Monday August 18 2008

Monday, August 18, 2008

Today we rode 65 miles from Grand Rapids to Sleepy Hollow State Park. It was a beautiful, bright sun shiny day with quite a nice tailwind. My dad, Mark and I all rode together today with an average of 19.7 mph thanks to the generous tailwind that God gave. We had a great stay in Grand Rapids at Calvin College. The churches again surprised us with their hospitality breakfast, lunch, and dinner including homemade coffee cake, pizza, sub sandwiches, ice cream, etc. Many people were hosted this past weekend so camp was a little less occupied. We added I think about 50 new people this weekend. It is so exciting to have all these new people. Their journey is just beginning while our journey is beginning its ending with only 2 weeks left. Bummer! I really don’t mind this lifestyle. I am looking forward to meeting all my friends again in going back to Calvin but classes are looming slightly ominous. I can’t say that we have gotten the greatest mental exercise on this bike tour but we have gotten lots of social, physical, and spiritual exercise. I love being back home in Michigan. I had taken for-granted how nice MI was with all of its beautiful country and shade trees. Shade-filled, wooded Sleepy Hollow State Park is many, many yards apart from the sagebrush filled, dessert-like
West which is neat in its own way. The cooler weather and shade is appreciated though. My family is camping with us tonight including my uncle, aunt, and cousin. We even get to have another campfire tonight, our second one of the tour, with s’mores and cherry pies. Yes! We all left Calvin with a short send off service at 8 am and arrived in camp at about 1 pm. We got to share lunch with our family. This afternoon we went swimming in Lake Ovid at the state park. Len, our head chaplain, just jokingly said in peleton, our after dinner meeting, that the route has been changed and we are no longer going through Canada. That would be mutiny if it was true. I am looking forward so much to riding into Canada. I have heard so much that I am excited to see. Tomorrow we are bumping up our mileage to 95 miles. These past few shorter days have been great. Just to let you know it was just announced in peleton that we cannot use the port-a-john now because they don’t want to have to declare the contents at the border. It is going with us into Canada. Okay, sorry, too much information. I highly recommend this biking lifestyle. I would encourage everyone to try it some time no matter what excuse you may have. It is quite a exciting adventure and a great way to get to know new people and travel.