Yesterday we headed out to Breakfast with Ty and his friend Amanda.  It was a great breakfast, with good people, and we both left completely stuffed.  After taking my time getting ready, we finally hit the road around 12:30.  It was a long drive through Utah, but there was some good scenery.  Check out this picture from somewhere off the 70.

We finally got to Fremont Indian State Park around 6pm.  It was kind of a neat place, there were lots of places where you could find petroglyphs on the wall or in caves.

I woke up this morning with a headache, so I tried to put off getting on the road, but the headache remained.  We made pretty good time on the road, but once we got down from the summits in Utah, it got really hot, in the 90s.  Then once we got into Vegas we got stuck in bumper to bumper to traffic, in a construction zone.  So that made the headache even better.  Eventually we did make it to our room, and we were relieved to sit back in an air conditioned room, and catch up on last night’s episode of Lost.

Tomorrow we head home for just under a week.  It will be good to see friends, and not have to worry about riding for a few days.

Miles yesterday: 287

Miles today: 274

Total Miles: 7,990

So we left Colorado Springs around 10:30 this morning, which is actually a lot earlier than normal.  As soon as we stepped out of New Life Church, the clouds looked nasty, and the wind started to pick up quite a bit.  The road through the rockies was gorgeous, but the wind was scary.  It was up to 30 mph at some places, maybe even more in the more remote parts.  Here are some pictures from when we pulled over by a river.

We then headed to Montrose CO, to meet up with my friend Ty who works at a Boys and Girls Club out there.  We got to hang out and play with some of the kids there, and then we headed to his house.  We were really thankful to stay with Ty and his wife Meghan because  we didn’t tell them we were coming till the day before.  Ty runs an DJ-Magic entertainment business too at whitetieentertainment.com.  Check out these couple of tricks.

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Well we spent a good amount of time with a lot of the pastors at New Life, and I have to say I was very impressed.  Not only is the church building a very impressive facility, but the people that work there are all very smart, and very easy to talk with.  It is no wonder they have been so successful in their community.  We actually got to meet with quite a few people there, featured in this podcast you will hear from, Garvin McCarrell, Lance Coles, and Brian Newberg.

We also had the privelege of being on the other side of the interview process, when Phil McCallum interviewed us for his podcast, todayspastor.com.  It should be up in a week or so.

Below is a picture with us and Garvin, who is who we stayed with while we were there.

And here is a picture with us and Phil.

We tried to do a picture with all four of us, but I don’t think it turned out very good.  It suddenly got really windy, which I will share about in the next blog.

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Camping wasn’t bad last night, stayed warm, and relatively comfortable, and most importantly we stayed dry.  It was supposed to rain all night, but it never did.  Made it to Colorado Springs pretty quick.  We went to an “It’s a Grind” out here, which was kind of nice, seeing how the “Its a Grind” franchise started in our home city.  From there we went to REI to exchange my sleeping bag that I bought a year and half ago.  They let me do it no problem, and the difference in cost for the new model was only $8.  REI is expensive, but it pays to know your stuff is literally good forever.

From there we headed over to New Life Church where we met with Garvin McCarrell who is hosting us for the night.  Garvin and his wife Kim have been great hosts, and we are very grateful for them.  In case you do not know New Life is the church that Ted Haggard started, and the church where there was that infamous shooting in 2007.  Both events were national news tragedies, but they have overcome those problems and are doing some amazing things in their community and nationwide.  You can hear all about it in the podcast with some of their pastors, which  should be up within the next couple days.

Miles Today: 165

Total Miles: ~7065

Well it was a pretty cold day for riding, about 55 all day, but with the wind it can be pretty chilli. On top of the cold, I got pulled over before we were even 15 minutes into the trip. Yea I was speeding, but mainly just so I could pass up some people going slow. The rest of the day I went the speed limit the whole time, and it felt pretty slow. Oh well better get used to it, I can’t afford to many tickets.

We stopped in Hasty CO at an overpriced state park, $26 for the night, and it is not even pretty here, it’s actually real ugly. Well we are off to bed early, cause it is to cold to stay outside.

Miles today: 177
Total miles: ~6900

So after our interview yesterday, we headed to the Cantero’s house.  There we met Pete, Grace, Jamie, Adriel, and Papa, however they were not all available to take a picture, so below we have Adriel, Jamie, and Grace.

They are relatives to one of my former students, and to one of the worship leaders, Jo Jo,  at our home church, Parkcrest.  They took us out to dinner for some good BBQ, and then we headed to the Riverfest along the Arkansas River, and there they pronounce it Ar – Kansas River.  The river was flooded, and so where there normally is a walkway along the river, this time was it all underwater.  I’m sorry for leaving my finger over the top of the lens, but you still get the idea of how flooded it was.

The Cantero’s were real nice and they gave us some very comfortable places to stay for the night.  I even gave Jamie a ride around her neighborhood on the back of my bike.

We left their house this morning and headed to Dodge City KS.  We were originally going to go to Hays, KS, but decided it would be more direct, and probably more fun to go through Dodge City.  So we saw some of the old wild west, which is pretty much just a bunch of empty modern store fronts.  However I did take my picture with Wyatt Earp, so that was pretty cool.

Miles Yesterday: 65

Miles today: 150

Total Miles: 6750

Well as Ryan said we stayed with Ben and his wife Lindsey last night.

They were great hosts, and we had a great time just hanging out and talking with them.  Ben goes to Crossroads Community Church hooked us up with the pastor of his church, Lyman Bowling, who also goes by Lyman James.  He is a local DJ and works as a pastor by vocation.

He was a great guy, and we talked to him for quite a while both before and after the podcast.  He has an amazing story of how their church started, and an incredible passion for sharing the love of Christ with his community and the world around him.  Please take some time to listen to this podcast, I don’t think you will be disappointed with their story.

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