SPOKIN' HOME: Safe and Sound After a Rather Hard Day

SPOKIN' HOME - A YEAR OF ADVENTURE

We love to travel and especially to visit our family in Denver. Four years ago we had the crazy idea to ride our bikes home from Denver, approximately 1550 miles. Over a period of several months we told many people about our idea - the idea began to turn into a plan and before we knew it we had told enough people that we were going to do and couldn't turn back!

So over a period of four months we started seriously working towards doing this. There were some ups and downs and we certainly were not in the condition that we hoped to be by our start date. We started by doing biking on stationary bikes at the LifePlex in Plymouth, IN. We have had some good hours on the bike and were able to watch a few movies on their projection system while biking. It is great to have such a nice facility. I admit that watching Julie and Julia, instead of the 2008 Ironman is a little different workout, but it has been fun.

We had a great ride for 1,000 mile and then we had a little mishap. If you read through our blog Stick with our blog you can read more about that cycling experience and other adventure for that year.

Now we are four years down the road. Many good things have happened to our family during those years. On May 28, 2014 we will return to our last riding point, get on our bikes again and finish the last 500+ miles. Join us as we continue our adventure.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Safe and Sound After a Rather Hard Day

Wednesday - June 16 - Emporia, KS - odometer 649 miles

We aren't sure why, but today was a hard day for us. The temp. and humidity were up and we encountered several constant hills, with a little crosswind. It just didn't seem that it should have been that hard, but it was. We had a long stretch without a town. It is a good thing we didn't try to go on last night. Elmsdale was virtually non-existent and I am sure going on to Strong City would have been really difficult last night. Today we got to Strong City around 10:30 and were very relieved to finally find a place to relax and cool off. We went to the Longhorn Bar and had an early lunch. We stopped in the Catholic church on the way out to say a few prayers and hopefully, find some additional inner strength.

As the day unfolded that stop in the church was an excellent idea. We finally made it to Emporia around 1:30 and both of us felt that was enough for the day. We could have tried to go another 10 to 12 miles, but it just wasn't in the cards. We passed a small RV park, but that didn't sound like the place to stop. We moved on down the road and ended up in a Days Inn. A hotel room again. We both fell asleep for about an hour after taking showers. When we woke up the sky had changed and was getting darker and windier. Soon the TV and sirens told us there was a tornado warning. We actually went into the bathroom for awhile as the report from the TV said it could be close to where we were. It did blow by, doing some tree damage in Emporia and headed on East - just where we would be camping if we had gone on. See what I mean about the stop in the church. I think God gave us just the strength we needed to get to where we would be safe. I have put several pictures in today's blog. For most of the day we were on a two lane highway - 50. Thankfully, there was a very wide shoulder because it was very busy, especially with trucks. We were safe, but it was noisy and we had to be a little more vigilant of what was going on around us. Tomorrow we should get off of it soon and be back to lighter traveled roads.