Installment 99 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY –  “The power behind you is greater than the task ahead of you.” 

The Journey - Installment Ninety-Nine

        Did I say there would be no more hills? Would you believe it?  Instead of dropping us off at the parking lot entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge where the other riders were waiting, they dropped us off at the bottom of the hill.  I was flabbergasted!  Another stinking hill!  I looked up and asked myself, “How am I going to get up there?”   I did what I thought was the only thing available to me: prayer.  As I got on my bike and started up the hill, I remember saying out loud, “Okay Lord, we can do this, You and I, but I need your help.”  I have absolutely no recollection of getting up that hill.  All I remember is arriving at the top where I needed to get off my bike and wait to cross the road because there was solid line of vehicular traffic.  You can see in the picture below that the road was congested with cars.  I arrived at the top of the hill and remember thinking, “I’m done!”  I didn’t want to wait for the traffic; I just wanted to get across the road, through that gate and into the parking lot.  I just didn’t care about the cars.  I remember turning in front of cars across that busy intersection.  The miracle and most amazing thing that happened was that I crossed without incident.  No cars screeched on their brakes; I didn’t cause an accident; no cars hit one another or skidded.  It was impossible that I could have turned across that road with all that traffic in both directions and no one had to slam on their brakes.  I actually have no recollection of the crossing of the road; I just remember turning across into the traffic and thinking, "I don’t even care if someone hits me – I just want to be done."

  You can see us entering the gate in the middle of the photo. Behind the chainlink fence on the left is the line of traffic I had to ride through (or over).  I won't know the answer to that until I'm face to face with our Lord.  You can't see it in this picture, but there was a solid line of traffic going both directions.

          

       As a postscript to this incident, Toni, the lady from Kansas, happened to be standing at the gate when I crossed the road.  She told me later, that she was so amazed because I had just shot up that last hill and what amazed her was that I had that much energy to do it.  There is no way that I could have done that on my own.  My prayer to the Lord was answered.  Again, He had gotten me up the hill and even across the traffic without my being hit or even inconveniencing the motorists.  This was definitely a supernatural occurrence.  Whether the Lord put His hand on my back and pushed me up that incline or just picked me up and set me down at the top of that hill, I can swear that I didn’t do it on my own and I have no recollection of riding up that hill.  For all I know, He may even have picked me up and set across the busy road at the gate.   Even at the moment I arrived at the top of the hill  I recall that I had no memory of how I got up there.  Remember the motto of this entire ride had been determined at the very beginning eighteen months earlier when my friend Wanda gave me the card that fell out of her mail that day – “The power behind you is greater than the task ahead of you.”  It was truly amazing!  This was the second time on this three-day ride that I gotten to the top of a hill and not by my own power. 

DON'T QUIT READING NOW, WE'RE STILL NOT DONE!

Installment 98 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below

I've had to call off the triathlon, at least for me.  My doctor and the physical therapist think that it is not a good idea for me to think about it at this time.  I will however, continue to do the exercises given to me by the physical therapist and will still walk the dog and work on my stationary bike.  My arm still causes me a lot of pain and is affecting my sleep and Bob's as well as he says I cry out in the night when I move my arm.  This is only a temporary setback, but a triathlon in August of this year is out of the question.

The Journey - Installment Ninety-Eight

        I have no idea where we were exactly when we were  riding up horrible hills again.  It took all I had to get up those monsters.  One time, a couple who were volunteers and riding a tandem bike were alongside and encouraging me.  I gave 110 per cent to get up a particular hill.  With their encouragement I did arrive at the top but I had given all I had to reach that goal.  I had no more to give.   However, once at the top of the hill and at the intersection of another street, I looked and just across the intersection, was another hill to climb, equally as steep.  I just couldn’t do another hill  seconds after the first.  I got off the bike and walked up that hill, pushing my bike beside me.  There was just no more energy to expend.   Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, we came into the quaint little town of Larkspur in the Marin Hills.  Since it was a Sunday and Father’s Day, the town was all decorated on the lamp posts and there was a very festive air about the town. We saw evidence of a street faire as we passed.  For the first time on this three-day ride, we actually had the wind at our backs as we headed down toward San Francisco.  We rode so fast with the wind assisting us and we saw, after a few miles, San Quentin Prison on our left.   We had the use of several bike trails during this last part of our long journey.  One trail was called “Top of the Hill Bike Trail” and it was murder getting up there.  Again, the encouragement from the volunteers really made a difference for me and all of the riders.

       As we finished one bike trail and were about to head up another hill, the vans were pulled over and asked us to stop.  They said, “Ladies, you’ve done a great job but you are still ten miles from the Golden Gate Bridge.  The other riders are already there waiting and there are guests waiting across the bridge for us.  We ask that you allow us to load your bikes and take you the ten miles to the bridge.”  At that point, I was definitely agreeable.  There were still ten miles of hills ahead and who know how long that would have taken us.  I was getting exhausted by this time.  On the first day when the vans wanted to take us back to the hotel, I had a definite feeling that it would be wrong for me to allow it.  At this time, however, I felt no such feeling against finishing the rest of the ride in the vans especially since just a few of us would be holding up everyone else.  We loaded the bikes and I found myself saying a little prayer of thanks that there would be no more hills.  But, that was not to be! 

 

Lot's going on here.  I'll have to post on Monday.  Laurel stayed the night with the baby on Wednesday so we could go to Sacramento and show the baby to my mother, Samuel's great-grandmother.   She was planning to leave yesterday for home but as we left Sacramento, I received two calls from neighbors that a large branch from the tree in front of our house fell across Laurel's car which was parked in front of our house.  She had to stay another night and I had to rock the baby a lot so she could take some naps.  We're waiting until they finish taking the tree down and I am driving my car to Turlock where she has a doctor's appointment.  Since we don't want to take the baby into the doctor's office because of germs, sickness, etc.  I am going to watch little Samuel while she is at the doc's. 

COME BACK MONDAY FOR MORE OF THE FINAL DAY OF THE BIKE RIDE.

Countdown to Triathlon – 114 Days, 16.2 weeks to Race Day (See Installment 97 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY –

Mark 10:43-45
"Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
NIVThe Journey - Installment Ninety-Seven

        Just as we were about to insert the tube, along came three of the “Hammerheads.”  They should already have been at the lunch break.  We were elated to see them and I asked them if it mattered if we put the tube in the defective tire.  One of them answered, “Yes, it does matter.  You’ll just get another flat very soon.”  He proceeded to take some empty energy bar wrappers out of his pocked and fold them up, inserting them against the wall of the tire where the slit was, making an effective temporary patch which would protect the tube until we got to the rest stop for lunch.  With the tire now repaired, we headed for lunch which turned out to be not a great distance from where I had the flat tire.

     As a postscript to this episode, on the next day, the day after the ride, on Monday, I called that fellow to thank him again for fixing my tire.  He was from Sacramento and owned a bike shop.  He told me that he had six flats that day up to when he saw us.  That was highly unusual to have that many flats.  So I told him that I believe the Lord allowed that so that he would be able to rescue me and that I was so sorry he had to experience changing so many tires.    I do believe that he had those flats for me, otherwise, who knows how long it would have been before we got to the lunch break and it might have caused me to miss the last half of the day’s ride.

     At the lunch break, one of the volunteers changed my tube and tire while I ate my lunch.  We got a well-needed break from riding and visited with one another for a few minutes.  One of the great volunteers gave me a back rub.  What great servants they all were.

Countdown to Triathlon – 115 Days, 16.4 weeks to Race Day (See Installment 94 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY –

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.  ~Nadine Stair

What a glorious spring day.  The flowers are a spectacular array of color.

The Journey - Installment Ninety-Six

          As we entered Novato, our route took us on a bike trail on which the vans and Bob couldn’t follow us.  We could see the freeway from the trail, and the trail meandered over a couple miles.  Remember that I had asked the Focus team to check out my bike on several occasions because it sounded like something was rubbing.  Half way down the bike trail, the noise got louder and since there was nothing I could do about it, I simply turned up the volume on my CD player.  What else is a girl to do? 

       I was within ten feet of the end of the bike trail when there was a noise so loud which sounded like a gunshot. My heart stopped for a second.  I thought someone had shot me!  It was my tire or actually my tube.  Whatever had been rubbing finally caused a blowout. It blew out sounding like a shot gun going off.  Thankfully, I was close enough to the end of the bike trail and to the street that we figured that one of the cars or vans could find us and help repair the tire.  I had a new tube in my bike pouch which Bob had purchased for me the day before in Napa.  It was a replacement for the tube which Terri had patched for me on the first night of the ride.   We thought for sure that we were the last of the riders and that the rest had arrived at the lunch stop already.  We gave the street names to the vans, but they just couldn’t find us.  They were all on the freeway and just had no idea where we were.   At that time, GPS systems were not generally in use and we were in an area with warehouses, not on a main thoroughfare.  Thank the Lord that I was not in the middle of the trail where we couldn't get help.

       I remember saying, “We can do this!”  Since we had watched Terri change a number of flats we felt confident that we also could change a tire.   My memory is foggy here as to who was with me at that time, but there were two other ladies.  Unfortunately Terri was not one of them.  We sure could have used her help.  But, we got the tire off and the tube out and the new tube taken out of the package.  Then, I did something which was really uncharacteristic for me since I am so not mechanical.  I had the bike tire in my hands and I was turning it slowing, looking for a hole.  Now as I look back, I believe that the Lord caused me to that because it wouldn’t be in my nature to even think to do that since it was evident the tube blew out.  I found a slit in the tire and asked the others if they thought it would matter if we put the new tube in with a hole in the tire because after all, the air would be in the tube, not the tire.  It sounded logical to us that it wouldn’t matter. 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.  He is risen, He is risen indeed.

We left Lake Tahoe in the morning so that we could take my Mom to dinner and spend some time with her.  The first two pictures are Lake Tahoe on a nice day.  The third photo was yesterday morning.  As we went over the summit we had a mixture of snow and rain.

We couldn't see across the lake yesterday.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY –  Winston Churchill said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself,"  and scary bridges.

The Journey - Installment Ninety-Five

Just in case you forgot what it looked like from our point of view:

        The sight of that bridge was not the only deterrent to us.  There was a sign at the entrance of the bridge which read, “No pedestrians, No bicycles!”  There was no bike lane and we would have had to ride on the edge of the road with cars whizzing past us.  I would have been wobbling into the car lanes as I slowed going up the steep incline, then jumping off when I slowed to almost a stop.  It was an impossible situation for those of us who didn’t ride as well as the other riders on our team.  As all of us stood there, gawking at the bridge, all of a sudden I had to go to the bathroom.  We hadn’t been gone from the hotel that long that I should have to go again, but as I told the others, “The sight of that bridge literally scared the pee out of me.”  So where was I supposed to go?, We turned around and there in the middle of nowhere the Lord had provided a “Porta-Potty”.  What a miracle!   I hate using those nasty smelly things, but it was necessary.  We all agreed to pray while I was gone and ask the Lord what we should do because not only was it scary and dangerous, but illegal since the sign warned us not to go over the bridge. 

            While I was using the facility, the solution came to my mind.  I joined the others and told them that I had the answer.  We were going to call the vans.  As we waited for the vans, the rest of the riders had caught up to us and were riding up the steep bridge.  Terri, who had been with us, decided to start out over the bridge.  She was a much more competent rider than the other few ladies and myself.  We loaded our bikes on the vans and they transported us over the bridge.  It was a couple miles before they could safely pull over and let us off.  So, we did cheat a little on our biking mileage because of the lift we received.  The person who had planned the ride had no other options but to have us go over that bridge.  There was no other road from Napa to get us to San Francisco.  But some of us just didn’t have the ability to ride over the bridge.  After pulling over at the first wide spot in the road, we unloaded the bikes and started out toward the town of Novato.

Countdown to Triathlon – 117 Days, 16.7 weeks to Race Day (See Installment 94 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY –  We used to get opossums in our garage when we lived in the country.  Our granddaughter Maddy, about age 4,  was with me one night when we walked out to the garage which was across the driveway and not attached to the house.  A possum, in the dark, hissed at us and scared us half to death.  She later said that it had "Ska-wy eyes, and shop teeth" (scary eyes and sharp teeth - she didn't say "r's" at that time.)  Well, this is the story about a "Ska-way" bridge.

The Journey - Installment Ninety-Four

THE "SKA-WY" BRIDGE

        The third and final day of the bike ride began.  We had spent the night at the same hotel in Napa as the night before.  After breakfast, we again gathered at the end of the parking lot where the black Focus van was parked.  Below is Lisa with the white and red jacket, blond hair.  We were waiting for the morning's meeting to begin. 

Terri and the lady from Kansas. I told you about the Kansas lady earlier.  She rode the Kansas ride, the northern California ride and again in July for the Focus on the Family Silver Anniversary in Colorado Springs.  SHE RODE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, THE CRAZY LADY!!!

        Since it was Father's Day, we had some devotions about fathers and the fathers that were present, including Bob, were given Father's Day cards from the Focus on the Family team.  We were again encouraged and congratulated for our riding the two days before and reminded again to keep consuming energy drinks and energy snacks.  We were told about the end of the ride where we would all meet at the entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge, cross the bridge together and ride the two miles or so to Marina Green where many of us would have guests waiting.  

         Once again, my group, "The Stop and Smell the Roses, Pick the Roses and Plant Some More Roses" group were given a head start.  Lisa, Yvonne, Terri and one or two others besides myself started out down the highway, heading for Highway 37 which would take us over the Marin Hills to San Francisco.  Once we turned onto Highway 37, we saw that it was a marsh on both sides of the road and a haven for thousands (maybe millions) of birds.  Unfortunately, the birds were flying into cars as the cars sped at about 70 mph just a couple of feet from us.  It really was very dangerous and I refused to answer my cell phone while we were teetering just inches from those speeding cars.  We were horrified to see the birds getting hit and dying right in front of us.  The ladies I was riding with knew my story about the dead birds .  Every time we saw one, we said, "Yes Lord, we know you love us and are with us."

       A couple of miles out on Highway 37 we came to a screeching halt. At the time I was on the phone with my sister from Virginia.  All of a sudden, I saw the bridge looming up ahead of us and almost screamed at her, "Oh no.  I can't do that bridge.  I've got to talk to you later."  I quickly disconnected from my conversation and pulled over with the other riders.  This is what we saw:

That's the sight we saw as we approached the bridge that day. This may not seem scary to you, but it is even scary riding over it in a car.

The pictures below were taken by Terri this March, 2011,  when she and I drove part of our trip, reliving our adventure. If you don't think this is bad, remember, we were on bicycles, pedaling with our own legs. 

These last four pictures were taken from the car as Terri and I sped over the bridge.

THIS WAS REALLY SCARY!  THOSE ARE CARS AT THE TOP THAT LOOK LIKE SPECKS.