Pastor Rodger's Neighborhood

To Blog or Not to Blog

2012-01-18T19:31:00.003-07:00

One of the uses of Pastor Rodger’s Neighborhood is to keep in touch. Over the last few years, Facebook has mostly met that need. Since this summer when we returned from Ragbrai I have only posted to the blog one time. I am now at a decision point. Do I return to blogging, or do I take the blog down?

Blogging enough to get an audience takes a commitment to writing; it is not as simple as just allowing the blog to remain. In the heyday of the neighborhood I was receiving over 40 readers per day. I was writing several times a week.

I am not out of ideas. I have written about our adventures, books I have read, church and theological topics, living the Christian life, and other sundry topics. I have mostly avoided politics and Mormonism even though my college major was political science and I am a Baptist pastor/professor living in a neighborhood, city, and state dominated by Mormons.

We are in the beginning stages of our newest and biggest adventure to date. I think you will be interested in knowing about 2012 in the lives of the Russells. If you have questions or issues you might like to see me address, give me a holler. I don't promise to address them all, but I might.

I guess you have guessed, I plan to reinvigorate Pastor Rodger’s Neighborhood. Look for the latest posts.

Happy Trails,
Flint, AKA Rodger

The More Things Change

2011-09-06T17:52:00.001-07:00

Most of us are so tied up in the present, we forget to look to the past for insights, ideas, warnings, or even mistakes we need to avoid repeating. I am showing my own prejudices, but I love history, and I think there are things we can look at as we dash into the postmodern era. One of the current issues for churches is building community. It isn't really new, we just call it by a new name. Cell groups, small groups, fellowship groups, assimilation groups, now become community groups. The purpose is all the same. How do you help the members of the church develop deeper friendships? While the groups have different names, and a some what different focus, the real reason is to help churches fulfill their mission to make disciples. So why did I feel the need to share this? I was just reading about Baptists in the 18th century, that would be the 1700's. One of the things they felt the need to do to build their churches was to create more fellowship among members and outsiders. They began meeting in fellowship groups in coffeehouses which were popular in England at the time. Before Starbucks, Einsteins, or Beans and Brew, Baptists were already finding places to fellowship in the gathering places of the day. Anybody for meeting for fellowship at Starbucks in the morning?

Great Bicycle Ride Part 9, Analysis

2011-08-15T17:26:00.001-07:00

This last Ragbrai* post will attempt to answer several oft asked questions.

1. The first question was usually disguised. Why in heaven’s name did you do this? Who told you riding your bike across Iowa the last week in July was a good thing? Did you really think this through? These are all the same question of course, just asked with differing levels of disbelief.

2. “Did you have a good time?” Friends who asked this question generally disguised it as well.

3. “Are you planning to do it again?” The inquisitor usually asked this with a presumed negative answer.

4. A fourth question I would like to answer is one nobody asked. Nobody asked if I would recommend Ragbrai to a friend. Imagine that!

1. Why? Well, Why not? If 10,000 people do it every summer, and you have to win a lottery to get in, and most do it more than once, it can’t be all bad. I made a list of all the things we enjoyed about the ride, but my friend Robert reminded me you can enjoy almost all those things without riding your bike 470 miles, in high heat and humidity.

So I think it all boils down to this, we were looking for an adventure to rival thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail that we could do with a bum knee. And in that, we didn’t come close. We finish with only the satisfaction that we did it.

2. Yes! and No! The bike riding was fun, but then we already discovered that on the training days when we just rode for 40 or 50 miles, stopping to rest, eat lunch, talk to strangers, etc. Riding with 10,000 friends was awesome. Burning 5000 calories per day, I have no idea how scientific that number is but it left room for lots of carbohydrates. Dealing with the heat and humidity after the ride was no fun.

3. Probably not. We have a list of other adventures we would like to attempt before age catches up to us. For those of you who think our adventures are too taxing, I will share with you a saying one of my college coaches used. “Let’s go boys, you can sit around when you get old.” I don’t want to be old yet.

If we do tackle it another year we plan to change some things. We will take our own support driver and either stay in a motor home or motels along the way. I think I would like to try it on a road bike.

4. If something like this interests you, do it. Because of the late spring we got a late start on training and rode about half as many training miles as we had hoped to. We are not seasoned bike riders. Before the first day of Ragbrai, we had never ridden in one day the distance we had to ride every day, 7 days in succession. We were concerned that we might not be up to the task. You can do it, and you won’t be sorry.

*My friend Mark wanted to know if this was Ragbrai or Bragride. It is not my intent to brag, but to inform. Of course this is the same friend who has taken to calling me Herculegs and the other night presented us with trophies to celebrate the accomplishment.

Final saying of the week: In order to increase our chances in the lottery, Steve suggested we join his bicycle club, The big dogs. Jen decided our trail names, as members of the big dogs would be Runt (her) and Mutt (me). She bought stick on letters and posted them on the back of our helmets.

My suggestion for a motto for the Big Dog Bike Club when we ever get bike Jerseys to post them on: “If you can’t ride with the big dogs stay on the porch.”

Great Bicycle Ride Part 8, Day 7

2011-08-13T09:19:00.004-07:00

Coralville, Iowa to Davenport, Iowa and the Mississippi River; 65.6 Miles; 2,363 feet of uphill.

This is going to be a different day. The charter bus that takes us back to Glenwood and our Tahoe is scheduled to leave Davenport at 1:30. Over the last 6 days, we have not finished the ride before 2:00 and this is not a short day. It is actually the third longest day of the week. I looked at my watch yesterday at 1:30 and we still had over 20 miles to go.

When we signed up for the charter we had an option. Instead of taking the Charter bus back to our truck in Glenwood, we could drive to Davenport, take the Charter bus before Ragbrai week, then end the ride back at our truck. If we had done so, there would be no pressure today to hurry. It didn’t make sense though, because we would have crossed Iowa 4 times instead of just twice.

Jen wanted me to set the alarm for 3am so we could get an early start. I set it for 4. We were on our bikes and on the road about 5:30. The temptations to stop were fewer. Farm Boys, Beekmans, Mr. Pork Chop, and some of the other regular food vendors did not set up on Saturday. Pretty early in the day, we were riding together and Jen said. “You better let me go first, I can’t keep this pace up. You are riding too fast.” So I dropped back and let her go first. Zoom! She took off. She increased the speed I was going by almost 2mph and I had to really work to keep up with her. My salvation is the downhills where I am much faster. Thus, without as many stops, and pedaling harder than we had all week, we made it to Davenport by 12:30.

As we cruised into Davenport and coasted down to the Mississippi River the citizens of Davenport lined the street and cheered our finish. We made it across Iowa. We made it with some of the most unusual companions. For example there was one couple whom we passed every day who rode a banana bike. It was two three wheeled recumbent bikes attached together with a yellow air deflector all around it. Another rider forsook a bike altogether and rode the whole week on a skateboard. I heard about a guy who was going to ride his push scooter and another who added wheels to an elliptical machine so he could elliptical his way across the state, but I didn’t see either of them. On day one we passed a runner, I don’t know how far he went that day, and I didn’t see him again.

When we made it to the river, the carnival atmosphere preceded us. All week long the ride along the way reminded us of the state fair. All the food vendors were there. They talked about blue ribbon pies. There were displays of farm equipment, quilts, town histories, and even animals. Some farmers would try to entice you off the road to buy their water, corn, watermelon, cinnamon rolls, Gatorade, etc., by setting up a small menagerie of baby animals. “Come see our one day old pigs” one sign said. You would be at the state fair all day, go to sleep, and while you were sleeping, the fair moved down the road in front of you again. Jen said it was all here but the rides, then she decided the bikes were the ride.

The state fair had made it to Davenport. We really wanted to dip our front tires in the Mississippi even though we were running short of time. Before we boarded the bus, we really wanted to take a shower and get out of the riding clothes. When we got to the place of the official tire dip there was one last line we would have to stand in. We decided against it or we would miss our bus.

We rode down to the river’s edge at another spot. There was a railing between the sidewalk and the river, which was still close to overflowing its banks. We had a brilliant idea. We could put our bikes over the rail and dip the tire in the Mississippi after all. That is what we did. In the picture you will notice I never let go of Jen’s bike. I could just see her dropping it into the Mississippi. There is no telling how deep the water was even right next to the shore.

Now we had to find our charter. We had to find where they dropped our bags and get our clean clothes out. Our bags go on, and under, the bus with us. We have to check our bikes in and they load them on the baggage trucks to take back to Glenwood. We needed to find the shower and there was always a wait for a shower. Our time grew short.

We began to follow the OOS signs. We rode by campsites, other trucks, other charters, and then we began climbing away from the river. Away from the river is uphill. Away from the river in Davenport is steep uphill. We are riding in traffic with no sheriff to stop cross traffic, and we are getting more disgusted by the minute. Actually, disgusted describes my demeanor, Jen was getting downright livid. Thoughts of a shower were fading as the minutes ticked away.

Since you don’t know where you are going you have to follow the signs. At one point we were one block from our destination, but the signs took us 6 blocks to get there. Grrrrrrr! We finally got to the charter a little after 1 pm. We found our bags and checked our bikes in for loading. Our friend Steve asked me, “Is there anything I can do to help?” I told him, “The best thing for you to do is to avoid Jennifer. She is not a happy camper.”

The girl at the check in said we probably didn’t have time for a shower. The busses were due anytime and our departure was scheduled for 1:30. Steve told us where the showers were, promised to take care of our bikes and get our bags on the bus. We hustled off to try to get the shower. When we returned it was about 1:40, the busses were mostly loaded. Steve, bless his heart, we would have been in trouble without him, had taken care of everything for us and even saved a couple of seats on the bus.

When I think of the ways he helped, I need to pause and give a public thanks to Steve Mattern. Without Steve’s help we would have showed up at Ragbrai without the tent fan that made sleeping bearable if not comfortable. We would not have had our lawn chairs with us. He loaned us an extra bag that gave us the extra room for some comfort items. He loaned Jen a handlebar bag, then at the end of the ride gave it to her. Every day when we got to camp he already knew where the showers were, good places to eat, and other tidbits of information. In addition to those, we stayed at his house in Nebraska the day before and the day after. I am sure I haven’t thought of everything, but thanks Steve, from the bottom of our hearts, for all you did to make the ride more enjoyable. Sadly, Steve broke a wheel early in the ride on Friday. He rides a recumbent and his wheel size is not standard so he was unable to get it repaired. He missed the end of the ride. Jennifer and I both offered to let him ride our bikes on Saturday while we rode in the air conditioned baggage truck, but he said he would suffer.

After all that worry and hurry, there were three people missing. They looked for them everywhere. The finally found them on the other bus. The bus pulled out at 10 minutes to 3. When I was finally able to stretch my legs on the bus I fell asleep, and the nap lasted most of the way back across Iowa. We arrived at the parking lot around 8 pm, just as the truck with our bikes were unloading. We got everything transferred to the Tahoe and Steve’s Jeep and after finding some dinner, we went to Steve’s house in Nebraska.

We did it! We rode across Iowa. People would ask me if I was a Ragbrai Virgin. “How many times have you done Ragbrai?” they would ask. My standard reply was, “Not only is this the first time I have done Ragbrai, this is the first road trip I have ever done. I have only owned a bike for the last two years.” Why did we pick this one for the first ride?

In my next post, I will give you some possible answers to that question, analysis of the overall ride, and try to answer the most asked question we get. “Will you do that again?”

Sign of the day: on the back of a shirt. “No Sniveling”

Great Bicycle Ride Part 7, Day 6

2011-08-12T10:13:00.005-07:00

Grinnell, Iowa to Coralville, Iowa; 74.9 Miles; 2,681 feet of uphill.

Today is college spirit day. Today’s ride ends in Coralville, right next to Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa. The idea is to get everyone to wear his or her school colors. Each school has a bike Jersey, and many riders took advantage of the day to promote their school. Before leaving home I had checked on a UNM Lobo jersey. They are available, but the price is around 80 bucks. We decided we would just wear lobo wear we already possessed. I wore the cotton New Mexico shirt for about 15 minutes this morning while getting ready to ride before I took it off and said, “this shirt is too hot.” I put one of my Under Armor hiking shirts back on. I did choose a red one. Lobo Bike Shirt

There isn’t a lot you can say that is different about the sixth day on the road. We pedaled. We pedaled uphill, we pedaled on the level places, we coasted downhill, rising to get our hinders off the seat. We looked for food, water, Gatorade, and shade. The ride was the longest of the week, but by now, given enough time, we know we can do the miles.

A few days back I promised to comment on the headphones rule. It makes sense that putting earbuds in and turning the music up would hinder one’s ability to be aware of what is around them. We accepted the rule graciously, though a lot of the time when we ride, we use one earphone. Usually the right ear is the one away from traffic. On the ride though a lot of people have music. Some are pulling trailers with sound systems blasting their music that everyone around them hears. Called spoolers, they attract their own crowd of bikers who follow them just to listen to the music. Then there are individual speaker systems set up on bikes. You can hear them coming, hear them as you pass, and then as they fade in the distance. In my opinion they cause more distraction than if you were to just use an earbud in one ear. I used my iPod on the two big hills, and then for one other stretch, the day I was having trouble staying awake. Jen decided to use hers a little too.

On the route of the ride there are a number of historical places. Every town would like you to visit their museum, or their historical site but for slow riders like us, we have to keep pedaling. Some of the sites we passed this week were Mamie Eisenhower’s childhood home, Herbert Hoover’s Library and Museum, and John Wayne’s childhood home. So guess, which one of these we did visit.

John Wayne’s family lived for a short time in Brooklyn, Iowa. If you guessed this historical site as the one we visited, you were right. We have a picture of the Duke standing between us in front of the home. Click on any photo to see it full size.

In the meeting town of Marengo, they had a park full of vendors, both food and merchandise, the Gazebo had a DJ playing music on a big sound system. There was a lot of free water and shade and it came at the perfect time for a break. We purchased some lunch and sat on a park bench to eat, rest, and listen to the music. I noticed a non-riding couple sitting on another bench just watching people. They were probably 10-15 years older than we are and I wondered what they were thinking about the music and the weirdness of the people. I got up and went over to visit. “Are you ready for us to get out of town so the politicians can come back?” was my great conversation starter. The man, grinned and said, “Heck, we would rather have bikers here any day than politicians.” Then the woman began to give me a lecture on their political positions on everything from the debt ceiling to abortion. Since their, rather her, opinions differed from mine in almost every respect, I just listened quietly and determined I would use a different conversation starter next time.

One very interesting rider passed today. He was in his mid to late 50’s, long gray hair pulled into a pony tail. He was buck naked, except for a leather loincloth. I said to Jennifer, “Don’t look Ethel,” but it was too late, she already had a biking moment. A few hours later we came upon a giant water slide. It was a long sheet of white plastic on a hillside. They were pumping water from a pool at the bottom making the biggest slide we saw all week. Just as we were riding past three young girls, about college age or late high school were riding to my left. “Oh look!” one of them said. “That is a big slide. Let’s stop and ride it.” The other two were enthusiastic, thinking that would be a good thing to do. Just then, the old naked hippy went sliding down the slide, now minus even the loin cloth.

“Ewww, gross, disgusting,” were some of the comments from the young lasses. They changed their mind about wanting to stop, and just rode on. But before they were out of earshot one of them made the comment of the day, maybe of the week. She said, “I don’t want to see that, but I just keep looking.” It brought to mind the apostle Paul, “For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)

This young girl, if she stops and thinks about it, just discovered one of the mysteries of life, that we give in to sin, even when we don’t want to. I am not saying it was a sin for her to look. The distance was such that no detail was available. But the truth that we find ourselves doing the very thing we don’t want to do. All of us have had her experience in one way or another. We give thanks for Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

The day ended in Coralville. As we rode down a frontage road there were little signs posted, Coralville and the University of Iowa welcome (place name of school here with logo.) The little signs were on both sides of the road. Most of them were on a downhill and it was impossible to read them all. I missed the one that said UNM Lobos although I saw NMSU, Wyoming, UNLV, and many of our surrounding schools. I did see Utah, and stopped and took a picture for all my Ute buds.
When we turned the corner into the camping space, they had built a façade over the road with two entrances. It looked like you were riding in to one of the Midwest football stadiums. When you went through the opening the road was painted green, with white stripes, like a football field and you rode right through the endzone painted with a hawkeye and the U of Iowa colors. On both sides of the road there were bleacher sat up and people sitting in the bleachers waving pennants and cheering us on to the finish. It was quite a moment. Replica of U of Iowa Stadium

We visited another HyVee supermarked for the grand buffet, spent another evening in a rec center until they closed at 10 pm. Then we crashed in our tent, anticipating the big ride to the Mississippi tomorrow.

Great Bicycle Ride Part 6, Day 5

2011-08-10T12:51:00.004-07:00

Altoona, Iowa to Grinnell, Iowa; 57.5 Miles; 3,202 feet of uphill.
A Family Affair

Today the hills return. One of the things I didn’t say yesterday about riding flat terrain is that in addition to having trouble getting the weight off the tush, you have to pedal every stinking mile. So we are looking forward to the hills. Going downhill, makes up for pedaling uphill, and after all, they are mostly only little hills. Today the talk is about Colfax hill, the “mountain” they call it just after Colfax, IA.

After about 5 miles this morning we are still in a populated area. For most of the trip there have been State Patrolmen or County Sheriff’s at all highway crossings to stop traffic and allow us to continue without stopping. Not so this morning. We have to obey traffic signals, of which there are quite a few. Fortunately we are out before much traffic. Seeing a convenience store, we decided to stop there for our morning coffee. We bought a cup and shared a package of little sugar doughnuts. I had 5 Jen had 1. This is when I discovered that she had been eating a power bar every morning before we started. No wonder she wasn’t as into looking for breakfast as I was.

My Little Biking Chickadee
What Sgt. Shultz would look like on a Bike.

One of the amazing things about this ride is the sheer number of riders. While we are sitting in the chairs outside this little store eating doughnuts and finishing our coffee, hundreds, maybe a thousand riders pass by. A little while down the road, we will ride by a stop or go straight through one of the pass through towns, and pass hundreds of riders, perhaps a thousand or so and get ahead of them again. At one point, sitting in the shade of a canopy, we were talking with some guys from Iowa who do the ride every year. We were watching bikers buzz by and Jen just casually commented, I wonder how long this line of riders really is. One of the guys said, “It is 10 AM. Some of the riders have already reached the end town. There are some who are just leaving camp. So the line stretches for the whole 60 miles of the route.” That gave us a new perspective.

The riding today was better for both of us. We both had good days and just kept pedaling along. At one point in the afternoon I started getting sleepy. You know how sometimes when you are in church, or heaven forbid driving, and your head starts to nod. With a start you realize you just went to sleep for a second. That happened to me twice while riding my bike today. Maybe it was time to find some shade for my nap.

Colfax Mountain was right out of the town Colfax. You had to start up the mountain from a dead stop. It wasn’t really a mountain, but it was a steep hill. People were pushing their bikes up it. Jen said she wasn’t even going to try and pushed up it. I dug out my iPod, put Michael Martin Murphy, “The West is going to get Wilder Tonight” in my right ear, began with the bike in granny, and started pumping. Before MMM finished I was at the top of Colfax hill. It wasn’t as hard as Twister.

In one of the through towns today someone, somewhere must have had little American flags they were selling or giving away. I started seeing them on the back of bikes, and on the ground where they had fallen off. After miles and miles of seeing the flags fairly often I thought to myself, I would like to have one of those. The next one I pass I am going to get off my bike and pick it up. It is not an easy decision to get off your bike when there is not food or drink or shade involved. As you can guess, I didn’t see any more. Later in the day I passed another flag and stopped and picked it up. It wasn’t the stars and stripes though, it was the Zia sun symbol of the New Mexico State Flag. It was the only little state flag I saw the whole trip. I attached it to the back of my bike.

Jen had a Ragbrai license plate attached to her bike that had her name, Salt Lake City, and the fact that she was a Ragbrai Rookie. (I lost mine before I got to Iowa.) It was a great conversation starter. People would ask her about Utah. Some asked if she was Mormon. Most wanted to know if she rode her bike from Salt Lake to Iowa. I told her she should say yes, and make up a story about the trip across the Rockies, and how far it is across the great plains. Our GPS said it was 998 miles from Salt Lake to Bellvue where Steve lives, and another 20 or 30 to Glenwood. That would have been a great story about riding 1000 miles in the two weeks before Ragbrai just to get to the starting town. There is a difference, don’t you think, between lying and spinning a good tale. People are asking because they want to hear a good story; might as well give them one. Well that is my opinion anyway, ministerally speaking.

I was ahead of Jen and at the place I stopped at the top of a hill, a church group was giving out free watermelon slices, while some of the members circulated among the bikers trying to give out tracts. When Jen came by she didn’t want to stop so she just rode on. I grabbed my bike, started to get on when the pedal I put my foot on rolled, my foot slipped and my momentum carried me forward onto my falling bike. I hit the ground. I fell off my bike. “Biker Down!” I heard the shouts from riders coming up. No!, Not me. I didn’t fall. As fast as I could I picked my bike up and got off the roadway to choruses of, “are you ok?” “are you hurt.” Gee, how embarrassed can you get? I wasn’t hurt. I banged my knee just a little but it didn’t even leave a scrape. My ego sagged quite a bit. The one person I could look to for comfort was oblivious. She heard the biker down shouts, later she said she wondered if it was me, but not wanting to lose momentum she rode on. Don’t you love the gift of mercy that girl has?

Seven miles before the end of today’s ride we came to Rock Creek State Park. The route actually took a little detour to take us through the park. There was a nice little lake, lots of grass, and plenty of shade. It was like a through town with booths for food set up. Jen had been having trouble with her gears shifting correctly so while she stood in line at a bike repair tent I went looking for water. All I could find was Gatorade. I bought one for me and one for her, took hers to her while she waited in line but she said she didn’t want it. It was a blue one, I hate blue ones, so I gave it to the girl behind her in line.

The final miles into Grinnell were uneventful, her bike worked much better, and by now we can cruise seven miles without even thinking about it.

Sign of the day: On the back of the shirts of a bike club. “The Trust Me Bike Club” Then there was a picture of a fat cat smoking a big cigar, and below that “the banker.” Some said “the lawyer.” One said, “the realtor.” Jen said to one of them, “I am the Nurse, could I join your bike club? ” “Sure” the man told her, “We accept everyone except politicians.”

Great Bicycle Ride Part 5, Day 4

2011-08-09T09:32:00.003-07:00

Boone, Iowa to Altoona, Iowa; 56.1 Miles; 1,147 feet of uphill.

On paper, today looked to be the easiest day of the ride. It has the fewest miles and the least amount of climbing. In addition there are 8 pass through towns, the furthest being only 13 miles apart. For Jen and I, 13 miles is just a little over an hour. At some point today, we will pass the halfway point of the ride in both miles and time.

Last night before bedtime we had a little philosophical discussion. Our friend Steve leaves early, rides straight through, and gets to the end town before noon. Sometimes a couple of hours before noon. He gets a hot shower, changes to regular clothes, and gets a lunch and a dinner in the end town. Jen is thinking that she might want to do that. My philosophy is the best food is in the pass through towns. The entertainment is there also. There is good shade, lots of water, and you don’t have to hurry. It is more enjoyable to spend the afternoon in pass through towns than at a shade less camp site, under a crowded canopy, where the drinks are limited, the food is far away, and after the afternoon in the humidity you will need another shower anyway.

We have been setting our alarm for 5am and getting on the road a little after 6. She wanted me to set the alarm for 4 am and get on the road a little after 5. To think, I thought after the hard day yesterday she might want to ride the baggage truck. I compromised, set the alarm for 4:30 and told her, I am not starting to ride while I need a light to see the road. We shoved off a few minutes before 6.

Yesterday as the sun broke over the horizon, there was a turn in the road that made riders visible in front of the rising sun. Many people stopped to take pictures, alas, once moving we find it very difficult to stop for a photo session. I took this photo off the Ragbrai Forum and there is a short video of the riders at daybreak at this link. http://ctitech.com/users/chris9//index.htm

Riders at Daybreak

Water was hard to come by at our camp last night. I kept drinking until after 10 pm when the place I was getting water closed. By morning I only had about 2” of water in one bottle and the other was empty. Since there was no place to fill up, we started with very little water. I filled up as soon as possible, but I am wondering if I got a little dehydrated. After breakfast at Farm Boys again, another terrific burrito, I began to feel nauseous. I started looking for a place to give the burrito back. I knew that was a sign of dehydration, but by then I had full water bottles and had drank a Gatorade. I just suffered.

It resembled our hike on the AT. Some days Jen was the hiker and had to encourage me, sometimes I was the hiker and had to encourage her. You just have good days and bad days. This was Jen’s good day, yesterday was her bad day. It was the other way around for me.

Around noon, I forced myself to eat a pork sandwich, although I was still feeling bad, and I began to feel better almost at once. I don’t know what it was, but we mowed down the miles and arrived at Altoona around 2. Flat miles are difficult in their own way. When you are going up and down, you work harder on the up hills, but you can rest on the down hills. Specifically you can stand up a little in the pedals and get your butt off the seat. By now, any pressure off the backside is a blessing.

Altoona is a suburb of Des Moines. We were on the edges of a large metropolitan area instead of a small Iowa town.

When we asked about dinner, one of Steve’s friends told us the best place to eat was the buffet at the grocery store. I could see us standing around deli counters trying to find enough to eat to get full, but he assured us it was a good deal. We went there, and he was right. It was the best meal I ever ate at a grocery store. For 8 bucks, seniors price, we got an all you can eat pass, for the pizza, Italian, salad bar, deli, fruit bar, etc. Plus it was a sit down table, and it was air conditioned. It was the first time we got back on our bikes to ride after we had showered. But it was a mile to the grocery store.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in a rec center. We took our camp chairs down there, set them up, and talked and read until 10 pm when they ran us out into the hot. When we arrived at our tent it was close to the concert venue. Grand Funk Railroad was playing and it made sleeping impossible. After GFR another group played for an hour. I tried the ear plugs, but when I put them in, the ringing in my ears was louder than the rock band. We just suffered until the concert ended. I surreptitiously reset the alarm for 5.

We are over halfway. 256 miles down, 198.6 to go. 4 days down, 3 to go.

Sign of the day, well actually, comment of the day.
Jen to me when I was feeling sick. “Hold it down as long as you can to give your blood pressure medicine time to digest.”

Great Bicycle Ride Part 4, Day 3

2011-08-08T13:54:00.002-07:00

Carroll, Iowa to Boone, Iowa; 70.9 Miles; 1,787 feet of uphill.

Now we have answered several questions. We can ride 60 miles in a day. We can ride a second day. There is no reason a third, fourth, and fifth day should be any different, at least as far as soreness is concerned. Fatigue may set in at some time though.

This is the second longest day of the ride, and the longest ride we have ever made in one day. It is also the second flattest day. When I mentioned that to Steve he said, “Yeah, but over ¼ of the climb is on one hill. “Twister Hill,” they call it. Bikers in the know have talked about it a lot. It is the monster out there will kill us all. Twister Hill got its name from the movie, Twister. I haven’t seen the movie, but this is the hill that the twisters blow the house down. It is impossible to climb. Most riders will have to push their bikes up this hill.

At 6:16 we begin pedaling. Twister Hill is in the back of the mind. The 71 miles between us and Boone is closer to the conscious thought. Another thought and topic of some conversation about today’s ride is the Karras Loop. Some riders have a desire to have one 100 mile day on the ride. Today there is an optional 30 mile loop that will bring today’s total to 100 miles. That was never an option in Jennifer’s mind, and since I wasn’t going to do it without her, we never even considered it. We can save 100 miles for another day. As I pedal I am thinking, “you know, I am not going to kill myself on Twister Hill either. I am not too proud to push my bike up a hill.” After all, I have to do that quite regularly when riding in the Wasatch Mountains. One ride we have taken several times calls for an uphill push of close to a mile. So with that solved in my mind, I concentrate on the flat miles in front of me.

Breakfast was finally at the farm boys. It was a great breakfast burrito. Actually it was a burrito buffet. You start with a tortilla and you tell them what you want in it. They pack it in, roll it up in a paper cover, and voila!, a breakfast burrito. Of course there is no green chile or pinto beans, but it was a grand breakfast.

For lunch we stopped at Mr. Pork Chop and had a one inch thick pork chop that is served in a napkin. There was a party going on at the farm we stopped at. There was a beer garden set up with a DJ playing requests. A few dancers had legs to give it a whirl. There was a pond with a rope, and others were over there having a great time swinging and plunging. Honestly, I don’t know where they get the energy. They still have to pedal all the miles too. May have something to do with their youth, you think? We ignored the dancing, stayed away from the pond, and after the Pork Chop we took a nap in the grass, then stopped at Beekman’s for ice cream. After yesterday’s mistake, we never passed Beekman’s again. I also told Jen if she wanted ice cream she had to get her own. No more sharing, I was going to eat a whole cup.

We still heard a lot of talk about Twister Hill, it loomed between our present location and Boone. It has to be climbed.

Riding again I saw an interesting interaction between a young couple. They were dressed in the full bicycle garb, meaning matching bike shorts and shirts. They were about 50 yards ahead of me, when reaching the top of a hill she got off her bike, picked it up over her head, and slammed it to the ground. He pulled off with her, bent down and straightened her bike up. She had gone off to the side of the road and was sitting staring out into the cornfield with her back to the road. I rode by just as he sat down next to her and said in an attempt to comfort, “It will be ok. It is not that bad.” I have no idea what she was mad at, or what he was referring to. But I can think of several things.

Today Lance Armstrong passed me like I was standing still. In fact, I was standing still. The only thing I can figure is he passed us while we were napping. This was the only day he rode. He started a couple of hours later than we did and finished earlier, so he had to have passed us. Later I read that the average speed of the majority of Ragbrai riders is between 12 and 16 miles per hour. The faster riders average around 20. Jen and I consistently averaged between 10.5 and 11.5. Lance averaged 27. I wish I would have been on the road when he blew by. The wind would have felt good.

After a water break in Pilot mound we still had 14 miles to go. Twister Hill was in 3 miles. In reality, it is not a hill at all. Twister valley would be a more appropriate name. You first go down into the valley, cross the river then climb back out of the valley. It is a deep and steep valley. Going down, my speedometer hit 46 mph, I was going to get all the roll out of the downhill as possible. Before I started down I put my iPod in my pocket, put one ear bud in my right ear, and put on my exercise playlist. My plan was to go to granny gear as soon as necessary then pedal to the beat of Michael Martin Murphy and Garth Brooks.

The right side of the road climbing out of the valley was filled with walkers pushing their bikes. When I stopped before starting down to start my iPod Jen went ahead. I couldn’t see her. I hit the bottom at 40mph and moved to the middle of the road to avoid the walkers. I got to granny and pedaled to the sounds of the “West is going to get Wilder tonight” and by the time the first Garth Brooks song, “Baton Rouge” was winding down, I was at the top of the hill. Somewhere on the upgrade I passed Jen who was pushing. I know she could have climbed that hill. She is better going up than me, but she obeys rules better than I do, (No head phones allowed) and we had already done 60 miles that day.

(I will talk tomorrow about the no head phones rule, I have an opinion.)

The rest of the ride I began to worry about Jen. She was totally pooped. I had to encourage her to keep going and for the first time I began to wonder if she was going to have to take a day off tomorrow and ride the baggage truck.

Dragging into camp we had no energy to ride again to find something to eat. We took the shuttle to a church where we were told they were serving Lasagna. They actually were serving Gyro sandwiches and grilled chicken, pie and ice cream. We spent about an hour talking to the Pastor and his wife, trying to encourage them. They are serving in a hard church. Then we sat on the curb for about an hour waiting for the shuttle back to camp. It was the one and only time we trusted the shuttle.

It was bedtime when we got to camp. We hit the tent, happy this day was over. Jen had said nothing about not riding tomorrow, and I wasn’t going to suggest it. We will see what tomorrow holds.

Sign of the Day: on the shirts of a bike club from Truckee California.

The Donner Bike Club: We eat the slow ones.

Great Bicycle Ride Part 3, Day 2

2011-08-07T08:06:00.002-07:00

Never too much water

Atlantic, Iowa to Carroll, Iowa; 65.4 Miles; 4,719 feet of uphill.

I set the alarm for this morning 30 minutes later, 5:30 and we were still able to get on the road at 6:15. We had enjoyed the riding yesterday and were looking forward to riding again. I would describe my legs as something between tired and sore. At 62 years old, how hard was it going to be to recover? The second day stared us right in the face. Today’s miles were going to break the record, established only yesterday, for our longest ride.

Steve gave us a biker hint last night. He said when he first pulls into the end town he stops at a convenience store and drinks a bottle of chocolate milk. The milk keeps the tannic acid from building up in the muscles. Jennifer gagged a little at the thought. It sounded like a great idea to me. I love chocolate milk and it has been off my diet for all of 2011.

We started today’s ride by going back down the same hill we pushed up last night. That topped off the bitterness we felt last night as we climbed the hill. For what? An ice cold shower, a shade less tent spot, and a crummy hamburger.

For the last 40 years my day begins with a cup of coffee. As we begin the bike ride, I search the signs for a place to get a cup. It is 14.7 miles to the first town where breakfast will be available. That’s ok, but can I make it that long to coffee. Once on the road, there are signs advertising the places that are serving. 5 miles to Breakfast. 15 miles to Mr. Pork Chop. Water, Gatorade, cookies, watermelon, bagels, bananas, etc. for sale up ahead.

Yesterday we had pancakes for breakfast. Jen thought a breakfast burrito would be a better choice. So we scanned the signs for a burrito. There was a sign for The Farm Boys advertising a breakfast burrito. When we got there, the line was looonnnngggg. We kept going. Besides bike riding and sleeping, more time is spent on Ragbrai standing in line than doing anything else. More than once I heard someone ask, “What is this line for?” Across the street from Farm Boys was a food stand selling brisket sandwiches and fries. There were only three people in line. That made a pretty good breakfast.

Our concern about legs proved to be unfounded. After a few minutes, the kinks were out, the stiffness gone, and we could pedal. The one part of the anatomy that got worse day by day was the back of the lap. We learned to stand on the pedals when going downhill to relieve pressure on the butt. We were wearing two pair of biking pants with padded rears. I began to wonder if a third pair would help.

I ride a little faster than Jen does, especially downhill. Gravity pulls a little harder on me. We tried to find a system that worked for us. If I was in front, I would slow at the tops of hills and let her catch up. If she was in front I had to ride my brakes a little which seemed the wrong thing to do. On this second day, we started letting her get a head start then I would ride til I caught up.

We were using this system when Jennifer passed up Grandma’s Pies advertising fresh fruit pies and ice cream. She just zoomed by without stopping. If I stopped without her she would get so far ahead I would never catch up. To make things worse, she passed Beekman’s homemade ice cream. She could claim she just didn’t see Grandma’s, but there is no way she couldn’t have known Beekman’s was there. You can hear those ice cream makers from a mile away. So we changed the system. No more letting her lead. She thinks a sliced apple with peanut butter on it is enough of a treat that you don’t need pie or ice cream. This ride is only 7 days long. I want to eat as many carbs as I can while I am burning them off.

When the day warmed up, people who have homes along the route would turn their sprinkler on and face it to the road. What a refreshing treat to ride through the spray. Sometimes kids would be standing by the road with their water guns shooting at passing riders. Some towns rigged a waterfall you could ride through as you entered town. I never missed a chance to get wet while riding.

We made a little better time today, mainly because we didn’t take a nap. (and because we passed up pie and ice cream.) The campsite today was before you actually got to town. It was in the yard of a church. The showers were in a semi-truck in the parking lot rigged up for the purpose. The water was warmer than yesterday, or perhaps a better way to say it, it was less cold. Once again though, we were too far from the main event to go in for a meal so we settled for the chicken dinner at the church. At least they had pie and ice cream.

Because the camp was before we got to town, we didn’t get to try the chocolate milk idea. Steve said he didn’t get his chocolate milk either. Maybe we will try that tomorrow but by then the Tannic Acid will probably already be ensconced in our muscles.

Tomorrow is 71 miles. Everyone is talking about a monster hill, “Twister Hill.” It is on tomorrow’s route. Tomorrow is also the day there is an optional 30 mile loop to give riders the opportunity for a 100 mile ride. If you look at these towns on a map you will see that so far we have been riding mostly north. Tomorrow we turn east.

Sign of the day: on a hillside as we left Atlantic, “We are not a one night stand, please visit again.”

Great Bicycle Ride Part 2, Day 1

2011-08-05T21:09:00.006-07:00

Glenwood, Iowa to Atlantic Iowa; 59.5 Miles; 4,298 feet of uphill.

Our plan was to begin biking at 6 am. I was confident that we could bike 60 miles, although the furthest we had ridden was 53. I was not as confident of the second day. We had never ridden long distances two days in a row. First day first though.

The other uncertainty we faced was the hills. The 4298 feet of elevation gain had to be different than riding in Salt Lake City. The ending town was less than 200 feet in elevation higher than the beginning town. With every foot uphill, there must be a corresponding foot downhill. And looking at the elevation chart, I couldn’t see any climb higher than 200 feet. We had trained on a route that had a 500 foot climb in 3/10 of a mile. It was 180 foot climb from our house to the Cotton Bottom intersection that we rode most days while training. How hard could this be? Then you do the math. If all the hills were 200 feet tall, there would be 21 hills. They would be spread over 60 miles though. It was thoughts like this dancing in our heads as we tossed and turned, sleep mainly avoiding us.

One last stop before we hit the road. The traditional beginning of Ragbrai is to dip the rear tire of your bike in the Missouri river. 7 days later, a dip of the front wheel in the Mississippi river completes the ride. Unfortunately the flooding along the Missouri forced the authorities to close access to the river. A pool of Missouri river water was provided for the rear wheel dip. The picture is our wheel dip. Now to the road.

Wheel Dip

The rivers of bikers forming up and blending in to make the ride amazed me every day. As we left our campsite, bikers were merging onto the main road from every side road, every intersection, coming together to head down the highway towards the first town we would pass through. It was really like rivers, headwaters turning into creeks, creeks into rivers, and the river rolling along.

Then we were out on the highway, out of town, riding in the relatively cool morning, between fields of corn stretching over the horizon in both directions. Bikers in front of us, bikers behind us, faster bikers passing us on the left, and an occasional slower biker we passed on their left. “Yippee,” I yelled out loud as we pedaled along; only 450 miles and 7 days to go.

The first pass through town was Silver City, Iowa. Here is where you begin to get the idea of the number of bikers. The streets are so full it is impossible to ride through town. You get off and join a long line of people, all pushing their bikes through town, stopping to eat, drink, rest, or use a porta-potty, called a Kybo. (Keep your bowels open) The next two pictures are of Silver City, the procession in front of us, and the one behind.

For breakfast we enjoyed pancakes and sausage. For lunch, we found a sloppy joe and finally, a piece of pie. Out on the lawn we took a nap before restarting. The morning had remained cloudy but about noon the sun broke through and the mugginess hit full strength. The temperature rose to 102-104 depending on which bank sign you believed.
Rounding a curve in the road we discovered Beekman’s homemade ice cream. Berkman’s has quite an operation. With about 7 single stroke gasoline engines turning homemade Ice cream cranks, he makes a terrific treat for hot afternoons.

Berkman's Homemade Ice cream operation

Around 4 pm we finally pulled into Atlantic. Following the signs to our campground we got the first taste of end city itus. We just kept going and going, and discovered the 59.5 miles was from city to city and didn’t count the miles you rode to your campground. Finally we came to a long, steep hill we had to climb and were absolutely destroyed. Neither of us could overcome the defeat, we got off and pushed our bikes up the hill to the campground. It wasn’t a physical shortcoming, but a mental one.

Steve met us as we came in. He had begun to worry about us. He is one of those riders who leaves early and rides straight through. He had been in camp since 10 AM. Showers were in the Middle school. We paid $5 for a shower, $1 for a towel. The shower was so cold it was impossible to get in it. We were too tired to go anywhere for dinner, so we bought a hamburger from a school wrestling team, waited until the sun went down, and went to sleep. Sleep came easier the second night. Worry about the ability to ride a second day with tired legs would have to wait until tomorrow.

Sign of the day. Posted in one of the pass through towns; “Chuck Norris never rode Ragbrai.”

The Great Bicycle Ride

2011-08-05T09:04:00.002-07:00

Our First Camp

Our Friend Steve Mattern

Called Ragbrai, it is the Registers Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, and I am not sure how we got involved in this. It is a 7 day, 450 mile ride during the last week in July each year. This year was the 39th ride. When asked, “why are you doing this?” we have no real answer. We are not bikers. Until Ragbrai, our longest ride was the 53 miles we rode the last weekend before we left for Iowa. (When I was in my 20’s I rode my 10 speed 100 miles from Bryce Canyon to Zion Canyon with a friend of mine.)

We joined a bike team, The Big Dogs, invited by an old friend who has ridden six or seven times. “It increases your chances to draw out,” he told us although Ragbrai insists that it does not increase your chances. Yes, permission to ride across Iowa in July on the Ragbrai route comes with a lottery. We won, or lost, the lottery depending on your viewpoint, and had credentials to ride.

We drove to Omaha where we spent Friday night with our friend. Steve Mattern was a member of our church in New Mexico. He was the first to tell us about Ragbrai. “Of all the people I know,” Steve told me, “You are one of the last I would have thought would call about riding Ragbrai.” Steve was very helpful, gave us some good advice, loaned us some equipment, and showed us a trick or two. Steve is the source of the information that it is easier on the bottom to wear 2 pair of biking shorts. Very helpful! After riding a week, I wonder if 3 pair would work even better.

On Saturday, we drove to Glenwood, Iowa. This is the starting town. We went to the OOS campsite. OOS stands for Out of Staters. This is the charter company that Steve recommended to carry our baggage from town to town and then give us a bus ride back to our car after the ride. We dropped off our tent and baggage and took the Tahoe to the long term parking. There we paid the fee, parked the truck, and rode our bikes back to the camp. On the way back we stopped for lunch at a roadside vendor. We had a rib eye steak sandwich and a bottle of Gatorade. (The first of many bottles of Gatorade we consumed over the next 7 days.) The sandwich was to die for. Wow!

After an afternoon of looking around at the displays, setting up the tent, getting our credentials in order, and sweating like pigs, we were alarmed by a long loud siren. The tornado signal. The sky had darkened, a breeze came up, and we had no idea what to do. Eventually there was a little rain, it happened while we were in the theater watching the safety video. Then the skies cleared a little and we ventured out to look for dinner.

On the town square there were a lot of food vendors. We walked by them all looking for our best choice. We finally chose a Mexican food vendor, partly because the line was some shorter than the others. Jen and Steve chose a taco salad. I had a walking taco. Back in New Mexico we called them Chili Frito Pie, but basically it is a single serving bag of Doritos, lightly crushed, with the chili poured into the bag. You walk around and eat your taco out of the sack.

I had been promised pie, pie and more pie and so far I had found, no pie. I settled for a cupcake with Ice Cream and we headed for camp.

To say it was hot and humid in the tent is an understatement. One of the things Steve clued us into was a tent fan. It would have been impossible without the fan. While lying there we were sweating. We were sweating because of the humidity, and we were sweating as we thought about the ride beginning tomorrow. There remains an element of doubt. We have never rode this far before, we have never rode in this kind of weather, and we have to ride 65 miles tomorrow.

Outside there was a celebration going on. Fireworks, auto horns, people yelling. The two people in the tent next to ours could be heard having a regular conversation. We feel like we have been on Ragbrai for almost a week, and we have yet to ride one mile.

Lying in all the heat and commotion, thoughts of adventure mixed with a little doubt, Jen says out loud, “Don’t touch me!” Understand, we are in our backpacking tent. It is only 4 feet 4 inches wide. “You are touching me!” she says a minute later when our arms touch. I am thinking this reminds me of when I was a kid, sharing a bed with my brother. “You are on my side!”

This could be a long week.

WHAT NOW? MAY 21 IS PAST AND WE ARE STILL HERE.

2011-05-22T06:14:00.002-07:00

“If you get through with the lawn before I get back, start chopping the weeds in the back,” my dad would say as he started his white Dodge pickup to go to town. When I was a boy, I worked for my dad in his business as a contractor/home remodeler. He had me do the jobs that were not very glamorous but were important. I can’t begin to tell you how many closets I have painted or doors I have varnished.

At some point on most days he would leave me at the jobsite and drive away. He told me he was going. Sometimes he told me where he was going, but very rarely would he tell me when he would return, just that he would return.

In his absence I would work, or not. If I worked steadily and made progress on the job, I would look forward to his return with gladness. If I messed around and didn’t work, I didn’t look forward to his return with joy, but with fear. I didn’t want him to say, “what have you been doing?” How I saw his return depended on me. Was I ready, or not? Would he find me about his business?

One of the saddest things about this latest Rapture/end of the world prediction is that it takes our eye off truth. Jesus said he would return. He told us to be ready for his return. One day the sky will open and the Son will outshine the sun. It will happen but Jesus meant it when he said, “No one knows when that will be.” It is not on anyone’s timetable, it is not hidden in dates or numbers in the Bible, it is not revealed in ancient calendars, or to self-proclaimed prophets.

The one thing he told us, “Be Alert!”

When He comes, it could be a time of great joy and gladness, or a time of fear and trembling. Which it will be, depends on us. When He returns, will He find us ready? Will he find us living as He taught or will He find us neglecting the things of God?

Because Harold Camping was wrong, as we were all sure he would be; and because all those who have predicted it before were wrong; we could get the idea that it is never going to happen. Let’s have fun. I have laughed at many of your comments. Be sure however, we are making fun of self-important, deluded men, while still trusting the basic promise of God.

“The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 NASB)

Setting Dates and Prophets of Doom

2011-05-13T21:38:00.005-07:00

One of the clearest statements of Jesus concerning his eventual return is “you don’t know when it is going to be,” but watch the signs and remain prepared, because you don’t know when it will be.

Even with the clarity of Jesus’ own words misguided souls have misled their followers with date setting. Several of today’s religious sects began with a leader who set dates. Seventh day Adventists for example began with William Miller who predicted 1844. Jehovah’s Witnesses began with a date of 1914, then later 1975. Mormonism’s founders, Joseph Smith and his theologian, Sydney Rigdon, were apocalyptic, however they never set exact dates.

In the 1980’s , Edgar C. Whisenant predicted the Rapture would occur in 1988. Harold Camping, set a date in 1994, and is now promising next Saturday will be the day. (see www.familyradio.com)

What about it? Is there any reason to believe May 21 as the end?

All these charlatans have something in common? The day comes, the day goes, and Jesus is proven right. They didn’t know the time or the day. They lose followers after a set day goes by, but they all give a new definition of what happened, and some go on. Eventually their false prophecies are forgotten and they again mislead people from the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

Camping’s ads explain the verse in Mark 13 with two statements. He says that in the Greek text the word son is not capitalized so it doesn’t refer to Christ. That is as disingenuous as Jehovah’s witness claims that since the definite article is not in the Greek text of John 1:1 it means the Logos was a god, not God.

Both are a misunderstanding of Greek, either out of ignorance or intentionally. NT Greek doesn’t use capital and miniscule letters the way we do. In fact, most manuscripts have either one or the other. They don’t mix them.

Camping’s second explanation is that since Jesus is Divine, he would know everything. To say that he didn’t know the date he was returning is blasphemous. That ignores the teaching of Philippians, that Jesus emptied himself. While he was on the earth, there were parts of his divinity that he purposely left behind so he could live as human and thus become the substitute for our sins. (see Philippians 2:6-9)

I believe the Son knows the date today. But he didn’t know it that day in Mark 13.

Like Robert Kirby, writing in today’s Salt Lake Tribune says, you are going to need to mow your lawn next Saturday as usual. I would recommend you get your spiritual relationship right with God. I recommend you be on the alert. When you are least expecting it, Jesus could return. So it could be on Friday, May 20. It could be on Sunday May 22. But I am positive that it won’t be on Saturday, May 21. Jesus said, No One knows!

Paying off Debt

2011-04-25T13:49:00.004-07:00

Just wondering-- I just read that it took two decades after the death of Thomas Jefferson for his grandson to pay off the debts he incurred with his high living. I wonder how many years it will take our children and grandchildren to pay off our government debts incurred by high government spending.

Lotteries, Luck, and Lunacy

2011-03-07T09:41:00.008-07:00

February Training Ride

Back in the 90’s, The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish decided the elk unit that I had been bow hunting for several years needed a limit on permits. They set the limit at 400 and had a lottery to decide the 400 hunters. I did not draw. There were 407 applicants for the 400 slots.

I have played in many golf tournaments where in addition to the winner’s prizes, there were door prizes. Some of these have been awesome prizes. I have never won a golfing vacation, a set of clubs, or even a putter, chipper, driver, or bag. The best I ever won was an outdated computer printer. Usually my prize was a luggage tag, a golfing towel, or a key ring advertising an insurance company.

I am not complaining mind you, my lack of luck has kept me from ever losing even one dollar in a state lottery, or as my dad calls it, the stupid tax. I know better than to enter.

I say all of that to say this. The bike ride Jen and I have entered limits the weekly riders to 8500 but they always have more entries than permits. The “lucky” riders are the ones who win the lottery. I don’t know how many entries they normally get, but I am just cognizant of the truth that I may not get chosen. (I am just glad salvation isn’t by lottery. Jesus said, “whosoever will may come.”)We won’t know for sure until May 1. (About the Bike ride, not salvation.)

In the meantime, we must continue training. My friend Bill, who went on the ride the last two years, when asked if he had any words of wisdom said, “pedal, pedal, pedal.”

Flint and Jubilee’s next adventure.

2011-02-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don’t understand the names, Flint and Jubilee were the trail names we assumed in 2007 when we attempted another great adventure. It was that year we started from Georgia on the Appalachian Trail headed for Maine, 2274 miles away. Alas, after only 550 miles a knee problem forced us to quit, rather, I was forced to quit and Jen quit with me.

I spent a year with a chiropractor, under direction of a physical therapist, with a trainer at the gym, and against the recommendation of my orthopedic doctor trying to rehab my knee. We returned to the trail in Virginia in 2008 at the place we left it, 360 days later. It didn’t take long to realize it wasn’t going to happen. We hiked for about 6 weeks and made a total of 800 miles, although we hiked most of the 250 extra miles without our backpacks.

It was a great adventure. We had a fabulous time. The only way I could ever make the hike again would be by getting a knee replacement and then the other knee would probably become a problem. If you want to read more about it, look for documentation in this blog. Look in 2007 posts.

So now we are going for a new adventure. It is not as time consuming, 7 days instead of 7 months; not as far, 465 miles rather than 2274. It is called Ragbrai, which stands for Registers Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Register stands for the Des Moines, Iowa Register, the newspaper that sponsors the ride. 8500 riders ride an average of 66 miles per day for 7 days, camping each night in designated campgrounds. The 8500 week long riders are joined by 1500 daily riders, making a total of 10,000 riders each day. It should be a very interesting sight.

We have joined a team, the Big Dogs, invited by an old friend from New Mexico who now lives in Nebraska. The biggest possible problem is the necessity to enter a lottery for the ride. More people apply than can ride. That is the reason for joining a team. It increases our chances of drawing out.

Next post I will share our training plans so we will be ready for the ride.

Then soon, look for the announcement of our Greatest Adventure Ever. Well that might be a little hyperbole, having children has to rank as the greatest adventure ever. But we are planning a biggie. Stay tuned.

Is Conversion Real?

2011-01-11T11:28:00.002-07:00

For a low key, but absolutely gripping answer to that question I recommend Laura Hillenbrand’s new book; Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. (New York; Random House; 2010)
It is the story of Olympic athlete Louie Zamperini. Louie was an Olympic class athlete, running in the 1936 Berlin games as a youngster. He was looking forward to the 1940 Olympics, first scheduled for Tokyo, then Finland, and finally cancelled completely because of World War II. His story of crashing, surviving the ocean only to be captured by Japanese sailors, is fascinating. Louie spent the war in POW camps.
One guard was his personal tormentor, subjecting him to beatings and other de-humanizing, de-grading punishments. My dad’s comment after finishing the book was, “it is incredible the things the human body can endure and still live.” After the war, back home in Southern California, Louie could not sleep without dreaming of this guard. He filled waking hours with plans of vengeance, how could he kill this man. This obsession consumed him. He began drinking to numb the pain. His wife took their little girl and left for her home. Life was spinning out of control.

*****CAUTION ***** SPOILER FOLLOWS *****
*******don’t read past here if you want to read the book and you don’t want to know the fantastic ending. ******

When his wife came back to California to settle the divorce, she happened upon the Billy Graham Los Angeles crusade and had what the book calls, “a spiritual experience.” She begged Louie to go with her. He went the next two nights and after the second evening, he surrendered his hate and his desire for vengeance into the hands of a loving God.
The hatred went away. He never dreamed of the guard again. He dumped his liquor stash down the sink. He made his marriage work. Jesus Christ made a difference in the life of Louie Zamperini. "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come. (2 Cor. 5:17)

A Camping Date

2011-01-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

According to our latest edition of Backpacker magazine a lot of people like to take their honey on a camping or backpacking trip as a date. Hey, I am just telling you what the magazine says. The Article gives 7 rules to follow to keep from ruining your relationship while camping.
1. Don’t go too high, too far, or in terrain that is too rough.
2. Don’t treat them like a pupil, correcting all they do, or try to do.
3. Don’t let your goals drive the trip, take it easy.
4. Don’t try to fool them into thinking you know what you are doing, if you don’t.
5. Don’t feed them boring meals.
6. Don’t forget you are on a date. (a little kissy face once in a while, you know.)
7. Remember, deet bug lotion is not massage oil.
Those sound like some pretty good rules to me. I made sure Jen read this article hoping she might start following the rules.

Do You Know What A Drawing Room Is?

2010-12-14T07:48:00.003-07:00

Bill Bryson can write a great book. (A Walk In The Woods; In a Sunburned Country; The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid) Bill Bryson can write a boring book. (A Short History of Nearly Everything)

At Home: A Short History of Private Life is both. In a tour of the English house he lives in, he tells us how we got from living in caves to the homes we live in today. Scattered throughout the chapters you will find yourself saying, “Ok Bryson, move along,” but it is fun to learn the origin and history of many of the things we take for granted today; like rooms.

One of the things I found most interesting, Bryson doesn’t even comment on. Taxes. One of the mottoes of fiscally conservative thought is “if you tax something you get less of it.” Three examples of that are in this book. When pane glass was first invented the government put a tax on glass. People built their homes without windows, or at least with very small ones. When the tax was removed, people bought glass, glass factories sprouted everywhere, and there was an employment boom. The same thing happened with wallpaper and soap. It was a great day for cleanliness when the king lifted the soap tax.

Compare these with our high unemployment rate. Our government taxes employment. If you tax employment, you get less of it. Social Security, Medicare, Worker’s Comp, Health Insurance (for over 50 employees), all work to keep unemployment high. Add to that the uncertainty caused by congress’ inability to act and we are in for more high unemployment figures.

Even as our government debates the estate tax, also known as the inheritance tax or the death tax, Bryson tells some interesting history of its beginning in England. Beginning at just 5% it increased until it became 60%. It is a popular tax for governments to impose because it affects so few people each year. During the years of the 60% estate tax, England lost many of its treasures. When people died, their heirs had yard sales to raise the cash to pay the tax. They sold their heirlooms. Among other things, they sold “Paintings, tapestries, jewels, books, porcelain, silver plate, rare stamps.” Most of these landed in the collections of Americans. I wonder if there is any lesson for us from this history.

Anyway, if you have an inquisitive mind at all, I recommend this book to you. Oh, the drawing room; read the book.

Reason 8

2010-09-19T10:58:00.003-07:00

Reason #8 for a Road Trip—Signs or Spider Pig, Spider Pig

Driving into the Florida swamp we came across this warning sign. Hmmm, we wondered, exactly what is it we are too look out for? Could be a bear, but it could be a pig. After all, we were going into swampland, pig country, not forestland. Down the road we found another sign that clarified the issue. It was the same strange animal, with a baby following. No doubt here, it was a cub not a piglet. We got a lot of conversation out of this sign

The other sign that we saw was at a rest stop in Missouri. Well, I said we, but only I saw it. Jen just saw the picture I took. When I saw this sign I took it to heart and stood there until I could not wait another minute. It is not true. You do have to use your hands!

To Infinity and Beyond

2010-09-15T20:07:00.002-07:00

Pause in the reasons for driving while I share the reason for going at all. We were headed to Orlando to see our son and grandson. We had three great days with them. One day to Walt Disney World, one day to just play around, and one day to the Kennedy Space Center. These we would have done whether we drove, flew, or walked.
It is tough to live 2500 miles away from your only grandchild. You have to make the most of every second you have, so every visit is cram packed with activities and little time to just relax together. This time though, he said, “Hi Grandma,” as soon as he saw Jen. He is beginning to remember us from visit to visit.
He seems to be into something different every time. Last summer it was race cars. We raced cars on the floor, in the pickup bed, at the beach, at the restaurant. He had a race car with him everywhere we went. This winter it was hockey. We played hockey down the hall, we played hockey in the street, we played hockey on the mezzanine at the E Center while a real hockey game was going on. This weekend it started with a race car, but it was quickly surrendered for an airplane and then a rocket ship. After our trip through pirates of the Caribbean, we played pirates for hours. I just hope there wasn’t anyone in the room below us as our little pirate hit the floor after being shot or stabbed, over and over.
We are on our way back west now. More reasons we are glad we drove later.

Reasons 5 & 6

2010-09-07T04:52:00.002-07:00

Reason # 5 14,000 foot Mountains.(from the bottom up)
The mountains we drove through are the same mountains we fly over. They look different from the top. There is something amazing when seeing them from an airplane window. There is something awe inspiring when seeing them from the ground. At one point, while tooling along the highway, Jen was reading aloud from our devotional book. As we were meditating on the author’s words we could see four of the 14ers and the ground sloping up to them unmarred by anything man made. The view caused both of us to regard the magnificence of creation and of the mighty God we serve. Wow!

(Picture is Mt. Massive from the 2nd Fairway of Mt. Massive Golf Course, Leadville, Colorado)

Reason #6 Stars
Reason number 6 is similar to reason number 6. When we walked to our cabin last night it was late. Well, it was late for us, around 9:30. Looking up into the sky, we could see millions, maybe billions of stars. It was a night sky invisible to us at home in the city. But in Lake City, really misnamed, it should be Lake Village, the night sky more closely resembled the sky Abraham observed. It was while looking into a starry filled sky that God promised him descendants more numerous than the stars.
We went on in the cabin. Profane person that I am, I turned ESPN on to check the day’s events. Jen found her hat and gloves and went back outside, lay back on a bench and played like an astronomer. There is something about looking into a black night sky, sprinkled with the light of the stars, to make a person think of eternity, and the eternal one.

ROADSIDE SERINDIPITIES

2010-09-03T20:36:00.003-07:00

ROADSIDE SERINDIPITIES

Reasons 2,3,4 not to fly cross country.

2. Lunch. Look at this lunch spot and compare it to the city diner in any airport and tell me, which is the better lunch site? This isn’t even taking into consideration the homemade chicken salad sandwich vs the sterile deli bought one.

3. Golf. We have stopped twice now along the way for a stroll around a 9 hole golf course. By the time we get to the east coast and back, Jen may be a golfer.

4. Fresh peach. Need I say more? Colorado peaches are in season, there are roadside stands all along the way. I saw a vendor selling fresh apples in the Albuquerque airport once, but only once.

By the way, saving money is not a reason to not fly. My bookkeeper tells me we have already spend enough to have purchased two round trip tickets.

SMALL TOWNS

2010-09-03T07:43:00.001-07:00

SMALL TOWNS
You have to love small towns. They have an ambiance and a pace of their own. We drove into Meeker, Colorado about 4 pm. We didn’t know whether we were going to stay there or 38 miles on down the road at Rifle. When we passed the golf course Jen suggested we play nine holes for a little exercise.

We went to the golf course; no sense turning down the opportunity, especially if Jen suggests it. It was described as the Meeker golf course and steak house. There were workers putting a stucco coat on the outside of the building. We wandered in the only open door and found ourselves in the steak house. We wandered around and found the pro shop but no Pro. We looked around, waited, tried to look conspicuous, but no one showed up.

Finally we went back into the restaurant and asked the bar tender. She said, “Oh, Jim is probably out playing. Just go ahead and play and you can pay when you finish.” We ran into Jim on the first tee. He said to play and settle up after we were through. Jim was about to play the back 9. (the back 9 and the front 9 are the same 9)

After golf we went looking for grub. The Meeker Café, located in the Meeker hotel in downtown historic Meeker was advertised in our guide book as an excellent chicken fried steak. Theodore Roosevelt is said to have stayed in the Meeker hotel. When we walked in the door, we realized that there was some kind of an event in progress. The Meeker medical community was welcoming their new doctor to town. I had a nice visit with the hospital CEO and Jen with the director of planning and development. They invited us to just get a plate and visit their buffet. It is a good thing, because the restaurant was closed, due to “a special event.”

Alas, when we found a Motel, there was someone there to take our money and assign a room. Pretty normal there.

Fear of Flying

2010-08-24T09:24:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of air travel. The time savings are nice, and if time is essential, worth the hassle. But every time while flying I look out the window, I know I am missing too much.
From 35,000 feet you can see so much more than you can from the 3 feet of your car seat; but you experience so much less. Flying over the Great Plains the other day I could see the earth beneath me laid out in nice neat one section squares. Some of the squares were further divided into two or three rectangles. In many sections you see circles touching all four sides of the square, but leaving gaps in the corners.
Then you can see the towns. Interestingly most of them neatly occupy two to four of the squares. To the air traveler who is even looking, they are just nameless little burgs that break up the landscape.
That is when I wish I was driving, and not on the interstate. We hurry too much across the country. Who lives in the town? What kind of businesses are there? You know there are churches and schools. Who is the pastor? How far do the kids travel to attend a consolidated school? All the questions we never ask, because we are flying over or buzzing by on the interstate.
I notice a clump of hills, not too far from one of the towns. On top of each hill, it looks like some giant bird flew by and left it spattered white. I would like to know what that is. If my Tahoe was my transportation, I could drive over and take a look, or at least stop and ask someone. Of course, if I were driving by in my Tahoe, I probably wouldn’t even know it was there, just some hills in the distance. I can’t even go back and look because I have no idea where we were.
Next month we are driving to the east coast. Our plan is to stop and experience a lot of the places we normally go over or around. Check in later, there might be some good stories.

Bush Haters Beware

2010-06-17T16:33:00.002-07:00

If you hate George W. Bush and are content to hate him based on erroneous and biased reporting, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK! Karl Rove was there from the beginning. He explains all that happened in a reasoned way. He gives the explanations that were not forthcoming from the president at the time. Unlike our current president W. felt that it was beneath the dignity of the office of president to get in a spitting contest with every critic on the public airways.

Rove admits there were mistakes. He does however strongly defend the choices that ended up with war in Iraq, including reminding the short memories of those who forgot all those who agreed with Bush when the choice was made.

He explains Katrina and the way decisions were made and not made. For example, in Mississippi and Alabama, two states that had capable leadership in place, the help from FEMA was excellent. Rove explains the battle between the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisana and how that affected the help the Feds could offer. Unknown to many, FEMA couldn't just take over. They either had to be invited to do so by the governor, who wouldn't give the invitation, or by declaring Louisana in a state of insurrection which Bush was hesitant to do.

He explains the 2000 election dispute with Gore. He reminds us that when the count was in Bush won. When the recounted Bush won. When the Florida supreme court went against Florida law and called another recount, Bush won. The supreme court of the US voted 9-0 that the Florida Supreme Court overstepped its bounds. In a second vote it voted in favor of Bush 7-2. In the third vote,it voted in favor of Bush 7-2. And finally the vote to stop all the recounting, was 5-4.

Later after all the votes were in, all the chads as far as possible examined, it was decided that Bush won the election. So why are there still those that say Bush cheated to win? Because they hate George Bush and they want to believe that.

This is a great look at inside the Bush whitehouse, by someone who was there. Read it. I highly recommend it.

UTAH TO THE PAC 10 (12) or Could I possibly be a Utah Man, Sir?

2010-06-17T15:54:00.003-07:00

Well I hope Utah isn't about to fade into National insignificance. HUH? How can you say that Rodger when they are now in the Pac 12? Well, for those not under the influence of Ute Mania, who can look objectively at the situation, a glance at history would tell them there are hazzards ahead.

In the first place, the last few years, since the Urban Meyer years, have been an aberration in MWC/WAC football. From 1962-1999 Utah never won the WAC championship. They shared a title with New Mexico and Arizona in 1964 and a four way tie in 1995. In the 11 years of the Mountain West Conference Utah has won the title only 3 times. They are not quite a yearly powerhouse.

Compare their record with Arizona and Arizona State. Many of you young UTE fans my not remember that they were members of the WAC with Utah from 1962 to 1978 when they left to make the PAC 8 the PAC 10. In the last 10 years they were in the WAC with Utah, BYU, New Mexico and the others, Arizona and Arizona State won or shared the conference championship 9 times. That is 9 of 10 years. 90%. In the 32 years since joining the Pac 10, Arizona State has gone to two Rose Bowls, Arizona none.

During Whittingham's tenure, the Utes are a mediocre 4-3 vs PAC 10 teams. And besides football, a peek at the conference champions in other sports shows that Utah is mediocre in the MWC. (They are national powers in Women's gymnastics but that isn't a MWC sport.) These other sports will likely struggle in the PAC 12.

Don't misunderstand. I think this is a great opportunity for Utah and I am very happy for them. As far as athletics goes I think BYU would have been a better choice, but I am glad they didn't get the nod. And I realize that more than Athletics is involved in the choice.

While I hate to lose Utah as a Lobo opponent, I will now be free to root for them, and I will. Go Utes! I am not quite ready to sing I am a Utah man sir, but I look forward to seeing the big boys come to town.

2010-05-30T06:45:00.001-07:00

Flyboys: A True Story of Courage by James Bradley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Well researched and written by the son of one of the Marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, this book is about the aviators who won WWII in the Pacific and the enemy who fought them. If, like me, you are unapologetically American in your outlook, you will find some of the book "politically corrrect" but I urge you to read through it.

It is a commentary not only on WWII, but on war in general and the soldiers who fight for the generals.

It is worth the read.

View all my reviews >>

Angel’s Landing

2010-04-12T21:10:00.003-07:00

Ok! I am impressed. Wow! Might be a better exclamation. I knew Angel’s Landing, in Zion National Park, was a steep climb that had some real cliff exposure. I have read about people falling from the trail. One man was recently convicted for pushing his wife off the trail. So I expected there to be some places on the trail where we would be really close to the edge.

The hike starts normal enough. It leaves the parking lot and crosses the river on a bridge. The trail follows the course of the river for a short distance. Leaving the river the hiker begins the ascent. Here the trail is paved and steep. It continues for 1500 feet in elevation gain in 2.5 miles. The last 500 feet in elevation over the last ½ mile is along a very narrow ridge with a 1200 foot sheer drop to the canyon floor on one side and 900 feet on the other.

The park service has added chains to hold onto, and cut steps into the sandstone, but it is still very scary. When I walked up to the place where you see that last ½ mile and the steep sides, my stomach just flipped. There have been at least 5 or 6 people slip and fall to their death in the last 15 years.

If you are headed to Southern Utah and want a guide to help you on the Angel’s Landing hike, don’t call me. I DTA. (Did that already)

The Pony Express

2010-03-30T15:07:00.006-07:00

150 years ago the latest technology in mail significantly decreased the time it took a message to get across the country. Using the new method a letter could get from Missouri to San Francisco in a mere 10 days. That really isn’t that long, even today, considering it took us 14 days to get a package from Salt Lake City, Utah to Hiawassee, Georgia.

All across the west, Pony Express Stations stood ready for the rider to come by carrying the mail pouch. About 8 to 10 miles apart, across mountains, plains, and deserts the rider would change horses as he sped on his way. At the end of the rider’s day, he would hand the mail pouch off to his replacement, and day by day, express station by express station the mail traversed the country.

After church yesterday Jen and I followed the Pony Express route across Western Utah to the Nevada Border. We found the location of every station along the route but one. The Dugway Gulch station is about a mile south of the road and we chose not to make that hike to search for the marker.

Back in the 1930’s the CCC of the depression era built a monument, (see picture) at the approximate location of each station. The monuments are about 8 feet high made out of rock with two plaques on them. One is the symbol of the pony express and the other tells about the station. Many of the plaques have been stolen but no one has carted off any of the stone pillars.

After 133 miles across the desert on the Pony Express Trail we reached pavement again on the Utah-Nevada border. We drove 45 minutes on the pavement to Wendover, Nevada where we ate a late dinner before heading across the Salt Flats on Interstate 80 to home.

Terrorism, The Movies, and Homeland Security

2010-02-14T07:28:00.002-07:00

American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, The Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century is a 2008 book by Howard Blum. The century is the last one, the terror is homespun, and the security is provided by the man who became the first director of what we know today as the FBI.

All I can say is, "Wow!" What do you think the Crime of the Century might be? I didn't even know it happened. Early in the morning of October 1, 1910, an explosion ripped through the Las Angeles Times building. 21 people were killed by the explosion, the fire that followed, or by jumping out the windows of the building on fire.

The terrorists were not foreigners, but labor union employees. In the early part of the 20th century labor unions waged a terrorism campaign against any building project that wasn't being constructed with union labor. The L. A. Times was pro business in those days, drawing the ire of the unions.

The man responsible for breaking the case was later charged with using unconstitutional methods in his investigation, arrest, and transportation of the bombers. William J. Burns was a private detective hired by Las Angeles to solve the case. When the city became unhappy with the lack of progress they quit paying and Burns borrowed the funds to continue the case.

The famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow was the attorney for the defendants. He was later put on trial for bribing potential jurors and in a trial similar to OJ was acquitted in one trial and achieved a hung jury in the other. Jurors split 8 to 4 in favor of a guilty verdict.

The Hollywood angle is interesting. There was no film industry in Hollywood in 1910. Moving pictures were just coming into existence. During this time, in addition to telling a good story, they were attempting to change the attitudes of the American public on the social issues of the day. They were as successful at it then as they are today.

I had two prevailing thoughts as I read this book. The first was a smoldering resentment that I had never heard this story about the union terrorism before. I think I am better versed than the average American in history, it was my minor in college. But this was a part of the Union/Management debate that I had never heard.

The second was how easy it is for visual media to present viewpoints that the public at large accepts without question. They were just learning to do that in 1910. They are experts at it today. It was only in the Movies then, it is on TV everyday now. The movies were 15-20 minute films that showed in cinemas, and were 5 cents a ticket. New ones were out every few days. It was probably closer to television drama than the movie blockbusters for today.

It is an interesting book. I recommend it.

To Be A Lobo or Not

2009-11-08T21:03:00.002-07:00

I had an interesting invitation today. An old friend, an avid fan of the Utah Utes, invited me to desert the inept New Mexico Lobo football team for a new team. He also graciously offered me a spot as a Ute. His invitation at least made me think. It’s not the first time Lobo football fans have been treated to winless seasons. In the late 80’s, there were 6 years with a total of 9 wins. Considering each year usually includes a game against a division 2 team and a game against New Mexico State, it would seem the minimum number of wins in 6 years would be 12.

So what if a guy decided to abandon his alma matter for a new team, what considerations should be made? I am not saying it is a real possibility, but what are the alternatives?

For the last 10 years Salt Lake City, home of the Utes, has been home. I have no plans to move anytime soon. My daughter is a graduate of the University of Utah, so I guess it would seem logical to switch allegiance to the Utes. In addition, they have enjoyed some recent success. In one Sports Illustrated article that told the best years for each school’s football team, Utah’s greatest success is in the present. (Lobos experienced their best years in the late 50’s and early 60’s.)

Just because you live somewhere, you don’t have to adopt their teams. I lived in Texas but didn’t desert the Colts for the Cowboys, the Lakers for the Mavericks, nor the Yankees for the Rangers. In addition, I lived in Fort Worth and didn’t’ become a TCU fan. (More on that later.)

Since the day I enrolled at UNM, the Lobos and Utes have played football once and basketball at least twice every year. After rooting for one team against another for 42 years, it is tough to even think about changing sides.

What are the other alternatives? Well the only other major college in New Mexico is the New Mexico State Aggies. That is using major college loosely. Becoming an Aggie would be no easier than switching to the Utes and wouldn’t solve the futile football anyway.

Other alternatives? Well I was born in Texas. In my very early years, actually until I enrolled at UNM, I did follow the Longhorns as much as you could follow an out of area team back in those days. It wouldn’t be much of a switch however, as I continue to think of Texas as my favorite “National” team. That isn’t much help locally though since there isn’t much chance that New Mexico or Utah will play Texas in football. They do play occasionally in basketball. I remember a NIT game in the Pit between UNM and Texas that went into overtime.

I could never be a BYU fan. The Mormonism would keep getting in the way. But what about the flag ship college of my Baptist denomination. Cheering for the Baylor Bears is about as hopeless as cheering for the Lobos, with the exception that at least they play in a BCS conference.

The College nearest my birth place that I lived close to for the first 8 years of my life is Texas Tech. However, I don’t have any logical connection to the Red Raiders. A lot of folks in Eastern New Mexico consider Texas Tech the home team.
The other city I lived in while getting my education could solve the dilemma. I earned a Master’s degree in Fort Worth, Texas. In fact, the church we attended in Fort Worth was University Baptist Church. The University in the name being Texas Christian University; TCU. In addition, they haven’t been a conference foe all that long. They have a winning program and there is the added benefit of seeing them play a couple of times a year.

Texas has a great live mascot, Bivo the Longhorn. I think the orange shirt with the white longhorn emblem is a great logo. I have such a shirt. TCU on the other hand has a horned frog. It is as fake as Lobo Louie and Swoop. Baylor has live bears and Tech has a real Red Raider. While I am glad that Utah didn’t go the politically correct route and dump the Ute name nor the feather logo, swoop looks like poop, and their live mascot is a . . . red tailed hawk? (New Mexico dropped the live Lobo when they had trouble with it chewing the fingers of children who tried to pet it.)

Well enough of this. I know, and you probably do too, I ain’t changing. Eventually NM will get on track again. I think it is going to require a new Athletic Director. The one we have seems to make poor choices where coaches are concerned. Utah will eventually come to the end of their current run. In the meantime I will ask you to remember the Lobo football mantra that is at least 40 years old. “Wait til basketball season.”

The Further Adventures of Giblet

2009-09-06T22:16:00.004-07:00

I am sure many of you have lost sleep wondering about Giblet the wonder chicken we took with us on the Appalachian Trail. In a post last spring I told you she was missing. Well today we found her. She was located in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

She decided she had enough of hiking, so she caught up with some motorcyclers. They were a nice couple and said that Giblet wasn't too much trouble, but I couldn't help noticing the biking had put quite a bit of stress on her.

A Trillion

2009-08-26T11:27:00.002-07:00

I came across an interesting comparison in World Magazine this month. It compares 1 million with 1 billion with 1 trillion.

This is relevant since our beloved government is talking about debt in the trillions now. In our current budget we are slated to spend 1.5 trillion dollars more than we take in. But that is just a number. One trillion is 1,000,000,000,000. To met that is just so many zeros.

Thus the comparison. 1 million seconds ago was 12 days ago. 1 Billion seconds ago was 30 years ago. 1 Trillion seconds ago was 30,000 BC.

I am not an economist but this is what think. Well, backoff, it's my blog. This will affect our children and grandchildren as they live with a grossly indebted government. It will affect us in that the only possible way to ever pay it off will be by inflation. Over the next few years inflation will rise steeply and as it does, the money we have set aside for retirement deflates.

I Would Do Church Differently

2009-06-14T15:29:00.002-07:00

Attending churches as a guest has left me with an impression of some things I would do different if I were to ever be in charge again. Our worship is designed so totally for those already a part of the church outsiders can miss the whole message. By outsiders I mean, not just the unchurched, but believing church goers who are simply guests in our church.

We sail through our order of worship as mindlessly and as heartlessly as if it were a formal liturgy. We sing the song and say the words and if they ever had meaning to us, they no longer do; and anyone looking in from the outside would have to wonder, “what are they doing?”

In a newly designed format of worship I would continually explain to people what we were going to do, why we were doing it, and then after it was over explain what we did. Everything!

EXAMPLES:
“We are going to begin our Worship this morning by singing this amazing hymn about grace. It is a song about God’s amazing grace that allows us to experience Him without deserving to experience Him at all.”

“In our opening prayer we are going to ask the Lord to bless our church service this morning. We are calling on the Lord to make Himself present with us as we spend this hour with one another in His presence.”

“Prayer is when we address our thoughts and our requests to God believing He hears us and responds to us.”

I would include in each service a statement of belief. Either one of the traditional confessions of faith or I would write one for our particular church.

“I believe in One God, present in three persons, The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

It would be short, and maybe change the emphasis from week to week, or month to month and I would take a minute or two to explain what it is we are confessing as our faith.

I would insist that each song, hymn, carol, chorus, etc., be introduced with an explanation of why we were choosing to sing this particular song, or in the case of a string of music which is more the norm in today’s worship, what are we intending to accomplish, say, confess, pray, etc., by using these particular choices.

I would attempt to use the purpose statement of the church in each service to remind our members and to inform our guests of the purpose for which this church exists.
I would explain scripture readings before they happened.

“This passage of scripture was given to the prophet Isaiah by the Holy Spirit some 700 years before the birth of Christ. Isaiah, whose name means “the Lord is Salvation” was a prophet in Jerusalem after the time of David and Solomon whose main purpose was to remind his readers of the special relationship they had with God as members of his covenant community. ”

Now this is only a seedling of an idea. I see some pitfalls in it. You would have to be brief, yet you need to be sure your explanations really explain and not just further confuse things. You would have to change what you said, or before long it too would become ritualistic and ignored.

God has given us the privilege of meeting with Him and his earthly family on regular occasion. I believe we ought to work harder to give it meaning.

Go Ahead Turkey, Jump!

2009-05-24T07:14:00.001-07:00

Would you be interested in a new ministry? Suicide Jumper Assistant. Don’t threaten to jump from the bridge when Lian Jiansheng is around. He will help you jump, rather, he will push you off the bridge.

Lian was an observer at a possible suicide jumper event in the city of Guangzhou in southern China. Chen Fuchao had been atop the Haizhu Bridge, threatening to jump for 5 hours.

Traffic was held up for those five hours as a crowd gathered. Chen sat on the bridge, threatening to jump. Lian offered to talk Chen down but police refused. Lian then broke through the police cordon, climbed to where Chen was sitting, shook his hand and pushed him off the bridge.

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest," Lian told Xinhua news agency. "They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals."

Chen is recovering from his fall in the hospital, Lian is in police custody at last report.

There is no information on Lian. Beyond his comments, why did he feel compelled to give Chen a hand? He was probably in the five hour traffic tie-up at the bridge. He grew weary of waiting for Chen. He decided to do something, even if it was wrong.
Don’t you feel like that sometimes? “Go ahead and jump if you have to, just get out of the way. You are holding things up.” That is not very compassionate nor Christ like but sometimes we grow weary in helping the hurting. One of the hazards of serving the Lord is compassion fatigue. Several times Paul warned the church to not get tired of doing the right thing.

“But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good.” 2 Thessalonians 3:13 (NASB95). See also Galatians 6:9

Here’s wishing you patience for today.

AT Journal

2009-04-28T21:00:00.004-07:00

Jen and I have been reading the journal of our AT hike day by day as it happened two years ago. Every day was an awesome experience. Of course reading it in my easy chair I don't feel the knee pain. By now I was existing on 3200 mg of Ibuprophen per day. That is maximum dose, but I knew I would not be smart to keep it up for another 4 or 5 months.

That isn't what I wanted to blog. I wanted to write down the awesome experience we had. We had opportunity to enjoy life, one another, new friends, and develop a new kind of relationship with the Lord. The mind is an incredible thing, and as you hike, hour after hour, day after day, you can spend a lot of time in prayer and meditation.

We are aproaching Virginia in the Journal. 150 miles from our drop out place. How you can be so thrilled and so sad reading a journal you wrote only two years ago is beyond me.

Appalachian Trail Redux

2009-03-23T05:40:00.005-07:00

March 15 arrived and our thoughts returned to Georgia, 2007 when we set out to hike the AT. We have been reading the journal of our travel, reminding ourselves of the experience. Last night we had a serious conversation about whether or not we should give it another try. We agreed that if we were to do it at this point, we would want to return to Georgia and start all over. We also agreed that it is impractical to even think about.

Today I am working on Lectures for a Doctoral class on relationships I will present in May. Jen has already left for her shift at the hospital. (It is 6:16 AM) Two years ago we were hiking out of Hiawassee, Georgia and crossed into North Carolina. We hiked 11.6 miles that day, almost all of it was uphill. Life is much different in 2009 than 2007.

Today I have to go to the gym to get an hour’s workout, then this afternoon I will walk 3-4 miles with Uma and the rest of the day will be spent sitting on my hinder. Then I was on my feet all day long with maybe an hour on my hinder all day. Then I was possessed with finding water, today I am stressed confining my liquid intake to water. Then I was satisfied with a tortilla spread with peanut butter and honey, today’s lunch will be significantly more complex I am sure. Then a cup of instant coffee hit the spot. Today I am about to have my third cup of brewed coffee from gourmet beans we purchase by mail. Then I was looking for places to put everything, my bag, my groceries for the week, my water bottle, the pump, etc. Today I am wondering where the best place to put the piano would be, and whether or not we can let Amy take the sofa that is in the basement den. Then I was wondering about the best way to put duct tape on my feet to avoid blisters. Today we are thinking of getting a new car before the tax credit runs out on hybrids. Then I was deciding which shirt combination would be the best to wear to combat the weather. Today I am wondering if the weather will return to warm enough to play golf on Thursday or Friday. Yes, life is different, but life is still life.

The tree is a trail landmark, about 100 yards after passing into North Carolina. My thoughts are with the fine folks who will be camping at Muskrat Creek Shelter, North Carolina tonight. There is a great campsite about 30 yards on up the trail from the turnoff to the shelter.

Customer Service that is really Service

2009-03-01T16:17:00.000-07:00

Let me pause among all my criticisms for a moment of praise. I am quick to complain about poor customer service whenever it happens, like last week. . . oh wait, this is a praise blog. I want to tell you a good story about customer service.

I purchased a Magellan RoadMate 700 GPS back in 2006 when we were going to Baltimore to see our kids and our new grandson. I bought it used in an EBay auction. It worked flawlessly, but for a few Interstate exits that had been moved. One night in Nebraska we were looking for what the GPS said was a Golden Corral Steak House and turned out to be some kind of sleazy nightclub. So some of the data was a little out of date.

For 75 dollars I bought a software update and all new maps and points of interest. We were going to take another long drive, this time to Austin, Texas and decided it was time to get updated maps. Well, they came and after hooking the GPS to my computer I entered the cd rom and followed instructions. First, it erased all my old maps, then started loading the new ones. In the middle of the upload there was a file it could not copy. I called Tech Support and they suggested trying it on a computer with Windows XP Service Pack 2. My computers all have Service Pack 3. So I tried it on a Service Pack 2 computer and it failed in the same place. Now I have a GPS unit with no maps.

I called tech support back and gave them the news. They said it was probably a defect in the software on my gps unit put there when I tried installing with Service Pack 3. (Nowhere in the documentation was that fact mentioned.) It just said the installation was for Windows XP. But before I even had time to get my dander up and ready for an argument the agent said, “we don’t support the 700 anymore so if you will send us the 700 we will send you a new 800 to replace it.”

So there you go. For the price of a FedEx to Tennessee I will have a new Roadmate 800 GPS. Of course I don’t have it yet. Mine will not be delivered to them until this Wednesday. And the date for us to leave for Austin has come and gone leaving us GPS less. But we didn’t go anyway so no harm done.

I suspect that the next time I am thinking GPS, I will be thinking Magellan. That is pretty good customer service and they have one happy customer. If you are looking for a GPS unit for your car, may I suggest Magellan.

The Incommunicable Attributes of God

2009-02-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

We had a great Theology study this morning about our great God. For two weeks we are studying the attributes of God. Next week we are going to study the attributes that God shares with others. This morning we studied the attributes that belong to God alone. He shares these with none.

We studied 5 of these. God is 1. Independent; 2. Unchanging; 3. Eternal; 4. Everywhere Present; 5. Unified. Will you read one paragraph about each of these, beginning with Wayne Grudem’s (the author of our textbook) definition?

Independence. God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation glorify him and bring him joy. (ref. Acts 17:24-25; Job 41:11; Psalm 50:10-12). Both sides of this attribute are awesome. Our God is so great and powerful that he can exist totally by himself, but he allows his creation to bring him joy. I want to serve a God that is not like me. And I am thrilled that my worship brings him glory.

Unchanging. God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes, and promises, yet God does act and feel emotions, and he acts and feels differently in response to different situations. (ref. Psalm 102:25-27; Malachi 3:6; Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29). If God could change, he would either change for the better or for the worse. And that is all I am going to say about that. If you need explanation send me a message. The fact that God does not change means that we can trust his promises, they will not change.

Eternity. God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time. (ref. Isaiah 46:9-10; Psalm 90:2; Job 36:26; Revelation 1:8; 4:8). There are two kinds of existence. We all live in time and space. God exists outside of time and space in eternity. Because God sees all time at once, he sees even the future that for us hasn’t been written yet. Depending on your trust in God this is either a very comforting statement or a horrifying one.

Omnipresence. God does not have size or spatial dimensions, and is present at every point of space with his whole being, yet God acts differently in different places. (ref. Deuteronomy 10:14; Jeremiah 23:23-24; Psalm 139:7-10). Just as God is unlimited or infinite with respect to time, so God is unlimited with respect to space. As David understood in Psalm 139, God is present to punish, to sustain, or to bless. Once again, how you feel about this attribute depends on your desire to be holy. Wholly his, or selfishly yours, it is your choice.

Unity. God is not divided into parts, yet we see different attributes of God emphasized at different times. (ref. Compare 1 John 1:5 with 1 John 4:8). One attribute of God is not more important than the rest. God is not partly light, partly love, partly just, partly merciful, etc. God is all of these things completely. God is not loving at some point, or wrathful at some point. The little boys statement that Jesus is really nice but he has a mean father is far, far, from the truth.

This was a great study. But it was the study of a great God.

(the book, if you are interested is Grudem, Wayne, “Bible Doctrine; Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith, Zondervan, 1999 which is an abridgment of Grudem’s Systematic Theology Book)

Red Sky at Morning

2009-02-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

Red Sky at Morning: A Novel by Richard Bradford

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Looking at New Mexico magazine's issue on books, this book was listed as a favorite of most of the people, (authors) interviewed. So we ordered it.

It was a delight to read. If you have ever lived in New Mexico or wondered why we New Mexicans are so strange, this is a great read. Warning, you may have some trouble understanding some of the language even though it is all English.

View all my reviews.

On the Origin of Species

2009-02-17T11:01:00.002-07:00

In the current edition of World Magazine editor Marvin Olasky gives four key themes to remember when Christians are responding to evolutionists. I think these are good points to remember.

1. There is a difference between types of evolution. That there is change within a species is obvious. To say that all dogs had a common ancestor is an example of microevolution. It is false to say evolution does not exist, because microevolution is observable. But what Darwin and Darwinists want to do is to expand the concept of microevolution to evolution beyond species. That is saying that some other kind of organism became a dog. That kind of evolution is called Macroevolution and this is what we oppose.

2. DNA is complicated. “Bill Gates has said, ‘DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.’” When you see a computer program, one thing you know is that some intelligent being created it. The same can be said of DNA.

3. Irreducible complexity. Here is what that means. “We know that cells have complex circuits, sliding clamps, energy-generating turbines, rotors, stators, O-rings, U-joints, and drive shafts. . . Each little engine depends on the coordinated function of many protein parts and doesn’t work unless all the parts are present. Could all those innovations arise sequentially, or would they all have to happen at once? Irreducible complexity says they all have to happen at once and it is a killer for Darwinists.

4. We need to debate with the evolutionist with compassion. They know there is no hope for them. They are going to die. We can share our hope in Jesus Christ. “Whosoever believes in him, shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

If you would like to read Olasky's article it is online at http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14943. However, to access it will cost you $5.00 but you also get two issues of World Magazine. If you are not familiar with World I would highly recommend it to you. It is a biweekly magazine that looks at world events through a Christian worldview.

Do You Want To Be Happy?

2009-02-02T11:00:00.002-07:00

I think I always knew this. About 25 years ago I decided that most Television was pretty much a waste of time. Since then my viewing is limited to news and sports. (24 doesn’t count because Jack Bauer sent me a message and said, “watch!” You had better do what Jack Bauer says.)

A recent study of the activities of happy people collected data from the last 34 years on social activity and media usage. What do happy people do? Well, they read, they socialize, and they go to church.

What is surprising is what happy people do not do. In the study it was determined that out of 10 activities happy people were more active in all but three. Those three were socializing at a bar, surfing the internet, and watching TV. What the study does not tell us is if those three activities contribute to our unhappiness or if they are the refuge of unhappy people.
Robinson, John P. and Martin, Stephen, What Do Happy People Do? Social Indicators Research, Vol 89: Issue 3, 12/01/2008, p. 565

So if you want to be happy, why are you surfing the blogs? Happy people are those who are serving not surfing, interacting with other people not the remote control. God did not create us to be hermits, but to make a difference in the lives of others. Countless times in the New Testament, believers are called to participate in the lives of others. Paul tells us to “Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:11 NASB95).”
Now, turn off this computer and go visit a friend. Only if it is after 9:30 don’t come over here, we are trying to be happy and happy people get plenty of sleep.

The Inauguration Of Barack Hussein Obama

2009-01-18T10:19:00.001-07:00

OK Already! There is a news blackout at the Russell household this weekend. It is three days until the magical moment when the smartest man in America will take the reins of government from the imbecile W. and already the news channels are Barack saturated; well that and the endless reruns of the heroic pilot that saved all the people on USAir by crashing into the Hudson River instead of the World Trade Center. “We are talking now to Jonathan Doe who was in New York when the plane went down.” “Mr. Doe, What did you see?”

“Well I didn’t actually see anything but I heard all the sirens and I said to myself, ‘something big has happened in the big apple today.’”

“Mr. Doe, what color were the ambulances that were seen rushing to the scene?”

“Uh, I didn’t actually see any ambulances, but their sirens had an urgent pitch to them.”

“Thank you Mr. Doe, or can I call you Jonathan?”

Enough! Do you think we would have seen that kind of coverage if Delta Connection flight 4323 crash landed in the Great Salt Lake? I don’t think so. The biggest thing about that crash was that it happened in New York City. Yes the pilot is a genuine hero, as is the flight crew and I am thankful that all passengers lived to take another flight. But I have heard enough and seen enough pictures of the stack of seat cushions used as floatation devices stacked in a corner. One news person gave a 5 minute presentation on how the seat cushions really do float, just like every flight attendant has told us before every flight we take.

But this blog is about the new president. I am totally amazed at what is happening. It is an historic moment. We are about to have our first non-white, non-European, president. I can understand the elation of the people who are going to have a president for the first time that looks like them. It is an amazing thing. It would have been nice to have elected a Black person president who has actually accomplished something besides being black, however.

People have lost their minds over this. On National Public Radio, the radio network owned by the people, just before Christmas a soloist on Garrison Keillor’s show sang her rendition of “In Bleak Midwinter.” In case you don’t know, it is a traditional English Carol about the coming of the Christ child. But in yuletide 2008 Renee Fleming sang these words. “In the bleak midwinter, at the Christmas feast, a family leaves Chicago and travels to the East, for a public mansion in Washington, D.C., in a time of trouble and festivity. All across the nation, sea to shining sea, people watch the passage of that family.” (See National Review, Jan. 26, 2009, p.14)

So now B. Hussein Obama is not just the second coming of FDR and Abraham Lincoln, he is being compared to the first coming of Jesus Christ. I don’t know which to feel worse about. That the American people can be so taken or that BHO is set up for failure. Here we have a new president who has no accomplishments to speak of. Democrats rail at the inexperience of Sarah Palin while ignoring the fact that she has more experience than BHO.

But of course, BHO is much smarter than Sarah Palin, John McCain, and George W. Bush all put together. You know of course how that intelligence is measured. If you agree with the left you are smart. If you are conservative, you must be stupid. Former NY Gov. Mario Cuomo said yesterday on Mike Huckabee’s TV program that BHO was incredibly intelligent. How does he know that? What evidence did he give? Even if he is egghead smart, Henry Kissinger seemed to be mighty intelligent too, but who would have wanted him as president?

God puts kings and presidents in position and our responsibility is to obey them and pray for them. Those two things I will do to the best of my ability. The Bible does not say I have to watch the coronation, uh, I mean inauguration for 5 days straight.

I Am Glad To See 2008 Go—Sportswise

2009-01-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

I don’t think it possible to have a worse sports year than 2008. It was an awful year for any team to have me as a fan.

It began in the spring when the Lobo Basketball team, once again, was only futile in any attempt to gain the NCAA tournament. It is sad anyway when you measure success just by getting into a tournament, even if you never have a chance to win. I wonder what it is like to root for a team that has a shot at the final four.

Of course the Jazz stumbled early in the playoffs but my longtime team, the Lakers made the finals, only to lose to the hated Boston Celtics. This year may be different. We must wait and see.

In Baseball, the Yankees got off to a slow start and never sped up. The last year in the House That Ruth Built was the first year in a decade that the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs. At least the Red Sox didn’t go anywhere either.

When fall came around and football started the Lobos got off to a slow start losing their first two before picking up and beating Arizona. After that, it was downhill, losing to both Utah and BYU and congratulating themselves on close games. With a final 4 win season the blow came when head football coach Rocky Long hung it up.

The Broncos, with a mediocre team beset with injury, led their division from week one, only to collapse in the final three games to spend another January at home. Then the unthinkable happened. Another coach bit the dust.

Here is hoping for a better 2009.

Oh! One more. I was home at thanksgiving when my old High School Football team went to the state championship game with an unblemished record. They lost and now hold the record for the school that has lost the state championship game more than any other school. What a record. (They did win once, back in the 1950's)

And A Little Theology, Don't Drown It May be Deep

2008-12-08T10:09:00.001-07:00

Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Piper is at his best explaining why God put us here in the first place. The title is a negative way of saying, Be Sure Your Life Counts."

Even though it is a short book, don't plan on a fast read. Savor it and take time to meditate on your single passion to live for.

View all my reviews.

Fun Reading, If You Can Keep From Worrying

2008-12-08T10:03:00.002-07:00

Extreme Measures: A Thriller by Vince Flynn

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This one is a page turner. It is hard to put down. A third terrorist cell is on its way to the US. Can Rapp and Nash intercept them or will the senate judiciary committee chairman have her way and toss our heroes in the clink, for using extreme measures?

This may help explain the somber look on Obama's face when he exited his first briefing with the president. He needs our prayer because while the book is fiction, the issues are not.

View all my reviews.

A Little Global Warming in a Snowstorm

2008-12-08T09:45:00.001-07:00

Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed by Christopher Horner

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Christopher C. Horner gives evidence that the whole Global Warming "Crisis" is a political ploy. He documents how scientists who do not fawn over the politically correct line are shut out. This includes their being disinvited from summits, conferences, etc., because this isn't about the environment it is about government.

Oh, and money! While environmental enthusiasts point out any contribution global warming skeptics receive from any energy producer they neglect to point out that the global warming crisis is a 6 billion dollar a year industry that would disappear overnight if there were no "crisis."

While this is not a book dedicated to Global Warming statistics, it uses plenty of them while making the point that the whole "crisis" has as its goals, 1.) bigger government; "the Koyoto Protocol is the first component of an authentic global governance." (former French president Jacques Chirac) and 2.) Money as described above.

Those of you my dear readers who have been convinced by the Al Gores of this world will never believe me, so read this book. I gave it only 4 stars because some of the writing is difficult to follow mainly due to the detail he gives some of the issues.

It is definitely a must read for anyone who is truly interested in truth, not propaganda.

View all my reviews.

The Dream That Lives On

2008-11-21T17:58:00.001-07:00

I know you couch potatoes will have trouble believing this, but even after two aborted attempts to hike the Appalachian Trail (AT) the dream still appears at the strangest times. We are resigned to the fact that we won’t be hiking on the AT anymore. Short of a knee replacement I will never have the knees to do it. We waited too long to try.
The next best possibility is not practical either. While I can hike a week or maybe two at a time, we live too far from the trail to hike it a few miles at a time. So that won’t happen either. We had our shot and we were shot down. Over three different hikes, we managed just about 800 miles. We are going to have to be satisfied with that.
Knowing and submitting to the facts doesn’t keep the dream from reoccurring. Today after lunch I was going out to the deck to sit in the sun for my vitamin D fix. (Dr.’s Orders not laziness) I decided to take a cup of coffee, but I didn’t want to make a pot so I settled for a cup of instant. When I sat on the deck, in the cool air, a slight breeze causing the remaining leaves to fall, and sipped the instant, it felt like an afternoon on the trail.
The only coffee we had while hiking was instant. I almost never drink instant any other time. But when I took the first sip I was transported back to the trail. I spent the first 5 minutes of my vitamin D time daydreaming and wishing. It is crazy.

In Memory, Tony Hillerman 1925-2008

2008-10-29T09:20:00.001-07:00

I lost a friend this week. He died at age 83 of Pulmonary distress. He was a friend I never met, but spent many hours enjoying his storytelling. I will miss his engaging tales of life in the Four Corners area. Most of my Utah friends will say, “Tony who?” Most of my New Mexico friends will agree. Tony Hillerman was a great story teller.

Tony Hillerman was a journalist who decided that if he was going to make up stories he might as well sell them as novels. He wrote mystery novels with a twist. The twist was the primary mystery solvers were two Navajo Policemen, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee. The books contained insights into the life and culture of the Navajo. One article said that an early book agent told Hillerman he should lose the Indian stuff.

Reading a Hillerman mystery was about traveling the Navajo Reservation and the area around it, Albuquerque, Farmington, Gallup. I can see in my mind’s eye Jim Chee’s trailer house down on the San Juan River in Shiprock. The reservation roads to the trading posts, the mountains, the canyons, the sheep meadows are not understandable to those whose life has been spent in the city. I have driven on many of those roads and hundreds more like them in the four corners. I could lose myself in a Hillerman book and day dream my way back to a simpler life.

Fiction is not my favorite read. But over the years there have been three authors whose books I bought on the day they were released. (Well at least on the day they showed up at Sam’s Club or Costco.) I didn’t even wait for the paperback version. Now one of them is gone. I will miss Tony Hillerman and the adventures of Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn.

Oh, the other two authors for those of you who don’t know are John Grisham and Tom Clancy.

USA Today with Biblical Understanding

2008-10-28T10:48:00.002-07:00

There is an Interesting article on page 9d of USA Today, Tuesday October 28, 2008. It is about the discovery of Egyptian artifacts in a copper mine in Jordan. The article is about King Solomon, the Old Testament kingdom of Edom, copper mines, and Pharaohs.

3000 years after Solomon died archaeology is discovering one of the mines that contributed to his great wealth. I am continually amazed at the discoveries in the dirt of the middle east, findings that lend credence to the Bible.

Of course this discovery proves nothing. I don’t need it to prove anything where my faith is concerned. Just the fact that competent archaeologists find in their digs the very things you would expect them to find if God’s word had any historicity.

The Bible tells us that Solomon was one of the wealthiest men in ancient history. But when offered wealth by the Lord, he instead chose wisdom. Thus we hear “The Wisdom of Solomon” referred to as a positive thing whereas we rarely hear of “The Wealth of Solomon.”

This wise man concluded his treatise about life by saying “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13 NASB)

What's That Again?

2008-10-20T14:33:00.001-07:00

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas E. Woods Jr.

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
While I am not naive enough to accept everything in this book at face value, it does have an interesting alternative look at some of the major events in American History.

I was especially interested in the articles on the Civil War, (which the author points out wasn't a true civil war) WWI and the intentional methods of Woodrow Wilson to manipulate us into joining the war, and the chapter about the causes of the great depression.

The book is weak at the point of references. While the bibliography is a long one, the text is not footnoted.

Read it, you may just learn, or rather relearn some of your own history.

View all my reviews.

Head GO! vs Heart NO!

2008-10-03T07:46:00.007-07:00

I first became aware that there is a difference between being a head fan and a heart fan during the Western regionals for NCAA basketball back in the 90's. The tournament was held in the "Pit," home of the UNM basketball Lobos. One of the teams to make it to the regional was the New Mexico State aggies.

On my way to the game my friends asked me, "So who will you be pulling for, the Aggies or UCLA"?

My head tells me it would be a great thing for the state of New Mexico basketball if the aggies could pull off a win against the heavily favored Bruins. "I will be pulling for NMSU", I confidently responded. But inside the pit, when the aggies ran out onto Bob King Court in their fringed warm ups, I immediately switched allegiance. I have pulled for the aggies in the newspaper, and even cheered them heartily on television, but my heart would not allow me to pull for them in the Pit. No way Jose.

I have the same problem today with BYU and Utah. While undoubtedly they are Mountain West Conference leaders, along with TCU, and it helps the conference where the BCS is concerned for the Utes and the Cougars to win outside the conference, my head says GO! but my heart says NO!

I try, I really try to pull for the Utes. And that is the truth. How awesome that the Mountain West Conference is 6-1 against the PAC 10. If I could just wake up in the morning and read the scores and see that Utah beats OSU 31-28 my head can say, “YEA” But if I watch the game as soon as I see that stupid helmet with the feather Logo or Swoop that ridiculous feathered mascot, or hear “I’m a Utah man sir” I immediately revert to what I was born to be.

Funny isn’t it? My head says "GO"!, my heart says "NO"! I have the exact opposite reaction to the Texas Longhorns. I don’t want to pull for them. My head doesn't care if they ever win a game, but when they run on the field and I see that awesome Longhorn Logo, Bivo the majestic live longhorn steer, and hear “The Eyes of Texas are upon you” my heart says “hook em horns"!

I am just being honest here. It is something I do not fully understand. I may never have a Lobo football team to be proud of. But I am a Lobo none-the-less and three teams Lobos don’t pull for, New Mexico State, BYU, and Utah. “I’m a Lobo fan sir, I’ve been one all my life.” And that, is the rest of the story.

Isaac's Storm

2008-09-16T07:23:00.000-07:00

Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
As hurricane Ike hurtled toward Galveston I was reading this book about the 1900 Hurricane that virtually destroyed the same city.

Isaac Cline was the representative of the US Weather Service stationed at Galveston. The book is about him, the weather service, and the hurricance. Weather prediction was in its infancy and Isaac was attempting to learn the science.

It is a story of Government impotency that gives perspective to Katrina.

View all my reviews.

2008-09-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved by Russell Martin

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
In 1827 a budding musician cut a lock of hair from the body of a recently deceased Ludwig Von Beethoven.

In 1995 two Americans employed scientists to open a simple locket that contained a lock of hair, purportedly from the great musician, Beethoven.

This book deals with two questions. 1. How did this lock of hair make the journey from early 19th century Vienna to a late 20th century London auction house, and 2. what does the examination of the hair tell us about the life and death of Beethoven.

The first question is enhanced when one considers the history of 20th century Europe and the Nazi attempt to eliminate all things Jewish.

The book has a varied pace, sometimes very slow and cumbersom, at times as quick paced as a mystery. I gave it a 3 star rating (out of a possible 5) because of the slow pace and because after reading it, I now know trivia so trivial it will never even show up on trivial pursuit.

View all my reviews.

Anonymous Comments

2008-09-01T18:37:00.001-07:00

One thing that has always bugged the daylights out of me is people who are so cowardly as to make anonymous comments. It began early in the pastorate. An envelope without a return address came in the mail. Being young and inexperienced I opened it to find a 5 page letter. The writer proceeded to complain about everything under the sun. They didn’t like me, they didn’t like the church, they were very critical of everything and they didn’t sign the letter.

It upset me terribly. For one thing, I didn’t think many of the complaints were valid but I couldn’t discuss them with the complainer. I was really bothered by the whole situation. But the thing that bothered me the most was the yellow bellied writer who spouted opinion while hiding from their own comments.

I made a life decision that I followed all my years as a pastor. If a letter came unsigned, I tore it up and threw it in the trash without reading it. If a person didn’t want me to know who they were, I didn’t want to know what they thought, good or bad.

One of the reasons for writing a blog is to open communication with people I couldn’t normally converse with. Every time I write anything concerning Mormonism I get an anonymous comment. Go ahead and look through my archive of blogs. Look at the blog about Mitt. Look at the blog about the Temple in Idaho. That is why I believe the comment on my last blog has more to do with Mitt than with my position on abortion.

Either way, if a commenter doesn’t have the gumption to identify themselves, they don’t deserve a hearing. I don’t have to read them. Beginning with this post anonymous comments are no longer allowed. A commenter will have to identify themselves. It isn’t hard to do, and it doesn’t cost anything. You will have to have a Google, AOL, or Yahoo account to comment. There are some other options, but anonymous won’t be one of them.

Don’t let that stop you. I want to hear from you. But I want to know who you are.

Election thoughts

2008-08-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

As I sit here listening to the Democratic convention my thoughts drift to my own political journey. I have trouble believing many of these speakers believe what they are saying.

I am not excited about our choices for president this year. The first time I was old enough to vote for president I was in favor of the democratic candidate. I didn’t vote because I moved in October of that year and it was obvious that George McGovern had no chance to unseat a very popular Richard Nixon. My first vote was in 1976 when I voted for Gerald Ford. Four years later I voted for Jimmy Carter against Ronald Regan. I voted for Jimmy Carter, not because I thought he was a good president, but because his presidency gave me a multitude of opportunity for spiritual conversation. His outspoken claim to be born again was a great conversation starter.

Between 1980 and 1984 it became obvious to me that there was a great divide in our country between those who called themselves pro-choice and those who called themselves pro-life. They were called respectively by their opponents, pro-abortion and anti-choice. At that time I realized that the culture war that was being fought called for a change in strategy in presidential voting. Since that time I have voted for the pro-life candidate in any election where I had that choice.

You see, I am not sure about conservative/liberal issues of economics. Reganomics sounded good, but didn’t seem to work as good as it sounded. It wasn’t until Bill Clinton became president that the government began to get control of the deficit. Now I understand the conservative arguments. I have used them many times. It took that long for the tax-cuts that Regan initiated to make the difference. It wasn’t until 1994 when Republicans took control of congress that the deficit came under control. I know those arguments, but they are opinion, they cannot be proved. I think John McCain is the most honest of the candidates ever, “I don’t completely understand how the economy works.” I am not sure any of the others do either.

It does seem that democrats are for higher taxes. But then, if we are going to do all the things for people that both Republicans and Democrats want to do, then we need taxes. The money doesn’t grow on trees. W has given Americans all the things the democrats say they need, but he doesn’t raise the money to pay for it. So we have deficit spending again. I know, it is the democratic controlled congress that passes the money bills, but it is the president that signs them.

Now that McCain has not chosen Romney for VP I will support McCain. There is one issue that I look at first, like many other Americans. I cannot vote for a President, a Senator, or a Congressman who doesn’t hold life sacred. A woman’s right to choose cannot come before a baby’s right to life.

2008-08-06T08:05:00.003-07:00

An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind by Erwin Raphael McManus

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
It took me a while to work my way through this one, not because it wasn't good, but because it inspired a lot of thinking.

The chapter on Spiritual Leadership is one every Christian leader, especially Pastors, should read. The Epilogue, chapter 10, entitled Radical Minimum Standard is a chapter every believer should read.

His statement that in today's church we live with a conspiracy of mediocrity, that we are unwitting enemies of nobility and heroism, where we choose to live where apathy is normal and average is the goal, reminds me of a statement of Billy Sunday, "most christians are so sub-normal that when you see a Christian that is normal, we think he is ab-normal."

View all my reviews.

The Beatle Dilemma

2008-07-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

Last night we went back 40 years to a 1968 Beatles concert. A band of Beatle impersonators were a part of the Utah Symphony’s Deer Valley Music Festival. The festival is an open air event. Spectators sit on the grassy ski run. We took a couple of quilts, (there were six of us, including my mother who couldn’t believe I took her to a Beatles concert) and a picnic dinner to eat on the slopes while awaiting the concert’s beginning.

The first sign that this was to be an adventure came on the trip from the parking lot to the slopes. It started to rain. Off and on throughout the evening it rained, until we were pretty much all wet. But the concert went on as planned.

Here is the dilemma. I like the music. Even our symphony musician friend says the music is genius. Many of the songs have words not from my world view. “I get high with a little help from my friends.” The impersonator dressed as John Lennon sits at the piano and does a great rendition of Imagine. Pretty music with artistic lyrics that fit together in a delightful way make the song fun to listen to. But singing along is difficult because I don’t believe the message in the words.

It isn’t a dilemma just for rock and roll’ers though. Several years past I went to a Garth Brooks concert where the song everyone waited for and brought the greatest response is one Garth is noted for. It too has a fun tune and witty lyrics. I don’t go to low places where whiskey drowns and beer chases the blues away, even if I have friends there, but it is fun to sing.

Puritans among us might say we best avoid all worldly amusements. There is a progression here. You could just accept the alternate world view. Or you could sing the songs while rejecting the worldview. Perhaps we should avoid the songs with a secular worldview. Any artist who sings the songs with a secular world view should be avoided. We should not partake of the genre that has the songs with the secular world view. Even a music style should be avoided, if it is a style that is used by those espousing a secular world view. That would include using the music in church with spiritual words. Then the last step, maybe we should avoid music all together.

The dilemma then is to decide where you draw the line. I suppose most of us would agree the first and the last options were going too far. Now you have to choose where along the way you will draw your line.

Talk to me. I would like to know what you think.

Oh! The concert. Even though we were all wet from the rain, and cold from the wind that followed, I think we all, from Mom and Dad to the ten year old with us had a good time. Or then, maybe I am just seeing it all through my perspective. I had a good time, the others will have to speak for themselves.

The Last Lecture

2008-07-13T09:14:00.003-07:00

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
When I read a small book like this, I am usually happy to find one thing worth writing in my notes/journal/idea book. In this book I wrote down 10. Great book.

View all my reviews.

Imagine. You get the news from your doctor that you have less than 6 months to live. What would you want to say? What would you want others to know? What message would you like to leave to your kids? Grandkids?

The Last Lecture is a book by Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He was asked to give such a lecture at his college. The difference, Randy Pausch had been told by his doctor that he had less than six months to live. Pancreatic cancer.

The book is his lecture with some added chapters. It is his attempt to leave a message to his three children, the oldest is only 6. The youngest is 18 months and Randy is aware his littlest daughter will have no memories of him. So he set about to make sure his children knew who he was, how much he loved them, and how much he would have like to have lived with them.

My friend Lynn has received the same prognosis. Unlike Randy who is in his 40’s, Lynn is in his 80’s but some things never change. He is looking at how he will spend the few months he knows he has left. While visiting Lynn last week a mutual friend gave him a copy of The Last Lecture. He already had it so they agreed to allow me to read it. I am thankful they did.

It is a book worth reading even if you don’t have a set amount of time left to live.

Barbs Day

2008-06-02T14:07:00.001-07:00

All along the trail the flowers are plentiful. Even early on the trail, before there were leaves on the trees there were flowers on the ground. Bluets are delicate little flowers, blue like their name. Trout lilies are yellow flowers with spots resembling spots on a trout. The Dwarf Iris is just that, a little Iris and they have a purple blossom. One of the earliest flowers we saw and one that was impressive because of the way they covered the ground was the Spring Beauty. Several times they looked like snow on the ground.

One of Jen's favorites was the Lady Slipper. “I have heard of them all my life but this is the first one I have ever seen” she said as we looked at the pinkish red blossom. Another favorite was the Trilliam, we saw white, yellow, pink, and blue ones. The red ones have a different name though they are the same flower.

Hiking for long distances and long time allows the mind to go anywhere. Jen chose to use much of her time and her love of flowers to pray for our family. When she saw a Bluet, she prayed for our daughter Amy. When she saw a yellow flower she prayed for our son Josh who was overseas in the war zone. His wife Krista was prayed for when there was a purple flower, and our Grandson's prayer flowers were the white ones. Our son Nathan and his wife Amy were prayed for when she saw ferns.

Between the hikes, from last year to this, Jen found out that her friend Barbara has breast cancer. The most abundant plant on the trail has been the Rhododendrun. From Georgia to Central Virginia there have been Rhododendrun everywhere. So Jen decided that Barbs prayer plant would be the rhododendrun. In addition to being abundant they were tough plants growing in a difficult environment, a perfect environment to pray for Barb.

We were always ahead of the flowering rhododendrun however. We had not seen one in bloom, until today. Not far up the trail we crested a hill and there on both sides of the trail and into the woods as far as we could see, the rhododendrun was in bloom. It was beautiful. Rhodendrun blossoms look to be about the size of a softball, but when you look at them closely you see that they are made up of a cluster of much smaller blossoms.

This is when Jen told us about rhododendrun being Barb's flower. So after a few minutes hiking in the middle of flowering rhododendrun we stopped. We decided that maybe this was a day Barb was in need of our prayer, so we prayed for her and Pete. Then we dedicated the hike on this day to Barbara Straker. It became Barb's day.

Keep on Barb, we are with you.

Plan C

2008-05-15T08:46:00.003-07:00

Plan A= 2007 through hike, Georgia to Maine in 7 months. NOT.
Plan B=2008 section hike from Virginia to New York
2009 section hike from New York to Maine. NOT
Plan C=2008 slack pack or day hike as much of the remaining sections as you want to hike. Leave your camping gear in the truck and carry less than 15 pounds.

Maybe then, the weak knee will be able to handle the trail. I have to admit that three doctors and two physical therapists were right. My knee structure will not allow me to carry 40 pounds up hill and down for 2000 miles. After 8 days and 79 miles on the trail it is painfully obvious that the knee will not handle the weight. So here in Pearisburg, Virgina we are calling plan B off. Now we will be day hikers, still trying to hike the trail but hiking from road to road and eating and camping out of the truck.

The decision to make now is if traveling this way is worth passing every white slash which will still take this summer and next to complete or if we should just cherry pick the sweet parts of the trail to day hike and end the hike in Maine in July.

Jen really wants to wear the T-shirt that says, I am a 2000 miler, so we will probably try to keep going north, one section at a time. (tell me, 2007 thru hikers, did anyone get that T-shirt?)

We have some friends from Georgia coming to join us in our trek now. We will have two cars and can drive one ahead and the other to the trail head, and just leap frog them up the trail. It is not the way we would have preferred. But if we are going to get any more of it done, this will have to be the way.

Get In The Game

2008-05-09T19:08:00.004-07:00

Flint and Jubilee are back in the game. We may not win at first, but we are at least on the move north once again. When I was in High School we had a period of time each year when you were “in training” for the sport you were playing. When you were “in training” there were certain things you did, and certain things you didn't do. If you were “in training” for basketball for example, you swore off of cokes and candy bars. Well at least you were supposed to. I dont remember a coach ever telling us that, it was just something we all talked about doing.

There is a definite “in training” for hiking. And it is obvious that we are NOT in shape. We are back where we were when we began last year. After 3 ½ days of hiking we have accomplished 33.9 miles. That is just short of our beginning goal of 10 miles per day. I was sure we could do better than that, but not yet. Tonight we are in a motel in Bland, Virginia. Tomorrow will be resupply then on to Pearisburg.

Paul the Apostle said that we should “train” ourselves for godliness. Have you ever stopped to consider what that means? How much spiritual inaction does it take for us to fall out of shape?

The Last We Saw of Giblet

2008-05-02T20:56:00.001-07:00

Many of you remember our hiking chicken from last year, Giblet and have asked if he will accompany us on our hike this year. Giblet was very glad to get home from the trail last year, after all, she had to wade naked through chest deep snow in the Smoky Mountains, stand on her head in Tennessee and was upset that we dangled her over the edge of Fontana Dam.

When we started getting ready for the hike this year we decided Giblet must be hiding from us because we couldn't find her anywhere. A little research determined that she was last seen heading south, trying to quack, flapping her wings, and wondering why she wasn't evolving into a duck. After all, who ever heard of a hiking duck?

She needs to be worried though. In the resturant today at the Cabelas store in Nebraska we were sitting out a snow storm. (Entertainment is hard to come by in Sidney, Nebraska.) Jen went by the hot food bar and they had hot wings for sale. They were not labeled buffalo wings, or even chiken wings, they were duck wings. Just to be sure, Jen asked, are those really duck wings? The attendant assured her they were from authentic ducks.

If they start taking their wings, ducks will have to start hiking.

Oh The Places You Will Go

2008-04-29T08:46:00.002-07:00

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
--Dr. Seuss--

Some wonder about the brains in our head part. But our feet are in our boots and we are ready to steer them past the white blazes that mark the Appalachian Trail.

We leave Thursday for Virginia and the place we dropped off the trail. We will get back on the trail 2 days short of 1 year later. Our Thru hike has become a section hike. If we can hike three good months we will attempt to finish the trail in 2009.

If you want to follow our hike, I will post here updates on where we are and things that have happened. I will be keeping an online journal at www.trailjournals.com.

">

Supposedly you can get to our journal by going to www.trailjournals.com/flintandjubilee but I haven't been able to get that to work yet. So go to the home page, go to the journals section, be sure you are on the Appalachian Trail 2008 page and scroll down. If you sort by trailname, look for flint and Jubilee, if you sort by name look for Rodger and Jennifer Russell.

This will give you an idea of how many hikers or on the trail, so see, we are not totally insane.

The Quaking Desert

2008-04-20T07:31:00.002-07:00

At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds,the whole land quakes.
Jeremiah 8:16 HCSB

It sounded like a dull rumble coming from up the river. My first thought was it sounded like the arroyo behind our house when I was a kid. Long before flood waters would reach our place you could hear the water’s roar. I didn’t have long to worry about whether we would be high enough above the river to escape the rising water before I realized this was something different.

I could hear the distinct sound of hoof beats. Horses! This is wild horses running down the canyon.

We were camped in a narrow canyon on the Muddy River. The canyon was less than 75 yards wide where our camp set. The river and accompanying brush filled two thirds of the canyon between our camp and the river.

The sound increased in both decibel level and intensity. I began to wonder if I should get in my Tahoe or at least behind it. But I was literally transfixed. I could not move. I stood in complete wonder at the fantastic sound of the running horse herd.

And then they were there. Running between camp and river. In the pitch black darkness I could only see shadows. They ran by in waves, was it 10 seconds, 20 seconds, half a minute? I can’t tell you, only that my heart was beating in concert with the pounding hooves.

Imagine standing in the orchestra pit while the band plays the 1812 overture with the drums beating. You are at a rock concert standing in front of the bass amp and the music is pounding. You hear it in your heart as much as in your ears. This was the experience of the horse stampede.

Then they were past, and we heard the sound fade away down the river until it was only a memory. I looked and Jen, totally amazed. Wow! How awesome was that?

In the morning we saw some remnants of the herd grazing in the meadow below camp. Earlier we had seen signs that there were horses in the area, even spotting one herd the evening we were driving in. On the way out of the desert, later that day, we saw another herd lazily grazing off in the distance.

Can you just imagine the sound that early pioneers heard on the plains before the buffalo were all gone? This small horse herd was heart pounding, I can only regret that I never heard the sound of 100,000 buffalo running by. Mercy!

SNOW!

2008-04-07T08:48:00.003-07:00

Woke up this morning, happy as could be,
looked out my window, what did I see,
sitting on my driveway, and over on my porch,
there was snow that I never thought I'd see when we left March.
(with apologies to Buck Owens)

At least I could turn the furnace up and stay indoors. I have been following in my journal from last years hike on the Appalachian Trail and it was one year ago today, April 7, 2007 that we woke up at Icewater Spring Shelter to 17 degrees in the shelter and 6 inches of snow on the ground.

We had no furnace, we had no choice, we had to get up and hike. Well, we did have a choice though we didn't consider it very long. We could have hiked back south to the highway we crossed and go back to Gatlinburg and wait the storm out. Waiting the storm out is what a lot of hikers did. But not us, we hitched up and hiked north to the next shelter, further into the Smoky Mountains.

Boy that was fun. We have it all set up now, we think. If our ailments will allow us, we will be returning to Virginia and to the AT on May 5. Our hope is to hike until the last week in July. Goals:
Jennifer: Get Across Pennsylvania
Rodger: Get To Southern Vermont
Rodger: Lose weight to 200 pounds. (I haven't weighed that since my first year in college)
Both: Just be able to keep hiking for three months.

Jen of course is a pessimist. She also isn't much in geography. She doesn't realize that it is only 731 miles from where we will be starting to cross Pennsylvania. And it is 1033 miles to Southern Vermont.

The people we were hiking with last year all made it to central Vermont by August 1.

OK, so maybe we won't make Vermont. Let's shoot for NY. Wouldn't it be great to leave the trail at the Shelter in NY where you can catch mass transit to NYC? Maybe that should be our goal.

Realistically speaking. Our goal is to remain injury free, and just hike our own hike, at our own pace, and see where we get.

I wish we could convince just one of our friends how much fun this really is.

BIG BEND COUNTRY

2008-03-20T18:08:00.005-07:00

Big Bend National Park is not one that you hear a lot about. We had a fabulous spring vacation there last week. Of course, you have to really appreciate the desert to enjoy it much. Big Bend sits in the peninsula made when the Rio Grande makes a Big Bend along the Texas-Mexico border.

We had beautiful weather except for one night when the wind blew our camper around. The days though were warm and sunny with nary a drop of rain. There are several main areas of the Park. There is the River, the Desert, and the Mountains. The Mountains are desert mountains however, not a lot of the vegetation you are used to in mountains.

We saw a nice collection of wildlife. A beautiful red bird flew around our camp one afternoon. We later determined it to be a Vermilion Flycatcher. We saw lots of Road Runners and discovered that Chaparral does not mean Road Runner in Spanish. The Spanish word for Road Runner is Paisano. I was a little offended that I saw so many of them and they are the state bird of New Mexico—not Texas.

We saw Javalinas a couple of times. We learned that Javalinas travel in bands. We were calling them a herd, as in a herd of pigs, but we learned that they are neither pigs nor are they related to pigs. Hmmmm—they look so much like a pig.

Do you care about the animals. There was quite a bit of human activity around 1900 and it is interesting. Unfortunately the Park Service doesn’t think so. None of the signs tell much about the ranchers, miners, or farmers that tried making a go of it in that rough country. They spent their money on signs telling us really brilliant things like, “the closer you get to the rock formation the bigger it looks.” No kidding, that was the message on one of the viewpoint signs.

The pictures of our outing are posted at
http://gallery.mac.com/nathanrusell#100015
Take a look.

Computer Crash Causes Delays

2008-02-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

Last time I was ready to post a blog my computer crashed. I lost everything on the hard drive when I had to re-format. It was the night of the super bowl. I was watching the game and the commercials. I planned to give a report and a review of the best commercials. I had them all rated. But alas, crash went the computer and I have struggled to get back on line.

Just a note, I lost all my emails prior to Feb 3 so if I owe you a response, sorry, you need to rewrite me.

My favorite commercial was the one with Shaq riding a horse as a jockey. Poor horse. I expected there to be a disclaimer, “No animals were injured filming this commercial.” The horse under Shaq must have been pretty strong. I don’t remember what the commercial was for. But it was funny.

Commercials two and three were the E trade entries starring the talking baby. If you haven’t seen any of these commercials I recommend a quick trip to youtube.com and see them for yourself.

Jen and I continue to plan and prepare to pick up the Appalachian Trail where we left it last May. We hope to get close to three months of hiking this summer. I am working with a trainer to get the muscles around my knee in shape to make the journey. We are taking a test hike in March. We are going to hike for a week in the Big Bend National Park in Texas. That should give us a good idea if the AT is even possible.

One last comment in the potpourri of thoughts tonight. I was watching a movie the other night. Some FBI agents were sitting around a room discussing the case at hand when one of them accused the other of “misremembering” events. I just noticed that my spell checker accepts it as a real word too. Maybe Roger Clemens isn’t quite as off base as everyone makes out.

Getting Ready

2008-02-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you who think we are loony for hiking on the Appalachian Trail when we could be sitting in a rocking chair or a hot tub, get ready to send us to the loony bin. We are getting ready to return to the trail. Jen is working extra shifts in return for May, June, and July off. Our plan is to use those three months to try for another 1000 miles or so.

On my part, I have employed Mitch the Masochist to help me get my knee in shape. Twice a week I meet him at the gym and he tortures me for an hour. It is a lot like my athletic coaches used to do, except when we are done we don't get to shoot baskets or hit baseballs.

We have made a change to our water system. We are going to use a Ultraviolet Light Pen to sterilize our drinking water. It weighs a little more that 8 oz total compared to the pump and filter we carried last year. I have bought a new pack that weighs 3 pounds less than my old one. We have learned how to get by with less clothes, and we will be walking in spring and summer instead of winter so we should be lighter on clothes too.

I have a new ipod that weighs almost a full pound less than my old one. One piece of weight I have added though is a mini computer so we can maintain better communication and post our pictures and journals ourselves. It is a small computer that weighs only 2 pounds and is made for rough travel. It is an EeePC, look it up on the internet. I am using it to write this blog right now.

We are planning to go back to the place we left the trail the first of May and continue the hike until the end of July. That isn't enough time to make it to Maine, so we won't feel like we have to hurry. Maybe that combination, less weight, less time pressure, and better knee conditioning will allow us to hike for three months. I certainly hope so, and Jen is counting on it.

Snow Day

2008-01-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

In the Uinta range we thought we would try for some powder skiing, cross country style. After 2 weeks in the haze of a Salt Lake inversion where the air is unbreathable, the temperature never above freezing we thought we would get up into the mountains. What a beautiful day. There were just enough tracks to keep us from having to break the snow trail ourself, yet it was soft and beautiful powder. The sky was a beautiful dark blue that you only find in a cold clear mountain day. The temp was around 30 with sunshine so that once you started skiing, you didn't even need a coat. Did I say it was beautiful. Let me share a few pictures with you. According to the forest service map we made an 8 mile loop. None of us think it was quite that far, but...what do we know. And here is Uma. Don't feel sorry for Uma. It wasn't this bad for 8 miles and she had a blast. That tail never quit wagging.

Here is a video of her stuggling through the snow, we had just cut this trail and so there was still a place between the ski tracks and she had to struggle through it.

Perception vs Reality

2008-01-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

There are just some things everybody knows. Everybody knows that Colorado is America's best ski state. (Unless you live or ski in Utah and know better.) Everyone knows that Democrats believe certain things and Republicans usually believe something else. Everyone knows what young people are most concerned about these days. Everyone knows that people who live in California are the most ecologically correct citizens, just look at their laws.

Mr./Mrs. Perception--meet reality. According to Autobytel.com 40% of the people who are driving hybrids, the most ecologically friendly automobiles we have at this point in time, are Republicans while only 36% are Democrats. While this is not a significant difference, please be reminded that there are approximately 77 million registered democrats and only 55 million republicans nationwide. So if the democratic party is the environmental party, why do so many more republicans drive hybrids?

Young people are perceived as being most concerned with the environment. Of course they are the ones who have grown up with global warming preached as gospel to them since they were babies. The threat of nuclear winter that the boomer generation grew up with proved to be insufficient to justify bigger government. But reality shows that 57% of hybrid owners are over the age of 45. Yep, boomers own the most hybrids. Wait a minute! Aren't we the ones who are determined to destroy the earth and leave nothing for the generations to come?

Well, the reason for that, so we are told, is the expense of the hybrids. You have to be relatively wealthy to be able to afford one. "POP goes that perception. 35% of hybrid owners make less than $40,000 per year.

The final perception, that California, Oregon, and Washington residents are the ones who care for the environment lacks evidence as well. Only 16% of hybrids are owned by West Coasters. 31% are owned by Northeasterners, while 21% hail from the midwest. That, by the way, leaves 32% for the Mountainwest and the South.

I don't know what all that means, but I do know this. Perception is not reality, even if we think it is.

Earth's Sacred Places

2008-01-16T09:07:00.001-07:00

I have been in many of the world's sacred places. I have stood on the temple mount in Jerusalem, a holy place for two world religions. When my friend Dave and I received permission to enter the temple compound we were constantly watched by Israeli police. We were allowed to wander at will around the grounds but we entered neither of the Mosques that occupy the space once occupied by Herod's temple, the temple visited by Jesus.

Yesterday in Rexburg, Idaho I visited one of the holy places of another world religion, Mormonism. In the brochure they gave me is the statement, "The Temple is the Most Sacred Place on Earth for Members of Our Church." We were told that it is a holy place because it says so right on the facade, "Holiness to the Lord."

I have never toured a temple before but it was much like I thought it would be. We were encouraged to find a place of peace and inspriation there. Instead I found a place of boring sterility.

And much like our tour of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem we were watched carefully by the temple police. We were picked out as possible trouble makers early in our tour. Why? Well first of all, we (my friend Dan Walker) and I were two men while almost all the other tourers were families. Second we were not in the proper attire. They should have sent an announcement with the tickets clarifying the uniform of the day was dark suit, white shirt, dark tie. Very few men were not so dressed.

Anyway, we picked up a tail at the first room we visited and were followed all the way through our tour. Dan and I both picked this tail out even though we didn't talk about it until we were once again outside. As we passed other "agents" with ear pieces and radios we could hear them speak into their microphones, "clear." I suppose we could have just been imagining things, but the other tour groups didn't have radio equipped agents following them.

There was never an opportunity given to ask questions so many of the questions I had then, I still have. I probably wouldn't have asked them anyway since they would have further identified me as an infidel, oops, I mean gentile.

While the tour guides continually reminded us that this temple was dedicated to the savior, and the fulfilment of the gospel, and throughout they have framed preschool pictures of Jesus during his earthly ministry, the only appeal to believe was given in the sealing room where we were encouraged to think of eternity with our families.

Twice we were told that heaven wouldn't be heaven without our wives and children. In the sealing room we were told that this could happen under the authority of the priesthood given to Peter when Jesus told him that his were the keys to the kingdom and restored to Joseph Smith and the church in these latter days.

I was left with a sterile feeling. Beautiful buildings, (and beautiful is in the eye of the beholder) soft words, solemn testimony, strict security, complete control, shoe covering slippers, hundreds of smiling pointing usherettes, just left me with an aching heart to share with this people the simplicity of the true gospel.

Jesus built no buildings, he never had a building program. The disciples built no buildings. Paul, in all his missionary travels never encouraged his followers to build a temple. I am not sure when Christians decided they needed buildings of their own to gather in, but it sure wasn't in the NT period. Perhaps they knew, when beautiful building are built, men have the tendency to worship the building. That tendency is not limited to Mormons either by the way.

Well, this blog is becoming a sermon. I apologize. I will conclude with this condensation.

Condensation removed by Rodger

Ooops, Another book.

2008-01-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

My brother reminded me last night of a book I left off of my list. Bill Bryson is an author that draws me to his books. Some of them are pretty lousy, but he has some great ones too. His latest one, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is a must read for anyone who grew up in the fifties and sixties. He captures life in the fifties and early sixties through the lens of a pre-teen boy. Though he grew up in one of Iowa's larger cities and I grew up in a small New Mexico town, the experiences are very similiar.

Three other Bryson books I have really enjoyed. A Walk In The Woods, about the Appalachian Trail. In A Sunburned Country, about Australia. I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away.

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

I posted a list of books I read in 2007 if you are interested. Actually I posted them even if you aren’t interested, you just don’t have to look at them. They are in the sidebar to the right.

In reviewing my reading there are several things I find interesting. First I read less theology and church oriented books this year than in previous years. I guess that is to be expected though right now I have 5 such books on order for reading early in 2008.

Second, I read fewer books this year than last year. Of course, for two months I didn’t read anything. The two months we were on the trail I read very little. By the time all the work was done and it was time to relax, sleep is what I wanted. Besides that, I didn’t want to carry a book. On my Ipod I did listen to a book on Texas history, but I discovered that if you are going to listen to something while hiking, music is better than reading. For the other ten months I read at about the same rate as last year.

My dad led me to a new western author, well, new to me anyway. Elmer Kelton and I read six of his books. They resemble Louis L’Amour, except they are longer and a little more literary. A little I say.

If you would like a list of the books with a short synopsis/review of each one, let me know and I will email you a copy.

Hope you have a great New Year.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T13:28:00.001-07:00

Christmas day in Mill Creek Canyon.

Jen was scheduled to work on Christmas day. The 5am phone call told her, “hey just take the day off.” So she did. She just laid around the house eating leftover Christmas candy and cookies and watching TV. Not! She suggested we go for a cross country ski trip up her favorite canyon. It is her favorite because it is the only one of the canyons that allows Uma to accompany her.

It was a beautiful day for such an outing. So beautiful in fact that we had to park at the 3rd parking lot from the main lot there were so many people enjoying the canyon. But by the time we had skied 2 miles we were pretty much out of the crowds, and off of the snow packed road. Now there were only two ski tracks through a foot and a half of fresh powder.

It was crisp up there. The thermometer said 15 degrees when we started. I suspect by the time we turned around it was around 0. It was ok as long as you were moving, and had shoes on. Uma was beginning to get pretty uncomfortable and when we started down, Jen put her on her back. Other than the people thinking she had the ugliest baby in the state, it went pretty good.

Christmas Eve we spent at Alta with Amy. We downhill skied that day. It was a pretty day until about 1pm when the wind started to blow and by 3 the snow was pelting us pretty hard so we wrapped it up. We went down the hill a little way to Snowbird where we attended the Christmas Eve service they have there each year.

They had asked me to preach the sermon, those were their words. But the storm coming in kept the pianist and the music leader from showing up. So in addition to preaching the sermon I was also privileged to lead the music without accompaniment.

I preached on The Birthday of a King. Using Philippians 2 I pointed out that Jesus’ birth was different than any other in that He was not born and then grew to be a king. He was King who emptied himself to become like us. When Joseph held the baby in his arms he was holding the creator of the universe. When Mary nuzzled his neck and kissed his face she was kissing the face of God.

I quoted from the song “Mary Did You Know,” The baby you delivered will soon deliver you.

I talked about the Herod and the Wise men in all of us. There is a Herod in me that resents another wanting authority in the kingdom of my life. But there is a wise man too, that if I will allow, will fall down and worship the Lord Jesus.

All in all it was a good Christmas. We heard from Nathan and his Amy as they celebrated in Texas. Krista called from North Carolina and helped us talk to Andrew. He said “hi” to me, on cue. (along with hanging up on us two or three times) That was special. Josh surprised us with a call from Afghanistan. He had “borrowed” a satellite phone and called from the top of a building in the north east corner of the country.

We talked to our families and some other friends throughout the day. Our plan of Green Chile Enchiladas for Christmas dinner fell through though. After the 6 mile ski trip, we were content to eat some left over chicken and call it a day.

I pray you each have a wonderful new year, a really happy 2008.

God Bless

Rediscovered Gems

2007-12-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

While cleaning off my desk this morning I discovered an old pocket notebook. I have no idea how it appeared on my desk, except that in moving things have been displaced. Trying to fit all the tools from the two room suite Holladay provided for me into one little room at home that Jen allows me to use things are bound to show up in odd places.

It was one of those little pocket notebooks that I carried to make short notes in. It is from over 10 years ago. I thought you might be interested in some of the tidbits.

Jesus spoke of men who were alive as if they were dead. Paul spoke of men who were dead as if they were alive. –Rev. John Watson, Moab, Utah, at a funeral service 8/12/1983

God didn’t say to go into the world and pray. He said to go into the world and witness, and we can go into our schools and witness. –Dr. Frank Pollard

After holding hands in a circle of fellowship looking in we should turn around and hold hands in a circle looking out. –unknown

3 frogs are sitting on a log, one decides to jump off. How many are left? . . . Answer: 3. Just because you decide to do something doesn’t mean you do it.

The medical definition of death is a body that does not change.

Be anxious for nothing, prayerful, in every thing thankful, this is God’s will for you. ---Apostle Paul

7 first words of the church—“I can do all things through Christ”
7 last words of the church—“We never did it that way before”

Jesus can turn water into wine, but he can’t turn whining into anything.

Do you believe in God? I am not impressed. It is no big deal. You are in the company of the devil. He believes in god. Do you believe God? That is impressive! That is a big deal!

It is the voice of the church that is heard in singing together. It is not you that sings, it is the church that is singing, and you, as a member of the church may share in its song. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Questions for the believer:
In what area of your life is it hardest to obey the Lord?
What would your spouse say is your greatest contribution to his/her life?
What are you most apt to lie about?
What Christian character trait is your trademark?
What Christian character trait do you most lack?

A note made after attending a state board meeting of the New Mexico Fellowship of Christian Athletes. “Today I saw more concern for the lost expressed that in any Deacon meeting, Denomination meeting, Pastor meeting, that I have ever attended.”

For what it is worth. Have a great day.

Pastor Rodger

American Courage

2007-11-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

In the political climate we live in today we desperately need a good word about America and Americans. I don't know about you, but one of the most discouraging parts of our political system is the constant tearing down.

Men and women running for office make an effort to tell us how bad everything is in order to get us to vote for them so they can make it right. When the truth is, most of us have it pretty good.

The UN just announced that the best country to live in is Iceland. The 12th best country to live in is the United States of America. You can go ahead and migrate but as for me, and 6 million illegal aliens, we think we will stick here.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071127/ts_nm/un_development_index_dc

If with all the bad news about America you would like a little refreshment I have just the prescription for you. It is a book compiled by Herbert W. Warden III entitled, American Courage

American Courage is a collection of short stories recounting the courage of Americans from the Pilgrims at Plymouth Plantation to the Heroes aboard United flight 93 that crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside on September 11, 2001. I read this last story with tears in my eyes as the men and women aboard called their families, and realizing what was happening, made the fatal decision to keep Flight 93 from crashing into a building full of people.

I don't doubt that a book about Icelanders, Norweigans, Swedes, Canadians, French, could be published. The courage of these peoples may equal that of the American stories published, but they can never surpass them.

With each political hack from Hillary to Mitt to Fred to John I have to listen to, I am going to remember the stories of American Courage and remind myself, "Hey, things aren't all together that bad."

God Bless.

To Tie or Not toTie

2007-11-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

What a depressing feature. For over a millennium a properly dressed gentleman wore a neck tie. The tie serves no purpose except to hide the top button on a shirt. Perhaps it gives your girl a handle to grab you and pull you down to her face for a kiss, but that has never happened to me. Nor has a bad guy every grabbed my tie to direct me like the reigns on a horse, though that would certainly be a possibility.

We have been fighting the tyranny of the necktie for years now and we have made some progress. While here in Utah a trip to the ward meeting finds a bevy of white shirts and ties, a worship experience in most other venues finds very few ties. Many times no one is wearing a tie except the pastor and maybe one or two old timers who still believe it the dress code for the Lord’s house. At our church not even the preacher wears a tie. Usually he is wearing Jeans and sandals. We are making progress. Down with tyranny of the necktie!!

Just as this progress begins to register I see a feature this morning on CBS about the comeback of the tie. Once again the 20 somethings in our culture are rejecting the progress we have made toward liberty. Sales of neckties are up to that age group. It is becoming fashionable to wear a necktie again.

Some of the reasons given are,
It gives me a feeling of empowerment.
It gives me an air of respectability.
It makes me feel like I have one up on everyone else.
I feel more dependable with a tie.
I feel so stylish.
I feel like a good businessman.

Excuse me while I barf. A neck tie makes me feel non of those things. It makes my neck hurt. Wearing one too long chafes my neck. I feel trapped and totally a victim of the tyrant called culture whenever I am wearing one.

The interviewer on the news cast talked with a clothing salesman. The salesman in trying to make the case for wearing ties said “a tie ups the look a little.” I would say, “it ties up the neck a little.”

He said, that it “even dresses up Jeans. It is an interesting piece that makes one stand out more.”

Excuse me again. Ok, I am back. The documentary concluded with on the street interviews with one saying it makes me feel “clean, smooth, and proper.”

One last time, please excuse me.

I am old enough now that I can forget wearing ties. I don’t plan to wear one very often, only when not wearing one would be rude. But the 20 somethings are messing up their own lives, as well as the lives of those who follow. If they want to chafe their necks and wear a bridle, it is up to them. Go for it.

One last question. Why would a “postmodern” want to sell out to the “modern” culture of men’s wear and tie a noose around their own necks?

Lost Leisure, or Writers where are you?

2007-11-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

Oh no! TV writers are on strike. Whatever will we do. I won’t be able to watch my favorite TV shows like, well like, uh like. . . Gee I don’t guess I watch any TV shows. Actually that is not true. I sometimes remember to watch Jay Leno on Monday nights when he shows headlines. But that is it. Last year I watched 24, but 24 episodes of Jack Bauer stretches even professional writers to the limit.

So what can we do for leisure? I got an email from Amazon telling me that since I had bought a movie on DVD they were sending me the names of some other movies I might like to see. I am scratching my head for sure. What is it about watching The Bourne Supremacy that would make Amazon think I would be interested in two musicals, Hairspray and High School Musical 2?

I don’t think I will order them. Although I did watch a musical the other night. Some friends invited us to dinner and then offered to show us the musical 1776. Trying to be gracious guests we agreed and surprisingly I enjoyed the show. Like my dad said, “It was pretty good except for the musical part.” It is the story of the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were pretty good signers, but fell short as singers.

My favorite leisurely pastime is not affected by the TV writers strike. I just finished a biography of Johnny Unitas, called Johnny U. Subtitled The Life and Times of John Unitas it is as much about professional football in the 50’s and 60’s as it is about Johnny. It is a great read. Caution: the author, Tom Callahan doesn’t pull any punches when recording the locker room language.

How are you going to make it through a TV writers strike. The good news is there won’t be any new shows assaulting our senses with bad language, sexual escapades, and poor plots. The bad news is they will probably just show reruns with bad language, sexual escapades, and poor plots.

Turn the TV off and try a good book. Johnny U is a good one and you won’t miss the language you are used to on TV. The Worst Hard Time is a good history of the dust bowl days of the depression. You will be depressed too about the conditions in the great plains during the 30's. Next for me is a John Grisham book about football, Playing for Pizza.

De Ja Vue

2007-11-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

De Ja Vue. Does that mean, it happened again. Well anyway, it happened again.

I was playing golf with my friend Mark, also known as Golden Bear, though not because of his golfing prowess. As a matter of fact, not braggadocio, I had trounced him on the front nine. We were now on the fourth hole of the back nine and we were tied. We were keeping track of strokes and holes, and we were even on the back.

On the fourth hole we were both on the green in three. He had a 10 foot point to win the hole and he not only missed it, he hit it so far by the hole he didn’t lose his turn. I put my hands to my throat and taunted, just like A-Rod. Can’t do it when the chips are down.

Neil, the duffer we were playing with, kind of laughed, then he looked right at me and said, “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Joe Torre?” Mark and I almost fainted with laughter and poor Neil didn’t understand what he had said. Mark explained it as I lined up my putt to win the hole.

I don’t know if you are aware of the dilemma of this situation. You see, I don’t mind being the look-a-like of the manager of the Yankees. However, it is looking more and more like Torre will make a deal to manage the Dreaded LA Dodgers.

LA is one of the teams most mentioned to be in the running to take on the mega contract of the home run hitting, clutch time choking, A Rodriquez.

Just to make it clear. I don’t root for the Dodgers, period. Even if one is my alter ego, look-a-like, and the other the player most likely to erase Barry Bonds from the record list. Bronco fans don’t root for the Raiders, Jazz fans don’t root for the Bulls, and Yankee fans don’t root for the Dodgers. This Yankee fan would even root for the Red Sox if they were playing the Dodgers in the world series.

So my dilemma becomes obvious. Of course, since I won’t be wearing an LA hat, maybe people won’t be so quick to recognize the similarities as when Joe and I were both wearing the hat of Baseballs all time greatest franchise.

Joe, Joe, have you no standards?

Partisanship, Iraqi Style

2007-10-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

The only difference between the sunni/shia conflict in Iraq and the Republican/Democrat conflict in the US is we don’t use weapons…yet.

Other than that, the partisanship in America is every bit as vitriolic as the partisanship in Iraq. The Iraqi parliament cannot do anything because of the partisanship. How is that different than our own congress. They can’t seem to get anything accomplished because the democrats blame Bush for everything wrong, and the Republicans blame Democrats for all that is wrong and they spend their time and energy throwing barbs at each other. The only difference between Washington and Baghdad is American barbs are mostly verbal and sometimes legal.

Time magazine this week is a prime example. The president’s daughter has written a book about a teenage mother living with HIV. So the question to her is about the Bush’s administration hindering HIV/AIDS relief. “Aids is the fault of the Bush Administration.”

In the letters section a letter writer from California is responding to an essay about Brian Belichick and the New England Patriot’s cheating incident. Listen to this brilliant statement. “Even worse, this same attitude has allowed the Bush Administration to commit crimes against the constitution and the world.” Any occasion, even a football scandal, is legitimate for throwing barbs at the enemy.

Later in the letters section a writer from Jordan says that if President Bush could be persuaded to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and stop Israel from abusing the Palestinians the problem of violent radicalism in the Muslim world could be stopped. Did terrorism begin when we sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan or did we send troops because of terrorism? Don’t let facts get in the way of our partisanship.

In the first 12 pages of Time Bush is accused of keeping AIDS from being cured, committing crimes against the world and constitution and causing terrorism in the Middle East.

Instead of seeing all of these as problems we could be working on together, we are content, and Republicans are as guilty of it as Democrats, we are content to just set back and blame the other guy. They do the same thing in Iraq except they are not content with verbal assassination, they practice the real thing.

Crater Lake

2007-10-03T11:21:00.000-07:00

Last time we were at Fish Lake down by Richfield we found a trail head to Crater Lakes. No one we talked to anywhere had ever heard of Crater Lakes. There they were on the map though, and there was the trail head for a hike to the lakes. An unhiked trail to Jen is like an uneaten enchilada to me. “We will have to come back sometime and hike up to Crater Lakes.”

Well, this weekend was the sometime. John, Charma, Jen, and I began our hike to Crater Lakes on Friday morning. As we were gathering equipment at the trailhead three young people came back down the trail. I struck up conversation with them, specifically because I wanted to know if there was any use in carrying a fishing pole to the lakes.

“Are you planning to fish Crater Lakes?” he asked while eyeing my pole with a hint of humor in his eyes.

“We were thinking about it. Are there any fish in the Crater Lakes?”

“I don’t know. I have never been there.” He said. I took him at his word then, but later, after I had hauled fishing gear for 10 miles, I have my doubt he was very sincere. “You can let me know when you get back.”

The Forest Service trail sign said 2 miles to North Crater Lake. One thing we learned on the Appalachian Trail is that Forest Service signs are notoriously wrong. For example, the sign at North Crater Lake pointing back the way we had come said “Trail head 3 miles.” We all know that it isn’t 2 miles up and 3 miles down. How far is it really? The pedometer I have on my belt said we had walked 3.6 miles when we got to the 3 miles down sign.

And the Lake? What Lake? There isn’t any lake here. But I guess North Crater Lake sounds much classier than North Crater, which is what we found. We walked to South Crater Lake and while there still wasn’t much fishing, there was at least some water. The picture is South Crater Puddle.

Between the two lakes we jumped a small group of deer, does and fawns. We watched them scatter and then continued to South Lake. On our way back, just minutes later, we saw two fawns come back to the clearing. They were mewing like cats, calling for their mamas. I said, “Listen, they are calling for mom.” Jen wouldn’t believe me. She was sure I was making it up and what she was hearing was a bird and that as soon as she believed me that it was the deer I would laugh at her. Maybe I have fed her too many lines over the 41 years we have been together.

While we were eating lunch a horseman with a pack horse came into the North Crater. We thought about hiking out the way he had come in. Unfortunately we didn’t have a map. In front of us though was an unhiked trail. Jen wanted to hike it for an hour to see if it went anywhere. Charma wanted to go that way because she didn’t want to have to back down the steep trail we had come up. For once, John and I prevailed and we continued around the crater back to the trail we came up.

When we arrived back at the trail head, we looked at the map closely and discovered that the alternate trail did return to the trail head. Only it was about 4 times as long. That would have turned our ten mile hike into a 20 mile hike at least. Shoot! We might be still walking.

John and I made up a great story about all the fish we caught. Of course we didn’t bring any of them down the mountain because we practiced catch and release. And if I ever run into the guy who told me he had never been there with the glint of laughter in his eye, I am going to show him this picture of all the brookies we caught at South Crater Lake.

The next day, Saturday, we drove the Tahoe up the backside of the mountain to the same two crater lakes. I would say we wasted the day before by hiking to where we could have driven. But then, there would still be an unhiked trail on the plate. At least if we had driven there first, we wouldn’t have carried fishing gear for 10 miles.

On the bright side. I bought a new brace for my knee that I wore when we started down hill. I didn’t have any problems with my knee. Tomorrow I am going to get some orthopedic inserts for my shoes that will supposedly line the leg bones up so I will have less trouble. On a scale of 1 – 10, a return next May to the Appalachian Trail is approaching 6 ½.

Why Not Mittens? Part 2

2007-10-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

Just a follow up. What did I say about the LDS church using a Romney presidency to proselytize. Check out the following news item in today's Salt Lake Tribune.

Understand, I don't fault the LDS church for taking this opportunity. They have the right to do so. I just don't want to be a part of it.

Just say no to Mitt Romney.

http://www.sltrib.com/Salt%20Lake%20Tribune%20Home%20Page/ci_7062785

Why Not Mitt?

2007-09-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

Mitt Romney is admittedly an attractive candidate. He has business experience, governing experience, he is tall, good looking, and has an attractive wife. He is correct on most of the issues we are concerned about. At least the current edition of Mitt Romney is pro life, pro family, and conservative on fiscal issues and foreign policy. So why would I be opposed to voting for him?

If you read the news magazines evangelicals oppose Romney because of the doctrinal differences with the LDS church. Evangelicals believe Mormonism is a cult along the lines of Branch Davidism only a "more acceptable to our culture cult" like Jehovah’s Witnesses.

We are electing a president not voting on a Pastor. We don’t choose presidents on the basis of doctrine. They don’t have to agree with the gospel to be a good president. Make no mistake, while Mitt talks about the gospel, it is a different gospel. I don’t oppose Mitt based on the heretical doctrines of the LDS Church to which he belongs.

A lot of news sources believe opposition to Romney is based on the polygamy factor. The LDS church officially ended its ties with polygamy in 1890 although the unofficial acceptance continued for at least another generation. Even today there are many polygamists in Utah and if they will just keep their beliefs to themselves they go un molested although the young girls, 13 and 14 years old married off to uncles and cousins are not so lucky. See the Warren Jeff’s rape trial. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,231017,00.html

But Romney is not pro polygamy, nor do I believe his election will either make polygamy more or less acceptable or prevalent.

So what is my opposition to Romney based on? Romney grew up in the LDS church. Just like all good Mormon boys he was baptized at age 8, joined the Aaronic priesthood at 12 and became a deacon, became a member of the Melchizedec priesthood thus becoming an elder when he was 18. Before returning to BYU and marrying Ann he served as a missionary in France. Those are all the actions of a cultural Mormon and would describe most of the young men growing up in a Mormon home. But does he really believe?

ABC reporter Terry Moran asked Mitt on Nightline, January 29, 2007 Would you describe yourself as a devout Mormon? True believer?"

Romney answered, “Absolutely. I'm proud of my faith. It's part of my heritage.” USA Today asked Romney if he would disagree with any aspect of LDS church? His response: "I wouldn't take it upon myself to try in any way to distance myself from my faith. I love my church. I am not going to pick and choose doctrines and beliefs." USA Today 3/12/2007

That being the case, let me tell you a few things Mitt Romney believes about you and your faith.

1. He believes that your faith, unless it is LDS, is corrupt. Mormonism was founded on the first vision of Joseph Smith who said God told him that all the religions were corrupt and all their professors were corrupt. Professors was not a word talking about teachers as we use the word, but to all those who profess to believe.

Every Sunday when Mitt and Ann attend the local ward meeting they hear from every speaker that the LDS church is the only true church. It is a part of the testimony of each speaker. So if he accepts all their beliefs, as he has said, he believes that your church is corrupt and not true.

2. Mormons who do not stay in line are disciplined. First their temple recommend is taken away, meaning they can no longer enter the temple and do the temple work. (be baptized for the dead, be sealed for eternity, or attend the temple marriages of their children or friends.) Then if they don’t straighten up they will be excommunicated and will no longer have the blessings of the gospel.

That may be the reason Romney makes such statements as he accepts all the doctrines and beliefs. He doesn’t want to be excommunicated. Do we want a man as president who must believe certain things or be excommunicated from his church and from his chance to become a god?

The LDS church is very lenient about political views. If they required all good Mormons to tow the church line they would have to excommunicate Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. But what would they excommunicate a politician for? I don’t know.

3. Mormons do not preach a gospel of conversion. They don’t even call what they do evangelism. They call it proselytizing. Because that is what it is. They want the members of your church to become the members of their church. Not so you will be saved, and have an opportunity to go to heaven, but so you will belong to the correct church.

A Mormon president would be a real boon to their proselytizing efforts. That is why Utah is the brewing ground for a Romney presidency. Recently he used the mailing list of LDS Living magazine as a fund raiser. LDS Living has a strong connection to Deseret Books, some say they are owned by Deseret Books. Deseret Books is owned by the church. So the Romney campaign used a mailing list of the LDS church to raise funds. That would be like a candidate using the mailing list of Home Life (a Southern Baptist Family Magazine for those that don’t know) to raise funds.

Utah is one of the smallest states in the union, but except for California, Romney raised more money in Utah the first six months of 2007 than any other state. Why do you think that might be? Could it be because they know it will greatly enhance the stature of their religion thus helping their proselytizing efforts to have a Mormon president? Of course they do.

Robert Millet, Professor at BYU admitted such. He said, electing Mitt Romney would “be a statement that to some extent people have begun to treat Mormons as something other than an oddity." In other words, they would be more accepted as a religion.

So I am opposed to Mitt based on three things.
1. What he thinks of me and my faith.
2. His need to tow the LDS line or be disciplined.
3. The advantage to LDS proselytizing that his election would have.

One last comment. I think it would be a mistake for the Republican party to nominate Romney for this reason. A poll conducted in June by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg found that 35% of registered voters said they would not consider voting for a Mormon for President. The poll found that the only faith that would be more damaging for a candidate would be Islam. (Time Nov. 26, 2006) Republicans would be nominating someone with a high negative factor not based on political views. All presidential races are so close that a negative as high might tip the scales to the democrat.

If the presidential election is between say, Romney and Clinton I will have to do a lot of soul searching. And the question I will ask myself is “what is the price at which I sell my spiritual beliefs for political goals?”

Tell me, what do you think. I don’t believe I am infallible. Where have I gone wrong?

Aaargghh Matey, Blow me Down

2007-09-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

Do you know how to talk like a pirate? Arrghh matey. Shiver me timbers ya scurvy bilge rat. If you get used to it, you can begin to enjoy it. I think I will answer the phone tomorrow, “Ahoy, me hearty!” If it turns out to be someone I shouldn’t be calling me hearty, I might change it to, “Ahoy, you scurvy dog.”

My name tomorrow is Dread Roger Rackham. That is my official pirate name. You want to know your official pirate name? Go to this website and they will help you.

http://www.piratequiz.com/result.php

Why would you do that and what is this all about? Well you should know. September 19 is international talk like a pirate day.

So I am going to release my inner Pirate tomorrow. How about you? What is your pirate name.

Til then you scurvy bilge rat,
Dread Roger Rickham

Blogless

2007-09-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

I haven’t had a good blog in a long time. I still have a lot of things to say about hiking the AT, but that seems to have faded into insignificance now. Kiwi, the hiker we hiked through the cold Smokey Mountain National Park and who was with us the evening I hurt my knee for the first time will finish the trail this week. When we left the trail he was one day ahead of us, and last week he was hiking with one of the hikers we were with just before we quit. Congratulations Kiwi.

We are hoping now that we can return to Virginia and hike from the place where we left the trail to Harper’s Ferry next spring. That will take us about 5 weeks if my knee will hold up. I am trying to strengthen the muscles in the leg so I will be able to at least give it a try.

So if not the trail, what shall I blog about? I have lots of insights into scripture as I read and study on a daily basis. But I am not fleshing those out very much these days.

It is political season, but I am about fed up with the political system. We had such a great time on the trail NOT listening to or watching political news we just kind of decided that we would not resume when we got home. So since we left in March we haven’t listened to or watched Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Alan Combes, Bill OReilly, or any other political pundit, left or right.

I have a fantasy football team for the third year. I am not very good at it. The first year I place next to last giving me the second pick in the second year draft. The first pick, Tony Wolff took the player I wanted and I had to settle for LaDainian Tomlinson who turned out to be the very best fantasy football player. So I finished in second place. I may have been the only fantasy football owner in the whole nation who had LT on his/her team and didn’t finish in first place. So this year I had the next to the last pick again and in each round I drafted the best available player according to ESPN.com and this week I am going to lose to the player, Sean Patrick, who drafted after me. He has three players playing tonight on Monday night football, QB, WR, and his Kicker. He is only 5.5 points behind me. All my players have played. I wonder if they have fantasy golf and I could get Tiger Woods.

Other than fantasy though, it was a good sports weekend. BYU and Utah both lost, Utah to a Mountain West Conference team. New Mexico beat New Mexico State. The Yankees won two and are now 4 games ahead in the wild card race for the playoffs. And the Broncos pulled out a close one. It has been a long time since they won a close game that came down to the wire.

I am having trouble getting into the presidential race. I shudder at the very thought of having to listen to Hillary. Her voice alone grates on my nerves, never mind the way the things she says grate on my sensibilities. When she is talking she sounds like she is either whining or nagging, and sometimes both. I can’t imagine what life would be like should she win. On the republican side I could never vote for Mitt Romney. I will probably write a blog soon on why I don’t think a Mormon president is a good thing. Rudy Guiliani has not been a conservative although he is tough on foreign policy. I like Mike Huckabee but I am not sure he can win. Fred Thompson may be the best choice but I don’t know much about him at this point. And political blogs are boring, don’t you think? Look at Mike Huckabee’s answer to the creation question here.

Great job Mike.

My time has been taken up the last few weeks with events in our state convention where I am finishing my second term as president. I cannot be elected to a third term so that is coming to an end, PTL. That has been a time of stress and I don’t want to write about it. You don’t need to know all about it and I don’t need to go over it again.

I have read a couple of good books I could recommend. “Manhunt” is the story of the search for John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated Lincoln. “Brutal Journey” is about the Spanish Conquistadores who invaded Florida. The one I am reading now is “The Worst Bad Time” about the dust bowl days of the 1930’s. I recommend them all.

I put the AOL widget on my blog, over to the right. When it says “Rodger is online” it means I am just waiting to hear from you. So tell me howdy when you drop in. We don’t have to talk for long. Hopefully I can get inspired to blog soon.

Say Howdy When You Stop By

2007-08-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

Look on the right, at the top. See the box? If the box says, "Rodger is online" it means that my AOL instant messenger is online and active. Type a message in the box that says, "type here, press enter to send", Change the name from "aimguestxxxx" to your name, and send me a message. I would love to hear from you, even if you just say "hi!"

A GOOD DEED A GOOD FEELING

2007-08-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

We are late! We spent too much time in Durango at breakfast. The highway from Durango to Silverton is not one to hurry over. We are headed to a family reunion at Ridgeway, north of Ouray, Colorado. We are late, or did I already say that.

I had just been able to pass a few slow moving vehicles that had impeded our progress up Molas Pass. As we were going over the pass, there they were. Two hikers on the side of the road trying to hitch a ride. It was Jen’s family reunion we were late for so I asked her. “Should we pick up those two hikers?”

YES! She said it without hesitation. I am sure she was remembering the times we spent on the side of highways waiting for someone to give us a ride to town. We stopped and picked up a delightful young couple. They were school teachers from California. They were hiking the Colorado trail from Denver to Durango. They had been on the trail for 26 days. It had been a week since their last town.

As they got in they apologized that it had been too long since they had a shower. “I apologize for the stink.” Were her exact words. They were looking for a ride to Silverton. They were looking forward to a hot meal, a hot shower, and a good nights sleep in a real bed.

It brought back memories. And we were so glad to be able to help other hikers the way we had been helped. A ride is an easy thing to give someone. Amy was sitting in the back seat with them. “Would you like something to eat?”

“Oh, yes! And they began to devour the cookies that they desperately needed and that we didn’t need at all.

They were another week on the trail from Durango. We had eaten breakfast in Durango less than an hour earlier. My Starbucks I got as we left Durango wasn’t even cool yet.

Long distance hiking gives a person a new perspective on life. Before the Appalachian Trail experience I would not have even considered stopping for two hikers. If you are going over mountain passes and you see people with backpacks and a thumb out, they aren’t hitchhikers, they are distance hikers and need a ride to town. Could you give them a ride?

CONGRATULATIONS MR. ED

2007-07-24T07:52:00.000-07:00

Do you remember Mr. Ed? The Mr. Ed on TV was a talking horse. On March 24, nine days into our Appalachian Trail hike we met another Mr. Ed. Ed Lipscomb is a 61 year old thru hiker. He was tenting at a shelter the same night we were at the same shelter. He was already hiking 20 mile days when we were still struggling to make 12 miles.

Why do I mention Mr. Ed today? Simple. On Sunday, July 22, Mr. Ed completed the trail. He hiked to the top of Mt, Katahdin in Maine. That is the end of the trail. He completed the trail in 4 months and 3 days. What a great adventure. CONGRATULATIONS MR. ED

This link will take you to Mr. Ed’s trail journal on the date we met him. Read a few of his entries, they are interesting.

The other people we were actually hiking with are crossing into Vermont this week. We miss the trail, but we are glad and thankful for the 548 miles we were able to do.

http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=170585

A Dr. Visit

2007-07-04T21:34:00.000-07:00

Before you read this post there are two disclaimers. 1.) You may just want to skip this post if you are only interested in the trail adventure. This is about my stubborn knee. 2.) This is a fictionalized account. Dr Heiden did not say everything I quoted him as saying, nor did I for that matter. Jennifer thinks I should tell you what parts, but that wouldn't be any fun. I think you can determine it on your own.

I was looking forward to seeing the doctor about solutions for my knee. I am not old enough to sit the bench for the duration. I still want to be active, so what can we do to help my knee recover. 9:30 AM was the time, the Orthopedic Specialty Clinic was the place. It was 9:10 when I arrived. 9:10! I am never this early, I must be excited.

It is a good thing I was there 20 minutes early. I sat in the waiting room reading the book I brought along until 10:35. The fact that I had an appointment scheduled at 11:00 to share my own doctoral wisdom with another didn’t seem to faze them. I sat with both feet on the floor because crossing either leg over the other eventually makes the old knee hurt.

Finally I get called to the examining room where, as usually happens, you have to tell the whole story to the nurse as a warm up for telling the whole story to the Doctor. I kind of wish they would both listen the first time so I can be sure I get the story correct.

My Orthopedic Dr. is Eric Heiden of Olympic speed skating fame. He has a very good bedside manner and was very agreeable. We had a good conversation. He began with the Dr approved manner of poking, pulling, twisting, and pushing trying to find the painful part of the knee. He was able to find a few tender spots that none of the other health care professionals were able to find.

“Does it hurt when you sit like this?” demonstrating the way I had been sitting for over an hour in his waiting room. Now I knew why I had to sit there that long.

“How long has this been hurting?” he asked me as he pulled and twisted.

“Well, I hurt it on April 4 when we were long distance hiking. For 250 miles I hiked along, one step after another, and all of a sudden I took a step that hurt.”

“Do you like hiking?” was his next question.

“Well,” I replied, “I really do like my wife and she really likes hiking.”

“So she drags you all over the country to hike?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hmmmm, Lets look at the MRI.”

He read the MRI report and went over it sentence by sentence, telling me what each sentence meant. Then he sent me for some x-rays. The x-ray tech was all business so after a couple of attempts at conversation I went through the x-ray motions silently. When I returned to the room, the information I was waiting for, the answer to 2 months of waiting and wondering, here was the answer to my question, “what can I do to get back in action?”

He pulled up the x-rays on the computer. He then proceeded to show me each and every problem and where the lack of cartilage was affecting me.

“Here is a little bit of arthritis right here and here, but it is nothing unusual nor should it be giving you any problems.” Then he switched views to a side by side of both knees. “Ahh,” he said. Don’t you hate it when the Dr. says that. You don’t know if he is saying “Ahh, we are going to have to amputate the leg,” or “Ahh, now we know the problem.”

In this case thankfully it was neither. He pointed to the unevenness of the bones and said, “do you see this gap here in relation to this gap here?”

“Yes, it is pretty obvious”

“Well this is where you have used up the cartilage and this bone is causing the pain. The unevenness is like you have been living for 50 years with your front end out of alignment.”

“Oh,” I said. “Is that why I could never run very fast or jump very high?”

He looked at me, grimaced and said, “No that is because you are white!”

“Well as long as I have a reason. So basically you are saying that I was hiking along and after being out of alignment for 58 years, (I corrected his estimate of my age) and 264 miles on the trail, all of a sudden, my knee got old.”

“That’s about it.”

“So what do we do about it. I am not ready for a rocking chair.”

“You can consider several things. I could scope the knee and try to clean it up, but I really don’t think that is your problem. We could give you a cortisone shot and that will keep the pain out for a few months, but that isn’t a long term solution. We could give you something made out of the protein in a Rooster’s Comb. That will lubricate the knee and help what cartilage is left and that will last for 6-9 months. It works well for some people, not so good for others. You could get some orthotics made for your regular shoes and your hiking shoes that will bring your knee into alignment. That has about a 50% chance of doing some good. And finally you can consider changes in lifestyle.”

“Uh oh,” I thought. So I asked, “what does that mean?”

“Well,” he began, with the mantra that all of us big people are used to. You need to watch your weight and exercise the muscles around the knee. Knee bends, squats, ham string curls, etc.”

Then came the hard to hear part. “And you need to quit hiking down hill with a 40 pound pack on your back. When you are going downhill you are multiplying the force on your knees 11 times.”

“But Doc,” I protested. “We want to finish hiking the AT.”

“How far do you have to go?”

“Well,” I fudged. “Over a 1000 miles.” Yeah I know, It is more like 1594.7 but whose counting that closely? I mean if we were really counting it is only 1593.2. Of course from where we will have to restart it is the larger figure. He didn’t give me a straight answer.

“Ok,” I asked. What do I do for cardio exercise?”

“The best thing you can do is speed skate.”

“Uh, I have ice skated twice in my life, although the first time was on racing skates, about 41 years ago on a frozen pond at the local park.”

“The next best thing you can do is swim.”

“Do you think I could swim?”

“Sure.”

“Great, I have never been able to swim before. I am looking forward to getting to the pool.”

“Oh,” things don’t get by Dr. Heiden. “Maybe you better get a bicycle and ride a bike, or use a stationery bike.”

“How about the elliptical trainer.”

“That is better than the treadmill, you need to be careful. And hiking is ok, just don’t go up and down, hike on the level.”

So now we know my activity for awhile. I didn’t ask him about golf because his answer didn’t matter. I didn’t ask him about basketball because the answer is pretty obvious. I should have asked him about mowing the lawn though. He might have told me I needed to let Jennifer do it.

“OK, I decided. Lets do the chicken treatment I guess. That will eliminate the pain while I work to build up the muscles so I can maybe continue our hike next spring.” I didn’t say the last part out loud.

“We need to check your insurance, we may have to get a pre authorization.”

A few minutes later the first person I told my story to came in and told me the insurance said no dice. I can’t get chicken until I have the cortisone treatment. That is the same thing they told me when I asked Dr. Hill for one of the new medicines they treat psoriasis with. “Nope, can’t have the medicine that works until you try the medicine you have been using for 25 years that doesn’t work.” To be fair, they don’t know I did the cortisone for psoriasis years ago when we had different insurance.

Now I have a knee full of cortisone. I am ready to hit the gym. Then one more restriction before I go. “Give the cortisone a week to start working before you start the training.”

Now after only 8 hours, my knee feels worse than ever. Hopefully that is the cortisone at work. That is what Nancy nurse told me to expect. Hurt knee Hurt!

ARE YOU FAMOUS?

2007-06-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been identified as someone famous? Has anyone every mistaken you for a movie star, a politician, or another public figure? It is an interesting experience. Early in our hike we stopped for water at a trail side spring. A young solo hiker whom we later came to know as Chico passed by. We were friendly as was he and when he went by he looked back at me and said, “Are you famous?”
I said I was not, at least not in Georgia since there are probably not 5 people in the whole state who know me. He looked at me intently once again and then hiked on his way.
It was a couple of days, maybe a week before we saw him again. We were camped above a hiker shelter and I needed to go down by the shelter for water. When I got there, he was sitting on a log reading a book. I got our water and sat down for a minute on the opposite side of the small fire he had going just to talk a minute. We talked about the book he was reading and then he said to me, “are you sure you are not famous?”
I laughed. I forgot that he asked me that question when we first met. I assured him I was not famous. Over the next week or so we met him a few times. On one occasion he said to me, “You have to be someone famous.”
“Who do I look like to you?” I responded.
“Well,” Chico said, “I am not much of a sports fan but you sure look like a famous baseball coach.” Jen and I said in unison. “Joe Torre.”
“Who is that?” Chico asked. We told him the coach for the Yankees and he looked at me intently again and said, “Is that who you are?”
“Uh, it is baseball season in a few days, what would I be doing here on the AT if I was a baseball coach.” We laughed and then he was gone. He hiked much faster than we did and we didn’t see him again until Hot Springs where his wife had met him for the weekend. He introduced us to his wife as the baseball coach for the Yankees. She looked pretty hard at me and then shook her head. She didn’t believe it.
I have been mistaken for Joe before. One time at an outdoor concert a I saw a young man on the back row of the choir looking at me persistently. Usually you can’t tell who a person in a choir is looking at, but this kid was definitely looking at me. When they finished their set, he jumped off the back of the risers and made a bee line straight towards me. I figured he must be someone I had known in the past. He came right up to me and said, “Do you know how much you look like Joe Torre?”
I am honored, being as how I am a Yankee fan. I was wearing a Yankee hat at the concert, but I was wearing a Salt Lake Stingers hat on the trail. I would like to have Joe’s contract and his dollars, but I wouldn’t want his headaches for anything. The most expensive team in baseball and they have lost 5 of the last 7 and are not even winning half their games this year.
I think if there is any career that compares to being a pastor it must be coaching. You never know what you will be blamed for, you never know how those in your charge will perform, and you never know when you will be ready to move on to another team. At the same time, though there are the agonies of defeat, there are also the joys of victory. It is great to be the coach of a team and watch as that team performs well, either from the dugout, the bench, the sideline, or the pulpit.
What do you think? Do I look like Joe Torre to you?

A Tale of Two Churches

2007-06-21T13:05:00.001-07:00

Last I told you about trail angels and trail magic. Thru hikers are men and women in need of a cold drink. When someone offers that drink, they are seen as angels. There are some other things hikers are in need of. Many times they just need a place out of the rain to dry off. At times they need a ride, either to town, to the trail, or to a store. They almost always need a shower, and usually need a laundry. All along the trail there are those that help with those needs.

One hot day on the trail we exited the woods at this road crossing. Directly across the street was this church. You cannot see the sign, but it is a Baptist Church, not unusual seeing as how we were in Tennessee. As you can see it is a well maintained church, had a nice sign of identification, a neat lawn, and a good parking lot. I was totally not impressed. While all of those things are good, what I needed was a cold drink.

I told Jen, “I think if I was the pastor of this church I would make sure that not a single hiker could pass this way without being offered at least a cold drink of water, if I had to move my office out here and do it myself.” We talked about the ministry opportunity lost. Some 2 to 3 thousand people begin a thru hike each year, and those that make it to Tennessee have to pass right by this church.

A couple of weeks later we came to the town of Troutdale, Virginia. The story was quite different. Troutdale Baptist Church is 2 ½ miles off of the trail but that doesn’t stop them from ministry to hikers. They offer every hiker a dry place to sleep, a shower with towel, and a cold drink of water. They used to offer free laundry facilities until the county closed down the laundry because they didn’t have proper permits. We knew about this church before we arrived because they are mentioned in the Thru-hikers handbook. The pastor’s phone number is in the handbook in case a hiker has an emergency and needs help. They charge nothing for their kindness and hikers very much appreciate them.

We stayed in their hostel on a Saturday night and on Sunday morning the Pastor came by and invited us to church. We were planning to attend even before the invitation and we enjoyed the service. After the service the Pastor and his wife invited us to their home for lunch after which he drove us back to the trail to continue our hike.

As we hiked out of Troutdale I thought back to the church right on the trail in Tennessee.
What a contrast. I am sure both churches had great ministries for their own members, Senior Adult ministries, Youth Ministries, Children’s ministries, and preschool ministry as well. But one church was reaching out to a community of people with no thought of gain, except a heavenly reward. Hikers are not prospects for their church, but they do represent a people with an identifiable need who could be prospects for the good news.

I know that I am making some assumptions about the Tennessee church I know very little about. They may hand out cold water on every day but the day I passed for all I know. To me they represent the large section of Christianity concerned with themselves while neglecting ministry to the culture around them. The other church represents those who go out of their way and are willing to be inconvenienced in order to reach people.

“Lord help our churches see the opportunities around us.”

We Met An Angel

2007-06-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

Our journey was stopped short. We were looking for 2174 miles, we only made 548. While we are disappointed we didn’t get to finish, we feel blessed by what we were allowed to do. In addition to the simple joy of hiking and our trail education, Jennifer and I learned some things about ourselves, our world, and our faith that were unexpected.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the trail was angels. We met angels along the way. Angel is a hiker term for good hearted people who go out of their way to make the hike more enjoyable. Most of them are former hikers who want to repay the angels they met on their hike by passing along the gifts they received to the next generation of hikers.

Imagine being out on the trail for two, three, or maybe four days. All you have had to eat is what you have carried and all you have had to drink is water. As you walk, your mind plays video of burgers and fries, pizza, or maybe steak and potatoes. You dream of a tall glass of ice tea or, in my case, a cold Dr Pepper. But you are still miles, perhaps days from town.

Coming to a road crossing, you notice a measure of human activity that is out of place for the trail. You realize, you are about to experience trail magic. Magic is the term for the food and drink the angels give away. They give it to hikers for free. Their payment is just to see the joy and gratitude on the faces of the hikers they have blessed.

The first angels we met on the trail were in North Carolina. Three single people, in their mid 30’s, from Jacksonville, Florida had driven to North Carolina for no other reason than to give out free food and drink to hikers. They were planning to be there for the whole weekend. Jennifer was not feeling well, she had a bug of some kind, so she drank an orange soda and lay down on a tarp and took a long nap. I had a ham and cheese sandwich, some potato chips, a couple of Dr. Peppers, a moon pie, another sandwich, and had a real chair to set in while Jen slept.

Some angels had a simple set up, some more complex. Later in NC we came across a camp of angels. These were mostly middle aged men from Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia who all hiked the trail last year. They had a grill going and were fixing burgers and hot dogs, they had fruit, candy, chips, etc. and chairs to sit in. We rested and ate for a couple of hours there. One of the angels was a young man who grew up in and whose parents still live in Murray, not too far from our home.

One angel was a young man we met in the Smokey Mountains just before the weather got cold. He was hiking southbound with a box of Crispy Crème donuts and some homemade brownies. “Eat as many as you want,” he told us.

On the Tennessee-North Carolina border we met some angels who were pretty serious about it. Their hike had come about 7 years ago. They were so impressed with the trail and the people on the trail they purchased a home about 300 yards from the trail. Every day during the hiking season they opened their home with an invitation to hikers to come for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. In addition to the great food, we had waffles, stew, and apple pie, they offered counsel and prayer to each hiker. Their real purpose was akin to the purpose of Biblical angels, to share the really good news about Jesus Christ.

Jennifer and I have talked about our angel experience. We would like to go and give out trail magic. We had talked about it for next spring, but now we are thinking we will probably hike again for 3 or 4 weeks. Before we left Virginia we went by Wal Mart and purchased 4 boxes of Caprisun Lemonade and Cherryade along with Little Debbies and Honey Buns and took them to the trail where we left them for hikers. It was our small gift for all the kindness we had received.

The other effect it has had on us is our determination to live each day with more of a servant attitude. We experienced grace from these trail angels, we would like to give grace in return. It is much like our Christian experience. The forgiveness of sin and promise of heaven we have received for free from Jesus Christ, we would like to share with others so that they might have the same experience.

Wheres the Bears?

2007-05-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

Today we tested the knee. It has been 2 days short of 3 weeks since we got off the trail and except for a short walk or two on level ground I have rested the knee. I have had some treatments designed to reduce the swelling and some stretches trying to overcome the pain. So today we headed to the canyon to give it a test.

We chose the Bowman trail and hiked steady for 1 1/4 hours and arrived at White Fir pass. After a short rest we headed back down, the real test. While the knee felt very uncomfortable there was no pain. We walked back down without stopping to rest either.

Of course there are two problems here. 1) I had juiced up with vitamin I. (800 mg of Ibuprofen) and 2) I was carrying only a liter of water and a few snacks. On the trail I was carrying 40+ pounds and was beginning to be a little concerned about the amount of Ibuprofen I was taking.

On the Appalachian Trail we saw very little wildlife. In two months we saw two deer and a herd of wild horses. Nothing else larger than a cottontail rabbit. There was a little excitement the day we saw the rattlesnake. Today, 30 minutes up the trail from the parkinglot we ran into this big fellow. I walked around a bend and thought, "someone is riding a horse on the trail." Then I realized I was looking at a bull moose.

It took a little while to convince him to move off of the trail far enough that we felt somewhat secure in slipping by him and continuing up the trail. He was much more interested in his breakfast than he was in us.

So it was a good day. I am somewhat pleased with the progress in my knee. I have another Dr. appointment in the morning. While we are way past the chance to continue on the AT, we are still holding out the hope that next spring we can hike either the section from where we stopped to Shennandoah National Park, or perhaps just do the park.

The Blog I Had Hoped Not To Write

2007-05-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it is over. After a week off the trail, resting, getting treatments, stretching, the knee is still very tender and will not abide the extra 40 pounds. I had trouble carrying Andrew and his 20 pounds, especially down the stairs.

The Physical Therapist’s diagnosis without the help of a MRI is a strained Illiotibial band, the ligament on the outside of the knee. That is good news in that it means there is no structural damage. She recommended 2 to 3 weeks of rest, therapy, stretching, etc., and then take it easy when we start hiking again, like 2-3 days on the trail, then 1-2 days of rest.

We decided that wasn’t practical for us, living so far from the trail, and it would prevent us from finishing in a year anyway. So we made the decision to call it off, try to get some healing, and then perhaps hiking for shorter periods of time in the future.

We are planning a 3 week hike next summer. Anyone want to tag along? We learned an awful lot about long distance hiking, and one of the things we learned is all kinds of people in all kinds of physical shape, can hike for a couple of weeks.

We are thankful for the time we had. We really did have a blast. We made 548 miles of the AT, just over ¼ the total distance. See the blog below for a longer account of our last days on the trail, how we realized we needed to stop, and how God showed up even in the disappointment.

Too Many Conincidences

2007-05-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

1. The Original Injury

We began hiking on April 11 at 8:40 for what proved to be a very eventful day. Our plan was to eat lunch at Roaring Fork Shelter and then camp somewhere around Walnut Mountain Shelter. We made a long hard climb up a mountain called Max Patch. It is a bald mountain, they used to land planes on it. When we got there it was windy and cold so we pressed on.
Just before the Roaring Fork Shelter is where we saw all the bear sign and read the account in the journal log of a hiker who had a bear encounter. (See Hot Dog, Hot Springs, below) By the time we reached Walnut Mountain Shelter the wind was howling, the sky was getting dark and it was obvious we were in for a storm. The shelter was on top of the mountain, the opening faced into the wind, there were no flat spaces to pitch the tent, so we made the decision to press on.
We at this point is Jennifer, Myself, and a hiker we had been with for about two weeks, Fred Davis, trail name Kiwi. We thought it would be good to get down off the mountain, out of the wind, and out of the clouds.
In order to stop and camp we needed two things. A water source and a flat spot. That is all. And if they are close together that is great. We hiked down, down, down, and the weather got worse, worse, worse. Finally about 2 hours before dark it started to rain on us and we still had not found water and flat. So we plodded on down hill in the rain. About an hour before dark we crossed an old logging road, then just a few yards down the hill a stream that would serve nicely as our water source.
“Let’s camp here,” I said, with water dripping off my cap from the rain. “We can get water here and pitch our tents up on the old logging road.” Kiwi balked, said he wanted to try to get to Hot Springs tonight even though it was another 8 miles or so. Jen said, she would do what ever I wanted, but it was clear to me she would like to get to town out of the rain as well.
“That will call for our first night hike.” I reminded her.
“Well we have to do it sometime she said.”
Kiwi said, “You guys can do whatever you want, but I am going to go on.”
We thought about it and followed Kiwi down the trail.
After a while Jen thought we could probably go faster if we traded positions. “Let’s let Rodger go first, he hikes a little faster, and we can make better time.” She has regretted that statement a lot in the last few days, but I have tried to assure her that she wasn’t to blame for what happened.
As we continued to slog down the trail in the rain and the mud, all of a sudden my knee just burst into pain. I didn’t twist it, fall on it, bump it in any way. It just gave out. I could barely stand to put any weight on it at all.
We were reduced to limping down the trail, rather I was limping and Jen and Kiwi were following slowly. We tried to get Kiwi to leave us and go on to Hot Springs but he wouldn’t leave us. He said we were in this together and no amount of persuasion could convince him to go on.
I struggled on down the trail, very slowly as dark crept up on us. We came to a road crossing, I found a flat spot, and Jen and I stopped and pitched our tent, Kiwi went on to Hot Springs. We didn’t have water for dinner or breakfast, but according to the map the next water was 2 miles on down the trail. I didn’t think I could make it that far.
The next day we hobbled on into Hot Springs where we were planning a few days rest while meeting Krista and Andrew, our grandbaby.

2. The Next Few Weeks

The knee was never pain free again. It would get very stiff at night. I could hike uphill without pain, but I had to be very very careful on down hills. If they were very steep down hills I had to be careful not to take too long a step.
However, to keep going I was taking 1600 to 2400 mg of Ibuprofen every day. We knew that couldn’t go on forever. There were good days and bad days, but we suffered through them, slowly making progress towards Maine. Whenever we were someplace we could get ice, we iced all four of our knees. But we continued on.
We were getting into the Virginia country where the mountains were not so high and we were making better time. We needed to make around 15 miles a day here and we were doing it regularly.

3. The Beginning of the End.

After a week or so of 15 milers the knee began to act up. On the day before we quit it hurt both going uphill and down hill. It was a miserable day. I began to think for the first time about quitting. I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to endure. In addition to the ibuprofen I took some Tylenol to tide me over between doses of Advil. Even that didn’t help.
We finally stopped about 3½ miles short of our target that day when I finally had just had enough and we found good water with a great camping spot.
The next morning we hiked about 30 minutes, all uphill, and the knee hurt every step. When we reached the top and started down the pain was just more than I could handle. I stopped and told Jen, “I just can’t do this anymore.” She was disappointed, but very understanding, so we turned around and went back to the last road.

4. The Hand of the Lord, we believe.

The day before I began to hurt so bad we stopped at a road crossing where there was a Forest Service Campground. Some one had left it in a mess. There was trash everywhere. While we were waiting for water to be ready I went over and kind of kicked around in the trash and found a Virginia Road Map. The maps we have are of the AT only and sometimes you just wonder where you are in relation to everything else, so I told Jen I was going to keep the map. I put it in my pack.
The next day was the day I hurt all day, up and down. We crossed a road, VA state road 42 just before we found the campsite that we stayed at.
On the fateful morning we changed our morning prayer just a little. We prayed that God would make it clear, the choice we needed to make. When we got to the top of that first mountain and took the first step down, He made it very clear that I wasn’t going on, at least not today. So we hiked back down to the road, VA 42.
The AT map showed us nothing about where VA 42 went. If that was all we had we wouldn’t have known where to go. But. . . we had the Virginia road map. So we were able to make a plan of action.
The closest towns were too far to walk to. So we needed to hope for a ride. VA 42 is a country road through farm country with very little traffic. For 30 minutes or so we tried to get a ride the direction we needed to go, only one car passed and one water truck. Several cars went the other direction. We decided we would try to go either way, which ever we could get a ride.
The next car came along, going the wrong way, but we put out our thumb anyway. The man driving the car slowed down, rolled down his window and asked, “Can you tell me where the Appalachian Trail crosses this road?”
“You can’t see it from here,” I told him. “Your car is on top of it.” Actually we told him he was at the place and he pulled over into a parking area and got out of the car.
“My brother and I are section hiking but I was feeling sick so I didn’t go with him today. We will be hiking this section tomorrow and I brought some Dr. Peppers up here to hide so they will be here for me when we get here. Let me go put them up the trail then I will come back and I can take you anywhere you want to go. I don’t have to do anything today until I pick my brother up at 4pm. (It was about 9am) ”
So this 64 year old section hiker, Dan Martin, took us to Marion Virginia and took us right to the roadway inn where we checked in. Then he took us to the Laundromat where we could put our clothes in the machine. Then he took us to Wal Mart to get something besides hiking clothes to wear. Then back to the Laundromat to put the clothes in the dryer. While the clothes were drying he took me to the bus station to buy bus tickets.
After he dropped us off at our motel again he said he was leaving to get his brother. After they got back and his brother cleaned up they would be going to dinner. He said he would be glad to come back and take us to dinner with them. We did.
Then he came back at 10:30 to take us to catch our 10:45 bus. He and his brother waited there with us, even though we told them they didn’t need to, until the bus came, 30 minutes late.
What a blessing they were. People like him reminded us what hospitality is. Jen and I are both determined to put in to practice some of the hospitality lessons we learned on our hike.

Virginia At Last

2007-05-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

We have hiked the 459 miles necessary in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee to make Virginia. The next 500 miles are in Virginia. We spent one last night in Tennessee on Sunday night when we ran out of gas after 17 miles. We camped just short of the state line then hiked the 6 miles into Damascus, Virgina on Monday morning. The plan is to leave here on Wednesday morning. We are spending time today (tuesday) trying to lighten the load.
Just a few pounds lighter makes a big difference on feet, knees, and hips. When we leave town tomorrow we will have around 16 pounds of food between us. We are learning to carry less water, 2.2 pounds per liter, but that means spending more time locating and preparing water for use. So we are also looking at possible ways of treating water.
We sent our water filter home from Elizabethton, TN. It weighs about 2 pounds so we went lighter and tried to treat the water chemically with bleach. Supposedly 3 drops of Clorox per liter of water is sufficient. Well, it may kill the germs but it leaves my thirst unquenched and leaves Jen with an "alum" taste in her mouth. So we have decided against that. We have a few options such as other chemicals and some higher tech methods, we just need to determine which is the best for us.
Hopefully you have checked out our photos on Nathan's web site. I am sending him some more, this time with printed captions since something in his education failed to teach him to read handwriting.
Amy is posting my journal to www.trailjournals.com, she is probably having as much trouble with my penmanship as Nate. Remember, I am writing in a little tent, with a headlamp, after a long day hiking, with Jen bumping my elbow every time she moves. No wonder they can't read it.
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. God bless each one of you.

photos

2007-04-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

hey everybody.

This is Nathan. I have hacked into the blog long enough to let you know that we now have full photo albums up of this little adventure here. you can get to the pictures here, or by clicking on the link on the sidebar.

We'll keep it updated as best we can.

Ear Worms

2007-04-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Do you all know what an ear worm is? When you are hiking long hours, just going mile after mile, up and down, around and over, it can get pretty boring. An ear worm is what you find yourself thinking about in your subconscious. Usually it is a song that just replays over and over.

One day back in Georgia this esperienced hiker, he had hiked the trail a couple of years ago, told us that he had seen a big clump of poison ivy on the trail that day. He spent quite a bit of time telling us what poison ivy looks like since we don't know.

The result of all of his teaching was my main ear worm. It is a song from the 60's called Poison Ivy. It is a stupid song but it goes on in my head over and over till I think I am going crazy. "Poison Iiiiiiivvvvvyyyyyy. Poison Iiiiiivvvyyyyy. Every night while you're sleeping poison ivy comes a creeping around." You don't have to know all the words for it to be an earworm, just the words you know over and over. "Poison Ivy Lord will make you itch, You're gonna need an ocean, of calamine lotion., etc."

All it takes is someone mentioning poison ivy, or sometimes for no reason at all I realize I have been singing this stupid song for miles. You fight them by singing other songs, and that can work, at least until you go back into the subconscious and there is the old ear worm again. I spend a lot of time thinking about a lot of things. Like, if I ever agree to Pastor another church I have made a list of things I am going to require them to agree to first. That is another post. One day I made a list of things a church should expect from their pastor and the pastor should be able to expect from the church. Yep Another post.

One day I spent trying to figure a way to finish the trail if my knee just won't go on. My knee doesn't bother me when I am not carrying the pack so I figured out a way to hike without the pack. Fortunately my knee is doing better so I don't have to resort to that tactic yet. Maybe that is another post. This one is about ear worms. What I want to say is even thinking about things doesn't stop the ear worm. You realize that under your conscious thoughts, there is the ear worm. Usually for me, Poison Ivy.

On Good Friday though I realized that the ear worm was "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord." I was singing over and over all 5 verses. (If you look it up and there are not five verses I must have made one up.) Then on Easter Sunday the ear worm was "Up From the Grave He Arose". Guess what it was the Saturday in between. Poison Ivy.

One way to get rid of it temporarily is by getting out the Ipod and listening to something else. I really find that more distracting than helpful. But today I realized that after a full month of Poison Ivy the ear worm was now Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger. "You can't hang a man for killing a woman who tried to steal his horse." I got so sick of it I wished for Poison Ivy back.

By the way, I don't know if I have really seen Poison Ivy or not. It is kind of like the Poison Oak signs at Old Mill golf course. They discourage you from looking for golf balls out in the rough by putting up Poison Oak signs. I have found a lot of good balls by ignoring the signs.

Today we hiked 16.5 miles to make it to Erwin, Tennessee for a burger, a shower, clean clothes and resupply of food. Tomorrow we are heading out towards Damascus, VA. So I guess you could say we are on the Damascus Trail. Erwin is 338.7 miles from Springer Mountain, GA where we began.

Amy is going to post my journal at www.trailjournals.com and Nathan will post our pictures there. I don't think they are posted yet, but look for them in the near future.

Knee update. You know that I am slow to proclaim a miracle but let me just tell you what happened. On Monday morning when we left Hot Springs as soon as we got off of the pavement and onto the trail my knee began to hurt as bad as it did going into Hot Springs. The rest and the brace didn't help at all. We were hiking along side the river on a very slight uphill and every step was so painful I was sure that our hike was over. We stopped and I told Jen and she was as disappointed as I, but there didn't seem to be any hope. But we stopped and had our morning prayer and she prayed for my knee once again. I told her that I would try to make this climb but I didn't think I could do it.

I turned and took one step, which was a step up onto a rock and when I did my knee popped and the pain went away. The knee remains very sore, I have to be very careful not to overdo it especially on long downhills, but since Hot Springs I have hiked 14, 12, 11, and 16 miles. Praise the Lord.

Thanks for all your responses. May God bless you all.

Flint and Jubilee