Monday, May 31, 2010

"That's one small pedal for man; one giant pedal for mankind."

Wed May 26th:
School is out tomorrow but it is the last day for us. We have to leave after school today to stay on the biking schedule even if my kids want to mutiny. We have a totally loaded car top cargo carrier on the van roof and the the inside of the van is cram packed with the bare necessities for the entire summer. It is crowded. Of course I sang my traditional song as we drove down the freeway, "On the road again..." by Willie Nelson (feel free to sing along). We had to make several stops to let the dogs go potty. Yes, both of our chiweeniers are going to be with us this summer. That should be an added adventure.

Friday May 28th: Yesterday we drove from Nampa, Idaho to my mom's in Roseburg, Oregon and today we got up early enough to drive to Horsfall Beach on the Oregon Coast just above North Bend/Coos Bay. We had five Shriner members from surrounding areas. They had on their tall nice looking Shriner hats and three of them gave us a $100 each to donate to the Shriners Hospitals for Children. I had all my siblings there, except one, and a lot of their family with them. The Eugene/Coos Bay TV station was there with a camera and she interviewed us for at least 20 minutes http://www.kcby.com/news/local/95278594.html?video=pop&t=a . One of the Shriners, all dressed in Scottish attire, played the bag pipes. Next the Coos Bay Newspaper reporter asked a few more questions. See the article at http://www.theworldlink.com/news/local/article_4900fef2-6af6-11df-9d3a-001cc4c002e0.html Next we went down to the beach to officially start in the Pacific ocean and we were finally off!! I can't believe that we actually started our trip. It is exciting. I have been going crazy the last couple of days waiting to begin. I was in such great shape but because of the wedding activities and packing, not only did I throw out my back but I have only rode my bike once in the last seven days.

High today about 63 degrees with a nice wind at our backs all day. It was beautiful, all the trees, rivers, etc. We took our time and enjoyed the ride. It still seems kind of like a dream that we have actually started a cross-country bicycle ride. It hasn't completely hit me yet. Today was an easy 35 mile to Myrtle Point. we stayed with Ken and Jamie Stratton. They were a wonderful couple and treated us so well.

The only major disappointment is that our third riding partner, Jim Francis, Could not make the trip. His artificial knees need to be replaced. But Jim is with is in spirit and his bicycling advise has been very helpful. we are also very grateful to Jim for all the appointments he set up for us and several places to stay over night at.

Saturday May 29th: Day two of our ride. I went to bed at 10 PM last night. The Strattons had just remolded this room and it has bunk beds. I was on the top bed and only hit my head once last night. I woke up at 2:30 AM with some anticipation but mostly going over in my head a few dozen things that I have to get done. after over an hour I went back to sleep but we had to get up at 5 AM. We need to make sure that we get to Roseburg in time to get ready to go to mom's big birthday party celebration. The road was fairly peaceful the first couple of hours with very few cars. 40 mile up gradual then a couple of moderate hills but also a head wind.

Skyler was real worn out but he hung in there. I'm proud of him. we went 61 miles today. Some how we started a tradition of spitting over every bridge that has water under it (like a river or stream)-what can I say I'm with a 17-year-old-kid. Skyler is a great kid. He is very well mannered and just all around wonderful. Anyway back to the important topic, spitting off bridges. In 99 miles we have spit off of 33 bridges.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

"...and the hooome of the braaaave..."

Think of your favorite song. Can you sing all the lyrics to that song? I ask my high school students this question and some know all or most all of the words to a thousand songs. Then I give them a quiz that you can now take also. I will sing (write) the last few words of a very well known song and then you start singing the second verse. Here we go, "...and the home of the brave." So what's the second verse? I rarely find a person that knows it. Isn't it interesting that we know the words to hundreds of songs, some that we probably shouldn't know the words to, yet we don't know the second verse to a song that is probably on our "Top 5" list of most important songs. Do we even know how many total verses there are? There are three. How many know I just tried to trick you because there are four verses?

As I've mentioned before one of my goals on this cross-country bike ride is to help promote patriotism. A governmental system that had for over 200 years worked better than any in the history of the Earth, isn't working so well now. What has happened in the last few decades? We have gotten away form the basics of the Constitution and what the Founding Fathers believed. Most of us know more about our favorite TV show or sports team then we do about the Declaration of Independence. We can spew out countless statistics and trivia of our favorite athlete or actor but we have no idea what the third amendment says (got you, didn't I?).

All we need to do is spend a little time each week learning about the original documents and original words of our Founding Fathers so we can help get our country back on the right track.