the bike shop at 10 am per our appointment and then take a cab to the airport and be there around noon, board the plane at 4 pm and land in Portland, Oregon at 11 pm.

At least that is our plan unless we blow a tire!

love you all very much and see you soon 😃 Dee

Pictures of a 24 mile trail we biked on yesterday. Old railroad bed. All gravel and very slow and tiring. Lots of loose gravel and mud holes. Mountain bike trail ridden on with a touring bike. But very pretty and no traffic. Also a picture of the country side. Went over the border from Vermont to New Hampshire on back road so no “entering” picture. Getting ready to leave this morning on our last day’s ride. 80 miles today. I think we will make it. Tomorrow only 15 miles and then Friday on the airplane and home. See you soon.

Biked 84 miles today and it was mostly hills. Got to our “Warm Shower” host home at Meredith New Hampshire at 7 pm and it was dark. Our hosts are wonderful people and fed us a great dinner with ice cream for dessert, and are feeding us blueberry pancakes for breakfast!!!  The husband, Jim has walked from Portland, Maine to the Pacific Ocean. He takes a walking trip of 4 weeks each summer, and after he finished walking across the US he is now walking the Eastern Coast. He carries everything in a pack on his back and camps each night and cooks his meal from what he is carrying. We had a great time swapping stories of our respective trips.

We are headed for a motel tomorrow that is 15 miles from the airport in Portland, Maine. It is 81 miles and it is supposed to rain a bunch, but who cares because it will be our last day bicycling. Our host said that it is flat and slightly downhill the whole day so the day should be relately easy compared to the last 10 days!

I am already feeling a bit blue about the trip coming to an end. This has been a great adventure, and the challenge of my life. I thank the Lord everyday for giving me this opportunity.

love you all very much. Dee

ermontEntered into Vermont today, and we declared it first place in several categories. The first is it is the hilliest of all the States. It seems when you look out over the State from a high place that it is nothing but mountains. We climbed a hill or I should say Mountain that was 14 miles from bottom to top and climbed 2,000 ft with grades as high as 12%. It was a killer!! The second category is it has the worst roads of any State we have been in. When we headed down from Mt Molly as I fondly named her we immediately got up to speeds of 30 mph but the roads were so bad that we had to brake hard or be shaken to death, or fly off the road or have our bikes blow apart. I touched the disks on my disk brakes on my bicycle after 15 minutes of descending Mt Molly and got burned and got a blister on my finger.

Rode 86 miles today and because of all the climbing, especially Mt Molly we got to our Bed and Breakfast in Bethel, Vermont after dark. We have bright red blinking lights on our bikes so other cars can see us easily, but it is still spooky riding a bicycle in busy traffic after the sun goes down.

My shin splints started hurting again today with a vengence. I am sure it is because of all the hard biking we did today.  Praying that a good nights rest will help along with the Aleve and compression sock.

all day long when I would feel super exhausted or my shin hurting I would say, “2 more days after today”, “you can do it”! I do the same thing with difficulties in life, “you are going to heaven” “quit fussing!”

love you all very much. Dee

We rode 78 miles today and the weather was wonderful, and the scenery was amazing!! All day long we were in the Adirondacks and the colors of the changing tree leaves was beautiful. The biking was tough  with lots of climbing, but we made good time and actually finished by 5 pm tonight. That was nice!!

Tomorrow we will go about the same number of miles, and we are going to stay in a Bed and Breakfast. That will be a first for this trip. Looks like from their web sight that it is a super old New England home fixed up really nice. Gave us a good price to stay there and it looks like we will be getting a delicious breakfast to boot.

We have a really big mountain to climb tomorrow. Goes up to 2,000 feet from 500 in about 5 miles. I will be doing some pushing my bike up some hills tomorrow. All the while I am grunting, and wheezing up the hill I will be saying, “only 2 more days”, you can do anything for two more days!

Must be lots of people praying for me. My shin splints are doing OK. Hurts when I walk my bike up steep hills, but only minor pain now when I am pedaling.

My weight is at an even 200 lbs, which is the lightest I have been since I started pastoring in 1976. I hope to lose at least one more so I can be under 200. Been eating like a pig. I get really hungry riding this bicycle all day! I started at 225 and my goal was 188 but I am super pleased with 199. I will keep at it once home.

3 more riding days left!! Can’t hardly believe it. Love you all very much!

Dee

Rode 79 miles on our bicycles today, and it was all up or down hills. Lots of 6 to 8 % grade hills that are 4 mph in low-low gear. I was tuckered out when we got to camp, and enjoyed very much my freeze dried Beef Stroganoff. It really is quite good. When we got to the gate to the camp called “Eighth Lake Campground near the town of Raquette Lake, New York the fellow who was taking money told us it was free for bicyclists. He talked to us about our trip, and declared that he wanted to do something like this someday. He was very nice and enjoyable to talk to. We were on the rode this morning at 7 am and rode into our camp at 7 pm. By the time we get tents set up, get dinner cooked, take a shower it is 10 pm and we get up at 5:30 a.m. All that to say my goal of coming home with 34 sermons written out is going to be closer to 3 or 4. Last night I fell asleep while reading my Bible. There are very few days that we aren’t E

Yesterday we biked 75 miles and started into the Adirondack’s, so the hill climbing is back. We have 2 big, long grades to go up today that are 4 or 5 miles long. The Adirondack’s are famous for the “colors” in the Fall as the leaves change and we are right at the beginning of that. We have already seen some beautiful scenery and we are just entering the mountains. The next four days will be tough going, but we only have 5 days of biking left, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bright. We stayed at Redfield, New York and are planning on going 75 miles today to Raquette Lake to a camp ground.

We stopped at a bike shop yesterday and got John’s bike fixed good as new, and my “Shin Splints” are not getting any worse and are “bearable”, sort of the “grin and bear it” category. I will be able to finish strong, and will try not to whine to much!!

love you all very much, Dee

We rode on this trail that follows the Erie cancel for about 50 miles today, and did a total of 86 miles today. We are presently camped at “Lake Bluff Campground” outside of Huran, New York that overlooks Lake Ontario. When we got here at 7 pm those in the office were gone and there was a note to pick a place and we could pay in the morning. Found a nice spot close to the bathrooms, but when we went to use the bathroom we found it took a key that they gave out at the office that was closed. So we had no way to go to the bathroom or take a shower! There was a lady walking by so I began sharing with her what we were doing, and our dilemma . She said she had an extra one and loaned hers to us. Boy, that shower felt so good!!

John’s bicycle had a major breakdown today. The cable that runs the rear derailer broke. He managed to fix it by pulling the end down and fastening it on the derailer. The problem is he only has a couple of gears now. He can limp by with this for a little while, but will cause major slowing down. There is a bike shop on the way tomorrow about noon so we are hoping that they have the part and would be willing to fix it for us while we eat lunch 🙂

my leg injury stayed about the same. Hurts like the dickens but I can still pedal, so I think we will make it.

We have 6 days left. Love you all very much, dee