Bike ride update

Hi everyone,

Well, today has been a beautiful day.  We started out with breakfast in the motorhome, then on to Pine Valley Community Church.  An absolutely delightful time with very nice people.  They were encouraging, interested, and loving.  

After church the guys got into their bike clothes and we headed back to the school where we stopped yesterday.  The day is perfect for biking--cool and sunny with big puffy white clouds.  This is my day to drive and so far I have not gotten into too much trouble.  Paula and a man on the street helped me pull into a gas station, only stopping traffic for a half a minute.  We took some video of Dave and Mike making their way along Interstate 8.  That stretch only lasted for 3 miles and they could get off onto a 2 lane road and on into the camp where we are staying.  They finished the remainder of yesterday's miles in 3 hours (about 20 miles).  It was lots of uphill biking.  We are now at 3500 ft. and tomorrow they will get up to 4200 ft. before starting downhill reaching 20 ft. below sea level.  We should be in Brawley, CA tomorrow night.

Paula is cooking some stir-fry tonight.  We grocery shopped today at Albertson's which is connected with Jewel so I could use my Jewel Preferred card--Yippee!!  Saved us a bunch.  These guys are eating us out of house and home.  Thanks, Peter, for that warning.

Thanks for all your emails.  It is good to know that you are following  us along.  ALMOST seems as though you are here.   Aloha, to the Smiths!!  Steps still aren't fixed.

Love and blessings,

Lana

Pine Valley tonight!

Hi to you all,

Well, we are resting comfortably in a cabin at Pine Valley Bible and Conference Center. We are glad to be here, but the snow that is falling is not welcome!!!  We had dinner here and opted for the cabin over the motorhome since they were the same price.  When we came out of the dining hall, snow was coming down.  Can't believe it.

But let me take you back to this morning in San Diego.  After a day of shopping for groceries, biking items, laundry, etc. yesterday we had planned a supper with Bob Ream and his family.  Bob is a family friend originally from West Chicago and Wheaton.  It never worked out because of an "incident" on the main road from San Clemente to San Diego essentially closed down the highway.  Bob tried to come down but traffic was at a standstill immediately so he went back home and promised to try and come down this AM to see Dave and Mike start off.

We all got up really early and started out for Ocean Beach at 7:15 to be at the breakfast arranged by CFO friends.  A slight drizzle started as we left the campground.  We stopped for gas and the steps up to the door of the motorhome were stuck down, not a good thing while traveling.  So Dave and Mike worked on them for a while and finally had to wire them up so now we do not have steps to get in and out.  We finally got to the beach to find out that a surfing competition had begun and there were lots of people and limited parking available.  It started to rain harder (surfers could have cared less) and we found a spot to park temporarily.  We found our friends under a blue shelter over the back of their car, and they served up quiche, homemade Danish pastry, coffee and juice.  Among the people there were Lisa Winterhalter, a high school friend of Carrie's, Bob Swan, Howard's brother, and Bob Ream and his son Jules.  CFOers Walt and Veba Clark and her niece were there. Len and Peggy Marinello, Marjorie Rahill and her son and daughter-in-law, Becky and Rachel Sutherland all braved the elements to see us off.  It took a long time for Dave and Mike to get themselves ready to take off.  It was after 10 AM before they were on their bikes and on the road. 

Paula drove and I navigated out of San Diego with a plan to meet the guys just a little way down the road.  We turned into a shopping mall to wait for them (and use the Sears bathroom) and when we hadn't heard from them we called and they had passed us and were ahead.  We caught up and stopped in the middle of an intersection to figure out the next stopping place.  Paula and I drove on and ended up parked in a middle school parking lot.  We called the guys and they were getting bogged down with the rain and traffic.  We waited for two hours before they showed up, wet and cold.  Over lunch in the motorhome we decided to go the rest of the way together in the motorhome and get to Pine Valley before dark.  The biking would have been uphill all the way and the rain was continuous.  Since tomorrow is a day off, we will drive back to the school and they will bike back to Pine Valley to complete the first leg.  So they biked 30 miles today and 20 tomorrow.  We will be here in Pine Valley tomorrow night as well.  

We need a day of good weather to regroup.  Spirits are still high!  It is already quite the adventure.

Goodnight.

Blessings and love,

Lana

San Diego!

Well, as you can see from the bottom of this email, I am now the Hidden Peddler.  I feel so efficient with all the help of you tekkies!

I was so blessed this morning to be able to get on the very first flight I tried and get directly to San Diego.  I arrived around noon and kept busy until about 5 when Mike drove up to the door of the airport and I hopped on.  They had come all the way from Phoenix today along the same route that Dave and MIke will be peddling.  They stayed overnight last night in Glendale, AZ with Paula's brother John Flaherty and his wife Rhonda.

Tonight we are staying beside Mission Bay in a very nice RV park.  Everything is plugged in, we have done some organizing of personal belongings, had showers, and are trying to get some food into our bodies before collapsing into bed.  And this is before any biking has happened!!!

On the trip over today the motorhome sputtered in Wickenburg, AZ and they had to stop for an hour and a half to replace the crankshaft emission module.  Hope that all these problems are taken care of for the rest of the trip.  It will be interesting if Paula and I are tooling along and have to come to a stop and call Dave to ride back and help us!

Hey, Ken, we got the steps to work tonight!! First time since West Chicago.  A little WD40 on some rusty wires did the trick!  By the way have a great trip to Maui!!

I probably won't write tomorrow since it will be a day of organizing and just relaxing for the big take-off on Saturday.

Goodnight from San Diego!

Lana

Around storms...

Hello everyone,

Well, after an overnight west of Oklahoma City Tuesday night Dave, Mike and Paula continued on to Amarillo, TX where the weather caused them to head south to Lubbock instead of west toward Albuquerque.  Old friends from Indian Knoll Elementary School days Dorsey and Char Baker got them to linger in Lubbock (ah, wouldn't that be a neat song or book title?)for a couple of hours.  Then it was on to El Paso and on into New Mexico and Arizona.  They drove on through the night as Dave and Mike switched driving responsibilities.  By noon today Dave said that they might even get to Pine Valley, CA (actually the first stop on Saturday when they are biking) for the night tonight.  Don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but Pine Valley Bible Camp and Conference Center is the spot where Dave and I have been going each January for CFOI North America meetings.  It is a beautiful camp with very nice facilities.  When we were there this past January Dave borrowed a bike from one of the staff members to train in the hills around the camp.  So they are expecting him to bike there on the 27th but not to appear tonight.

Today was a day for me to pull in all the loose ends and run around getting items that Dave has requested--new battery for his laptop, car charge cords for our phones (they were out of them when we bought the phones)--getting some complicated banking done and paying bills.  I will be trying to get on a 10 AM flight to San Diego tomorrow.  Our good friend Bob Howard will be picking me up at 7 AM.  

I wish you could all see the beautiful map that our good friend Uwe Gsedl made for the church to follow Dave's trip.  He will be adding pictures as he gets them from Dave and our church family can put arrows on the map tracking the progress.  It is several feet long and locates the overnights, mileage overall and between points.  

Start day is getting really close.  

Love and blessings,

Lana 

Unscheduled events begin

Hi everyone,

Well, it has been quite a day.  Of course I am reporting from West Chicago and phone calls.  Here is what happened this AM.  As they drove into Topeka the motorhome stopped running.  They were able to get to start again and limped up the ramp before it stopped again.  AAA was called and a tow truck came.  However, it started again and they drove under their power to a garage.  They were advised to go to a dealership and when they did it was too early and there was no mechanic there yet.  They waited.  When the work was started, it was discovered that there was a partial blockage in the fuel filter and a difficulty in the emissions control system.  Parts were $24 and the labor, considerably more.  They were on their way again around 1 PM.

A nice story:  I received a nice email in response to last night's update from Elizabeth Cochrane, a CFOer, telling me that she is now living in Topeka and was hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of the motorhome.  She said she was sure it was too late to make any contact. She included her phone number just in case. (This all happened before I knew that they were stopped due to equipment problems).  Then the call came about the stopping.  I told Dave about Elizabeth's email and since they were still waiting for the motorhome to be repaired he took the phone #.  He called back in a few minutes to say that Elizabeth was coming by to pick them up and go out for brunch.  Thank you, Elizabeth, for taking time to hunt them down and getting their minds on something else for little while.

It is 11 PM in West Chicago and there has been no news, so they must be tooling along somewhere in Kansas or Oklahoma.

Keep the prayers and thoughts coming.  

Love and blessings and thanks,

Lana

Heading out to San Diego, CA

Hi everybody,

Want you to know that Dave started out today with the motorhome and trailer at about 10:30AM.  The snowstorm coming east led him to drive north to LaCrosse, WI and across southern Minnesota before dropping down to Des Moines, Iowa, to pick up Mike and Paula Terrones.  He called at about 10:45PM as they were filling up the gas tank ($139) in Des Moines.  Mike is ready to drive into the night and so they weren't sure just when they would stop.  They are heading for Topeka, Kansas instead of Kansas City where there is quite a lot of snow.

So the journey has begun. Keep them all in your thoughts and prayers.

My plan is to fly to San Diego on Thursday.  The flights look pretty full but maybe I'll get lucky and be able to go direct and not have to go to Denver and/or Los Angeles to get there.  

Love and blessings to you all,

Lana