wrap up

Well, there's Chicago, where I changed trains. I rode my bicycle for 3 weeks, riding 1,064 miles, which does not count the 60 miles in a pick-up truck at the end! Those are actual pedaled miles. I very much enjoyed the scenery and seeing a place so contrasting to the pine- and aspen-covered mountains of NW Montana, and talking to those lovely people with their southern drawls, and eating that delicious southern fried chicken, fried catfish, and southern biscuits, and oh yes, the Sweet Tea! It was cool seeing cotton fields and old plantation houses, civil war historical sites and learning so much about the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians. One of my favorite things was all the Mexican people in Carthage who work for the Tyson meat packing plant. Imagine this: mexican spanish spoken with a southern drawl! I loved how openly the people of Louisiana and southern Mississippi openly embrace their Christianity and faith in the Lord. Over and over I heard "God bless you, I'll pray for you". I'll cherish the memory of the smell of flowers and damp earth and fresh-cut grass. More than anything I enjoyed being warm. My comfort zone is between 80 and 90 degrees! I loved it! It was an amazing experience to roll along the backroads of the deep south.

In closing, I think of the book "The Hobbit", and how at the end of the book Gandalf told Bilbo Baggins that his adventure was not ending, but was only beginning. And like Toad in "The Wind in the Willows" you can bet that it won't be long before I'm caught up in another adventure. I do know that every day is the first day of the rest of our lives. We don't want to reach the end of our lives, as the author Henry David Thoreau wrote in "Walden's Pond" and look back and see that we never truly lived.

SO....all of you go out and do something you always wanted to do!

May God bless you and keep you safe in all your journeys.