Howdy Family and Friends! It’s day 3—yippee! For me (Jen) this day was spent on the road to South Dakota to visit two of my foreign exchange students that I have placed there! 127 miles one way! Luckily, Jalise slept the entire trip both going and coming home! Unfortunately, coming home, my body was ready for a nap too! Little sleep last night and an early morning don’t make for an awake Jen! But, we made it home—before the boys got home from church and enjoyed a quiet evening!

From Dave: This was day three of the ride. We started in Bingham and were en-route to Thedford. The conditions were much more favorable. It was 54 degrees this morning and this afternoon it reached around the mid 80's. Overall it was a pleasant ride with no major mishaps. I took the morning easy and was just seeing if my episode yesterday was just a fluke or was I really in trouble. We had some big hills and even bigger downhills which was nice. The downside is that there was a lot of road construction that wasn't there when we drove out. The decided to surface 7 miles of road and there was no smooth spot to ride. Either you road a shoulder that had a lot of loose rock and was rough or ride the new gravel and hope you didn't crash. What a choice.

After the construction I came up on a van that had pulled over with a flat tire. I asked him if he needed help and he responded, "I think that would be a good idea." He was a senior from Ord and it was fun to be able to help him. I needed something to put under the jack because it was sinking in the sand and he brought me his English Literature book. I opted not to use his book and used a mat from the back of his van. We stopped for lunch in Mullen and I made my mind up that I wanted to be the first rider in to Thedford and nobody was going beat me. When we left Mullen I kicked it into high gear! Side note: this is my nickname too, and I didn't look back. 10 miles in I stopped at the trailer, grabbed a snack, and took off. I was going fast enough that I beat the bus to the next stop. I arrived in Thedford 10 minutes before any other riders. I achieved my goal of leading an entire section and it felt great. At the end of the day I road 84 miles and averaged 17.8 miles an hour. Thanks for all your prayers. Tomorrow we have a short day and we ride 67 miles to Broken Bow and I get to sleep in a real bed at my inlaws home instead of a motel. Wahoo!!!

From our speedy (both driving and riding) picture window to yours, have a great night!

Day Two, What Shall I do?

Howdy Family and Friends! Day 2, what to do? For me (Jen) today was exactly that…where oh where do I start…laundry, dishes, floors, oh wait! I know! How about Happy 13 Anniversary to my husband! To celebrate, I went out for coffee with the ladies from the church! Dave gave me a gift certificate to the Hub (for coffee) an Angry birds stress ball, and a sling shot from the Angry Birds game…not exactly romantic you say!? I agree, but it was from him!

From Dave: Today was the first full day of the ride. What a day! We rode 40 miles before lunch and it was an interesting ride. It was 42 degrees when we left. If only it would have stayed cool all day. That first section had a lot of down hills, but there were three major uphills that challenged us right away. Over all it was an uneventful day. There was one flat tire, but everybody seemed to be doing well.

As we pulled into Alliance for lunch, the wind shifted to the west and we were very excited to have a major tail wind for the last half of the ride. I choose to start in the back today and took my time riding to the front so I could visit with all the riders along the way. After 14 miles, I had had enough and it was time to go. The wind was picking up and we motored. We ended riding an extra 18 miles more than we had planned because the wind was so favorable. All together we road 83 miles and stopped in Bingham. I was totally wasted the last two miles. I didn't have anything left in the tank. The front group got there really early so after resting for a while waiting for the bus I decided to ride down into Bigham and take the royal tour of the town. There isn't much there, but I have to say the streets are very well marked. Every street had a sign. It was a fun adventure. When I returned to the highway everybody else had arrived and the bus was almost there. Wahoo!

Remember I said we wished it stayed cool. It was 105 along side the road. Not fun. Tonight I was given the "forget me not" award. Before I left Burwell I was fixing some seams on top of the bus to stop some leaks and I thought I had taken care of everything. At Arby’s today I was looking at the bus and I couldn't figure out what was laying on top of the bus. I thought I might have damaged something with a low tree branch or something. So I walked out and look and found the caulking gun that I had used the other day. It rode all the way to Chadron and back to Alliance without falling off. Pretty impressive! Summary of the day I rode 84 miles and averaged 19.2 miles an hour. Good day over all!

From our loving, speedy anniversary window to yours, have a great night!

Day 1, the fun has just begun!

Day 1--The fun has just begun!
Howdy friends and family! As you can tell by the title, today is the first day of the Missions Bike ride for Dave and being a bachelorette/single Mom for the week!
We stayed the night in Broken Bow until Dave and Jon met up with the rest of the crew to head west! Pretty uneventful on our end! Dave on the other hand had a great day! The riders saw the destruction from the fires and the smoke in the air was there, but luckily not too heavy. The group also started riding tonight.
Dave and his riding partner Dale Ackermann, beat their personal record for going 20 miles! They accomplished this goal in 53 minutes.

On the way home, Cecilie gave me a note from Dave telling me to look in the visor of the pickup. There I found his old IPod. Cecilie loaded a message from Dave! It was rather cute and I will try to include it on here. The message was a song titled, “Call Me Maybe!” and while it was rather cute, he holds up a sign with a number…which was supposed to be his—well, it wasn’t. It was a land line in Burwell. OOPS! Still cute and rather funny!

From our smoky and speedy wrong number picture window to yours, have a great night!