Blog

July 29th, 2006

Absolutely wonderful experience…we felt like visiting royalty…

July 28th, 2006

Our first experience with city parks – a totally new concept to us

We can’t go any longer on this trip without talking about our tent. As you know, Peter Glenn of Vermont is one of our trip sponsors, and we have blessed them so many times, I can’t even count. They donated a Columbia Raptor (actually it’s the Cougar Flats model) – which must be the king and queen of tents. It’s actually a two-room tent – I kid you not – and it has been our home for many, many nights now. It’s incredibly easy to set up – it takes us only about 10-15 minutes to get it all set up, including the rain fly. It has two large doors, one picture window, two bay windows, and two other large windows. It’s even tall enough for Alex, at 6’2”, to stand up fully in, and would sleep 8 in a pinch, or 6 comfortably. Alex has his own “room” and Chelsea and I have our own. It even has two small zipper sections to let the air flow in and out so that condensation doesn’t build up inside the tent.

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July 27th, 2006

Today was a new twist on things. Chelsea and I were so exhausted after yesterday that we couldn’t even move this morning. We woke up, and went right back to sleep. After talking about it, we decided to have Alex take us to the next stop, and give ourselves a recovery day. We had great fun – stopped to see Alley Spring, MO, a natural spring that pumps out 81 million gallons of water a day! It was well worth taking the time to see it – just gorgeous and very tranquil. They had historical exhibits and a history of the Ozarks – really interesting. We managed to find a Wal-Mart along the way in Houston, to replenish our water supply, and then continued on to Bendavis.

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July 26th, 2006

Yesterday (I’m writing this from Bendavis, MO) Chelsea and I rode absolutely the toughest miles of our trip to date. Things started out great with Alex dropping us off at the highway at Twin Rivers Landing in Lesterville, MO. We were nearly dreading the mileage because of how tough things had been the few days prior, but we were fresh off a great day and a half rest, so we felt optimistic.

The first 25 miles were great. We had some pretty good hills to climb up, but they were much more gradual, and even though we’d be in our lowest gears, we could just crawl steadily upward. All that changed after we passed Ellington. Wow, did it get tough! We did 48 miles, but it could have been 145, for how tired we were. Both of us were absolutely quivering, by the time we quit, and it took us some time to get our breathing back in shape.

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July 24th, 2006

Here we are in Missouri, at a private campground in Lesterville, on the Black River, in the Ozarks. Life continues to be an amazing adventure every day. Each day seems to have so much change and so many new events packed into it, that sometimes I feel as though each day is a small lifetime. Some of it is the nomadic existence – never having the same place to call home each night, and needing to hunt and forage daily for food and supplies and resources, and some of it is just the amazing change from day to day and place to place. It’s really hard to believe that 35 or 60 miles can make such a change in environment – in people and weather and scenery.

We rode to Glover, then stayed at Twin Rivers Landing in Lesterville on Chelsea’s bday, July 24th. The next day was a rest day (July 25th).

July 20th, 2006

What an experience we had in St Louis! We knew that there had been a strong storm there the night before, but we had no idea of the severity till after we’d been there awhile. It only took about two hours to get there, and we went straight downtown to get to the famous Arch. We kept seeing debris in the streets, the streetlights were all out and bent at odd angles, and there were massive branches broken. We began to realize that it had to have been the storm the night before. The eerie feeling was compounded by the fact that St. Louis is clearly in the midst of major urban renewal. Block after city block is full of abandoned buildings in terrible condition. Many of them reminded us of the devastation in New Orleans, where the buildings looked like they had had their insides sucked right out.

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