I like traveling across the USA on a bicycle. I like to fish, in fact I really like to fish. I like to hunt, and I am looking forward to going on a moose hunting trip this Fall with my son in law who lives in Alaska. My favorite thing to do though is teach the Bible. I think the reason is that God made me for that purpose so there is a great sense of fulfillment when I study and teach God’s Word. I am looking forward to being home and teaching this coming weekend at JBC at all three services. I am starting a new series of sermons this weekend on 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. This is a super cool book that talks about how to love, how to have great joy in spite of life, how to be full of hope for the future, how to be strong, and a number of other topics that apply to every person. I just love working at making the Bible understandable to every person. If you don’t have a church home why not visit JBC this weekend. You will be blessed by the power of God’s Word.

So John and I have been talking about our next bicycle adventure. We are thinking that in 2 years we will do this trip on the map. We will hit all lower 48 States beginning in Vermont and ending in Jefferson, Oregon. It will be 7,000 miles long, actually 6,820, but we will round it off to 7,000. We will bike for 100 days and have 20 rest days, averaging 70 miles per ride day. We won’t have a support team or vehicle like this trip so we will have to have all our gear on our bikes. I will be just a month away from 70 years old when we finish this trip. The next 2 years of planning the route will be fun because there is no established route like the one we just finished. We finished our “Southern Tier Across the Nation” trip today. Just 25 miles short of 3,000 miles. We went through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississsippi, Alabama, and Florida. We saw so much, and experienced so much on this trip. You can see the country very well at 12 miles an hour. I lost 17 pounds, not as much as I wanted, but with the wives coming along on this trip I ate a lot!! I had no flat tires, not one. We celebrated tonight at a nice Resturant and I had a big plate of Oysters! We will hang out tomorrow at this camp ground we are in, and then Monday we will drive to Jacksonville. We will stay overnight in a motel and then Tuesday will get on an airplane for home. Hallelujah!! We finished, now on to a bigger challenge.

  Today was a great day of bicycling. We road 65 miles but about half of it was on a bike trail. The trail was an old railroad track that they had pulled the tracks from and paved so it was fl…

Source: One Day Left

Today was a great day of bicycling. We road 65 miles but about half of it was on a bike trail. The trail was an old railroad track that they had pulled the tracks from and paved so it was flat, straight, no cars, and very beautiful. The trees and underbrush often was growing over the trail so we were in a canopy . Tomorrow is our last day of bicycling. We will go about 40 miles and be at the Atlantic Ocean at St Augustine where we will camp for two nights and then drive to Jacksonville and get on an airplane and come home. Two summers ago John and I road the Northern Tier from Jefferson, Oregon to Portland, Maine in 67 days and 4,000 miles. This trip is 3,000 miles and we will have taken about 55 days, but it seems longer. I think it seems longer because we have had so many different experiences and adventures. It has been a super trip.

Andrew and Stephanie McNeil, good friends who used to attend JBC and live in Gainsville, who we are staying with on our rest day here, took us to a Florida Park that was full of alligators. We had great fun walking through the park and seeing dozens of alligators. The sign said not to approach them because they were dangerous but I had to get close enough to get some good pictures😀

We are staying at Andrew and Stephanie McNeil’s on our day off, friends who used to attend JBC. Today they took us to a Florida Park that had lots of alligators, and we saw dozens with many being very close and very big. The signs said don’t approach them but I needed to get close for good pictures😄

We had another super ride today. We rode 65 miles, beautiful scenery, gentle rolling roads, clear skies, little wind, very little traffic, and lots of energy. We are staying in another Florida State campground tonight that is very, very nice. Mary Ann bought a pile of firewood for $5 and I am sitting up by the fire reading and writing this. Everyone else has gone to bed. As I sat looking into the fire thinking and reading I was oblivious to my surroundings, and then I took a break and looked around and saw all these little blinking lights around me and all through the woods, it was so cool or as my son in law Aaron says, “rad”. I have seen “fire flies”or “lightening bugs” before but it has been a lot of years ago, but I have never had the experience of sitting in a lawn chair watching them at length by the dozens perform for me, at least that is what I am pretending. It is an amazing show that they are putting on, just for me. I was reading, as I sat here by the fire an article on my IPad about recently “spotted” black holes in space that were merging into one, and how confused the scientists were because things weren’t happening like they were supposed to and I chuckled as I read this statement, “we have no idea what is happening and why”.  The little video clip of the stars, space, black holes was amazing and beautiful. Watching the little blinking lights fly all around me and then looking at the pictures of the universe I thought, it would take so much desire to not have a God to think this all happened by chance. The incredible intelligence behind it all seems so obvious. The Bible says, people will deny God because if He exists He would obviously be in charge, He would decide what is right and wrong, and people don’t want that. I believe and affirm that God is alive, He is creator of heaven and earth, He is Almighty, He is Sovereign, He is my creator, my Savior, my Lord, and I will live for Him and love Him with all my heart. Thank you little fire flies for the fine show.

We are camped tonight by the famous, historical and beautiful Suwannee River at a Florida State campground. It is probably the nicest State campground I have ever been in. Everything is very beautiful, the huge trees, Spanish moss, vines, the river and the trails. Big showers with lots of hot water and our camping sight is super nice as well. Today was by far the most enjoyable and comfortable day of bicycling we have had on the trip. We didn’t bicycle through any big cities, the roads were smooth, the shoulders were wide, the traffic was minimal, no rumble strips, few bugs, no wind, flat terrain, clear skies, absolutely gorgeous scenery, and only 55 miles. It just doesn’t get any better than that. I expect that tomorrow will be close to the same except we will go a bit further, 65 miles, and then stay at another Florida State campground that is supposed to be just as nice as this one.

After two 90 mile days on the bicycle today was soooo nice!! Slept in until 8 am, and  the RV campground had a breakfast that was very, very tasty.  Then  we drove to a little church, in fact we just about doubled the attendance, but we had a great time with the people, and the sermon was good as well. Came back and ate and slept some more, worked on my bike, and watched some NBA play-off basketball. So far we have bicycled  for 40 days, had 9 rest days, and gone 2,715 miles, for a skosh under 70 miles per day average. We have 5 more ride days left and we will be a skosh over 3,000 when we get our  front tire in the Atlantic Ocean. So far I still have not had a flat tire on my bicycle, though I am expecting that one of these mornings John is going to let the air out of one of my tires while I am sleeping, he has had 10 flats. Well, I need to go, the ladies just built a fire and we are going to have s’mores.