The promised land...Kansas

I bet Kansas is usually not considered the promised land but after 3 days of mountains and deserts, we were ready and waiting. We crossed into Kansas at daybreak on Wednesday morning and are finally starting to put some serious miles behind us. We are working in 4 teams of 2 riders each. Each team rides for 5 hours and then switches. We are trying to keep transition time down and this schedule will finally allow everyone to plan for eating and sleeping. I can feel the pull towards home especially as we just moved into the Central time zone and are now only one hour different from home.

I am also very aware of all the people that are following us and praying for us. It is making a big difference. Depending on the wind, we should move through Kansas in 24-28 hours and be headed in Missouri.

Frustrations abound

There was no way that everything was going to go smoothly but we seem to have had more of our share. We were stopped by thunderstorms with streak lightening coming down, another day of riding through the desert at 105 degree which became physically dangerous by 2PM. Greg, Steve and I had been riding that day. We started taking one hour riding shifts with 2 hours rest but by 11AM we were down to 30 minutes riding at a time. I drank 24oz. of water every 30 minutes. It was not refreshing with my water heating to over 100 degrees.

Monday night we were finally out of the desert and ready to move when the RV backed into a sign damaging 3 bikes, mine included. At first, I didn't think anything was wrong. My first shift started at 4:30AM on Tuesday morning uphill and into the wind. Clementine seemed to be fine. I rode hard for an hour and changed with Steve. My next riding shift looked to be a beautiful stretch of road just the kind of road Clementine was built for. Uphill I was fine but I started downhill reached about 30mph and my bike started to wobble so bad I thought that I going to pitch right off. I finally got stopped and discovered that both wheels were out of true. Clementine was unridable. We put 4 riders on the road about drove ahead to Pueblo to find a bike shop. A mechanic at Bob's Bicycles got us all in running order again although Clementine to not 100%.

Hammered in the desert

What a great beginning on Friday evening! After a prayer and blessing from Bishop Arthur Williams, many pictures and an short interview, 6 riders took off from the Anaheim convention center around 5:45PM. Even though we were riding on busy city streets we did not have any trouble getting out of Anaheim with Mark Hollingsworth and MichaelObel-Omia taking the first riding shift from 6PM-midnight. They handed the reins over to Carl Petersen and Greg Daniels who rode through the night until 6AM. I had never tried to sleep in a moving RV before and the operative word was try because there was not much sleep.

Daniel relieved Carl and Greg and took off from the RV around 5:45AM into an absolutely beautiful morning although at 6AM the temperature was already 91 degrees. I relieved Daniel about 90 minutes later. The temperature was climbing steadily into the 90's looking like it would go far beyond that. I spent most of the next 90 minutes climbing steadily uphill trying to catch a short draft from the trucks and campers as they went by. I did have a brief downhill reprieve and the difference between traveling at 27mph downhill and 5mph uphill can not be stressed too much.

By now the temperature was approaching 100 degrees and it was only 9AM. Daniel and I still had more than 3 hours left on our shift which lasted until noon. We appoached another long uphill. This one more than 12 miles long. We climbed steadily upward spelling one another at shorter and shorter intervals as the heat took its toll. I was wearing 85spf sunblock which did the trick. Even after more that 2 hours in the desert sun I was not burned at all.

Finally by 11AM we could go no longer. We had been climbing uphill for nearly 5 hours. Mark and Michael started their shift early headed out on Rt. 95 towards Las Vegas. Mark caught a tailwind and was travelling at 35mph. They, too, hit some uphills and by 2PM the temperature on the pavement was nearly 120 degrees. For everyones health and safety we took a break because it was too dangerous to continue. Hoping that the heat will dissapate some and we will be able to continue.

Hurry up and wait is what has been happening all day and we prepare to leave. There will be flurry of checking in and activity as we prepare bodies and bicycles to leave tonight - last minute organizing, grocery shopping and packing the RV. The schedule of riders and drivers has been drawn up for the next few days and everyone is resting and, I think, wondering about what is to come. It feels to me that once we are over the Rocky Mountains, it will be easier because both the mountains and desert will be behind us and we will be headed more quickly towards familier terrain. We hope to pull out as close to 6:00PM as possible. Clementine is ready. I am not sure that I am.

Anyone know how to drive an RV?

The Mothership has arrived! After much waiting and wrangling at the RV rental place, Mark and I picked up our 30 foot home away from home on Thursday. It seems both huge to be driving through traffic and way to small for all of us to spend the next 10 days in. I think that being on my bike may be a relief some days.

All of the riders and crew meeting in Anaheim have also arrived and today we will put bikes back together and get ourselves organized to leave at about 6:00PM tonight after General Convention ends.

It is a little daunting to know that our ride begins with the mountains and desert but we have to start somewhere.

Do I see Mickey?

We made it! We pulled into the Anaheim Convention Center (right across the street from Disneyland) almost 72 hours after leaving home. Driving time-42.5hours, Sleeping time-18hours, Fiddling with bike time-2hours. The remaining hours were all too short in the evening after stopping and the morning before starting.

Daniel and I spent some time driving the route backwards from Cedar City, UT to Anaheim, CA. It's a very good thing we did since some roads did not go where the map said they did and that is a very useful thing to know before staring out.

For those of you who are wondering who Clementine is. She is my bicycle - a beautiful steel bike with stainless steel drop outs and lugs (for those of you into that kind of thing) with a 2 tone cutom purple paint job. She is about 10 years old and running as well as the day she was built.

What a day!

All I have to say about Colorado and Utah is - wow! The scenery was amazing from the Rocky Mountains to the desert. The desert was the biggest surprise. I expected it to be boring but it is a constantly changing tableau of colors, textures, large and subtle variations of plant life, red, green, brown and gray then suddenly a bit of yellow or purple thrown in. If you spent you entire life taking pictures in Utah, you would never capture it all.

New states for Kelly so far this trip - Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada. Speaking of Nevada, we were trying to reach Las Vegas and passing through Overton, NV checking out the bike route when Daniel got pulled over for going 35 in a 25 mph. We also had an out of state licese plate and 6 bikes on the car. This is when Daniel discovered that he left his drivers license at home on the copy machine. After sitting in the car for 40 minutes in 100 degree heat, Daniel finally called home, got his license number and they let us go. We finally reached Vegas around 10:00PM. We were on the road for 15 hours today but definitely getting close.