(This blog by Master O, aka Oliver Thompson)

Okay, so it’s my turn to share a few thoughts from our amazing bike trip. The one situation that sticks out the most for me today is when I was in Louisiana, due to an unfortunate happening with my front rim. I had to head south to find a bike shop that would hopefully have the right part, while the other guys headed North. After a mishap of heading to a “bike” shop and finding out that it was a motorcycle shop, I finally made it to a bike store and was able to get a new rim on my bike.  I was a little frantic at this point and trying to get ready to continue my journey, to meet back up with the guys.  Mr. Visay (a very nice man who wanted to stay with me until he knew I was on my way heading back to be with the guys) and I had stopped at a subway.  I changed from my street clothes back into my biking gear.  As Mr. Visay and I were getting ready to leave, I put my street clothes into my saddle bags, while being sure to pull my phone and wallet out. I hopped into the truck to get back on route.  In order to get me back on route, we had to drive a good ways. We went through a town and then onto the highway for about 7 miles.  Once we got off the highway and back into town, I started to panic. I looked around and my phone and wallet were no where to be found.  I thought back and retraced my steps.  My heart sank when I realized that I had set my wallet and phone on the back bumper of the truck, when I took them out of my pants pocket.  I was certain that there was no way that they could still be there at this point, especially after being on the highway.  We pulled over and I raced around to the back of the truck to see if they were there, only by a miracle. Yes! The phone and wallet were sitting exactly where I had left them.  I could not have been more grateful.  I was already some what stressed about my bike and being off route; losing my phone AND wallet was not on my to do list. In case you’re wondering…that just doesn’t happen! At least it’s not supposed to. I knew right away this was a true act of God. My Heavenly Father was watching over me and knew that I wasn’t thinking straight and that I would have been stuck in Louisiana with a bike and some pop tarts if that wallet and phone didn’t make it down the road with me. This was just one of the many times that I found myself saying, “how in the world did that happen.” Fortunately, this was a big miracle and it was easy to tell that the Lord had his hand in this. Unfortunately there are many times in our day to day, busy lives that we lose sight of these little and big miracles that help us to keep moving on our path through life, just as I was able to keep moving on my small journey that day and for the next 2,000 miles or so. Incidences like these made me love and want to serve the Lord more and more everyday and the best way to do that is by serving our fellow man. This is why I have decided to start the process of filling out papers to serve a full time mission for my Heavenly Father
If you see someone stranded on the side of the road and you’re not in a huge rush, why not stop and help ‘em out? Even doing little things like helping a lady load her groceries into her car or lending a helping hand to your neighbor. I challenge all who are keeping up with our blog to strive to do a good deed daily and try to find someone in need of your assistance.
 Well, that’s about all I have to say this time folks! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and I’ll see ya when I see ya!

Although I feel unequal to the task of following up the inspirational posts left by Dan and Jonathan, it’s my turn to write a little post-bike trip blurb. And, in the spirit of Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever floats your boat), I’m going to write a little about charity, specifically the contagiousness of charity. And since Word didn’t give me a squigly line telling me “contagiousness” isn’t a word, it’ll be the focus.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Acts 10:38, which says that Christ “went about doing good.” I like to think of the effect that had on the people around Him, and how their seeing all those acts of goodness must have influenced them. It’s hard to see someone doing a good thing and not want to do something good yourself. For an example, think of the people outside grocery stores ringing the bell and collecting money for the Salvation Army. If you pay attention, people smile when they pass the bell ringers, and I think that’s because standing in the cold ringing a bell to try to help other people can be considered “going about doing good,” or charity, which is not only contagious, but makes people smile.

Another example of this was Doug Spencer, whom we stayed with right as we left the Outer Banks in North Carolina. To get to his house, we had to bike 10 miles after a ferry ride, but the ferry left every 90 minutes and we got there 10 minutes after it had left, so we had to wait another 80 and weren’t going to get off the ferry until dark. We called Doug and told him we were planning on just camping out when we got off the ferry, but he said he would be happy to come pick us up with his truck and trailer, and we weren’t about to turn that down. When we thanked him, he told us a story about one time when he was taking a group of youth up a canyon when they got a flat tire on the trailer he was pulling. They got the flat close to a house where a man happened to have a spare that would fit, so the man came out, gave Doug and hand, and sent him on his way without accepting any sort of compensation. Doug said that he promised then to lend a hand whenever he could, which was why he came out to pick us up. See, doing good is contagious.

As we made our way across the country, we were the recipients of countless acts of “doing good,” and I hope that we remember to help others the way we were helped. I guess there’s no right or wrong way, but I’ve noticed that both thinking of how I was helped and looking for opportunities to pass it on have helped me the past few weeks. I noticed while we were biking that some people thought we were also “going about doing good” in our own small way, and I hope that inspired them to do good as well. Moral of the story: go out and do good things, because it makes everyone happier and inspires other people to do good too!

Center: Jon feeds Oliver a pop tart durring the frigid decent from Emory Pass. Bottom right: Eric huddles in fetal position for warmth (feel free to laugh out loud)

                 I was excited, but at the same time sad to dip my wheels in the Pacific Ocean. Nobody asks me anymore why three other guys and I are wearing matching spandex, or where I am going, or how many miles I did today, or what is Nutty Putty (If any of you want to make my day out at school, ask me with genuine interest the distances between my classes, my routes between them, and my cause for attending). Most of all I think I’m going to miss the opportunities we had to meet new host families and strangers at gas stations every single day. Somewhere between the end of Louisiana and the beginning of Texas I asked myself, “What if the only thing we cared about on this trip was finishing?” I concluded that we would finish with 4,000 miles of missed opportunities to look back on, and we would’ve agonized through every day of it. If we’d done nothing more than finish, we would’ve missed the whole trip.  Hence the above heading: Joy in the Journey.

                 Here’s the question to connect this idea with life: What if when we were born the only thing we cared about was dying? After all, death is the finish line before moving on to other places. That kind of thinking just isn’t appealing to me at all! The world would be a totally different place than it is now. Daily we met strangers who, in their own way, were “living the dream.” For one father the dream was teaching his young children about marine biology. For another father it was helping his son train in high school cross-country. For other people it was running 5Ks on Thanksgiving, shark tooth hunting, coaching elementary school gym, caring for a daughter with down syndrome, a life of simplicity on a Texas ranch, playing in a bluegrass band, working toward a PhD., stargazing, and the list goes on. I don’t care what the media says. I’m convinced that the world is full of good people, and they make the world a better place by living their dreams in their own ways. When we step back to look at life from a much broader perspective, it should be obvious that it doesn’t make sense to live for the finish line. How many of the previously listed things would’ve passed these people by?

                Joy in the journey is all about finding the best in the best times and the best in the worst times. I specifically remember how much we all laughed when it was so cold that my tongue stuck to Eric’s bike rim when he jokingly called for a volunteer to lick it (9 degrees that morning in Silver City, NM).  Another favorite memory is when Oliver was nearly frozen and a little sick while crossing Emory Pass. I have a ridiculously funny picture of him huddling for warmth with his hands in his pants while Jon fed him a pop tart. On a warmer note, we could hardly believe our good fortune on Ocracoke Island, NC where we met the blue grass band Molasses Creek and were specially invited to attend their concert that evening for free. Life is too good to rush it.

                To finish this enormous blog entry I’ll share one of my favorite motivational quotes: “Where ever you are, be there.” To me that means, whatever you station in life may be, whatever your responsibilities are at the moment; give it everything you have and enjoy getting everything you can out of it. Don’t devote yourself to what comes next if you haven’t finished where you are. You’ll miss all the fun.

Well the days of our coast to coast cycling trip are over.  I’m sure the lives of many people we met were influenced in small ways, some perhaps more than others.  However, we all agree that our own lives and attitudes about life were deeply affected by our experiences and interactions with people along the way. 

Today our families attended church with us and we spoke for the final time.  Emily Petersen was here with us and did a great job in describing the details of John’s rescue effort and how she has dealt emotionally with his loss.  After our presentation, my dad came up to us and gave us a challenge.  Thus far this blog’s sole purpose has been to record and share specific events and opportunities that we cyclists were involved in on the trip.  It’s been wonderful to share exciting and joyous stories as well as the difficulties and hardships.  However, it has not included much of our personal feelings and the life lessons we have learned from such experiences. 

In hearing our last devotional, my father was deeply touched.  He suggested that we not let the postings nor the readership of this site die in the simple expression of the trips’ events.  Instead, he had us commit to trade off posting to the blog of our own personal thoughts, changes of opinions and attitudes as a result of our experiences.  Once a week (probably on Sundays) you can expect a new post from one of the cyclists. 

I’m excited to get started on this project.  I very much enjoyed writing the blog (yes even though sometimes I was slow in doing so).  But often I recognized that I wasn’t including much of my thoughts of the trip.  Eight hours a day of relative solitude on a bike allows at least some time for you to think, and not recording some of it seemed a shame to me. 

So today, I want to start by including a portion of my presentation:

Back on the Oct. 12 post, I recorded that I had been having some pain in my right knee.  Not to seem like a wimp, I didn’t say too much about it, but now that I look back on it I can say that it indeed was VERY painful.  For several days up to that point, (and this is very early on in the trip mind you) the pain had been plagueing me.  Especially when I was leading the group and didn’t have the crutch of drafting to rest it, my knee became unbearable.  Several times I had to pull over to the side of the road to stretch.  This made me feel like I was holding the group back and lowered my confidence.  I especially worried that there was something wrong with my knee and the possibilities of permanent damage – putting an end to the goal of finishing the trip with the rest of the guys.  So early on, I was discouraged to even set out in the mornings for I knew that before long the pain would return.

I had heard that perhaps it was caused by the way my foot was positioned on the pedal.  Sometimes the angle of the clip in shoe could cause pain in the knee.  That was shortly ruled out because after adjusting and counter-adjusting, the pain just got worse.  Then, just when the pain seemed like it would overtake me, I remembered a bike shop technician telling us that raising the seat up can relieve knee pain.  The motion of the legs while pedaling should nearly lock the knee out at the lowest point of the cycle.  My problem was that my foot didn’t reach low enough on each pedal stroke, putting unnecessary stress on my knees each time I pushed down. 

I was amazed that raising the seat up only an inch to an inch and a half solved my problem.  It immediately relieved the pain in my right knee, never again to resurface.   It was then that I realized a very important life lesson:  usually the problems in life have small and simple solutions.  If correctly analized and diagnosed, tweaking adjustments can make a world of difference.  I really took to heart the scripture outlined in the Book of Mormon found in Alma 37:6.  It reads: “Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.”

In a relationship, for example, it’s not the huge overhaul events that make truly lasting impacts.  It’s the small, day-to-day acts of kindness, love, and dependability that result in respect and trust.  May we all find the time to recognize the small needs of others and seek to fill them.

Not to miss out on our last continental breakfast, we were sure to wake up plenty early.  An unusual amount of fog obscured our view of the freeway not 100 yards away.  As the sun was rising, trying to cut through it, we were wondering to ourselves if it was even safe to ride on the roads this morning.  However, after a nice breakfast of waffles, toasted bagels, and fresh fruit, the fog had lifted enough to feel more secure.  The Maughan family, who had finally arrived this morning at 2 AM after a very long midflight delay, joined us after getting just a few hours of sleep.  They had reserved two rooms next door to each other at the La Quinta Inn, one for them and one for us.

As we began our ride, they followed us closely to take as many pictures as possible during our triumphant arrival.  We passed Sea World and took a wrong turn that led us across a set of bridges.  It was still foggy and we couldn’t tell exactly where we were, although by then we had already seen several large bodies of saltwater.  They were just part of the inlet bay, however.  Once we got our bearings, it was just a few minutes to get on the final bike path that took us to the beach.

The last few seconds on that path were so suspenseful because the fog was so thick we could hardly see past 50 feet!  All of a sudden we got whiffs of the sea spray.  Then, a massed crowd appeared in the short distance and we all waved.  Cheers soon followed as they began to make out our shapes too.

One by one all four of us stopped and greeted our parents, friends and supporters.  And guess what?  They were ALL wearing our brown Nutty Putty T-shirts!  We haven’t seen anyone besides ourselves wear those shirts on the whole trip!

We were happy to find Matt Logelin there at the scene as well.  Matt is the man who organized the Liz Logelin Foundation for which we are raising money for.  He was alight with gratitude for our endeavors and sincerely thanked us.  It was the first time any of the four of us had personally met him.  He seems to be a wonderful man and a great father to his adorable daughter.

Emily, Lizzie, and John Jr. were also the center of attention.  Perhaps it was because of all the attention from everyone, but Lizzie shied away from the camera many times.  I think there were some really good pictures taken, though!

Many pictures and poses later, we removed our bags from our bikes as well as our shoes from our feet.  It seemed like an epical event taking place as we carried our bikes by the frames down to the waters of the shore.  The water was cold as it lapped at our feet, but that didn’t bother us.  Our loving posse that followed us clapped and cheered loudly as our tires lowered gently into the surf.

We posed for our Kodak shot with our bikes held high above our heads, tires facing up.  I won’t lie — it felt great!

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Besides the fact that today we’re only a few miles away from the beach, there wasn’t a whole lot that happened today.  We woke up this morning with 3 small climbs and descents and one long ride downhill into San Diego. 

One funny occurrence: we made a quick stop in Pine Valley for a drink, and this random guy pulls up in his car and says, “Hey are any of you willing to buy a car bike rack from me?  It’s brand new and I’ll give it to ya for 20 bucks.”  Long story short, Eric was going to buy one here in San Diego anyway.  So instead of waiting and buying one new for over $100, he paid the guy and I trucked it down the hills.  It looked pretty funky secured to the back panniers of my bike.  You would think that the rack would be carrying the bike, not the other way around.  I wonder what other people thought of our little gang of bikers one with a spare rim, one with a car rack… 

We  met a  man, Ryan who was riding by himself that joined our group for a few miles as we neared our hotel.  He offered some help if we wanted it at a local bike shop.  He was a really cool guy; he had completed the Southern Tier route that we’re finishing tomorrow, the Pacific Coast route, and parts of the Atlantic Coast.

Once we reached the La Quinta Inn, we decided that we just wanted to hang out for a while – ordered some Papa Johns from the gift card one last time, etc. 

My parents who were staying at grandma’s house in Spring Valley came to pick me up to do some christmas shopping and dropped my laptop off for me.  It’s nice to start getting my stuff back little by little.

The plans for tomorrow, our last day of the trip, we’ll be arriving at Ocean Beach at 10:00 AM if you want to show up

This amazing adventure is unfortunately drawing to a close – we all feel great about what we’ve done and how far we’ve come.  It blows my mind that we really did ride all the way across America!  Thanks so much for following us on our incredible journey!

I feel a sense of accomplishment today as we settle in because we’ve completed our last long ascent.  Today we started at 145 ft below sea level and are now checked in to our room in Live Oak Springs at 4,150 ft above.  After today, there’s nothing standing in our way to get to the ocean.  We’re still ahead of schedule – something I would never have guessed before we started the trip.  I underestimated our ability to make these steep long climbs. 

Even before reaching the base of the mountain, we ran into some rough roads.  Probably the worst roads we’ve ridden on the whole trip (okay maybe not worse than Louisiana, but still pretty bad)  The jostling and bumping up and down on the uneven surface made Eric joke, “Well I guess I won’t need a massage after all.  This road’s doing the job just fine.”  Eventually we reached the freeway I-8 and the surface improved. 

My parents met up with us about halfway up the mountain with Subway sandwiches and ice cold gatorade.  It was the perfect time to stop and take a rest too.  During our visit with them they told us of a terrible tragedy that unfolded right in front of them as they were driving to meet us today.  On the opposite side of the freeway, there was a van that was passing by with the side door open.  My mom was already feeling like something was wrong when a teenage girl emerged from inside and exited the vehicle as it continued on at high speeds.  She described it like watching a horrible movie.  She hit the ground and tumbled for a very long ways, probably killed upon impact.  My parents saw the whole thing and came back to the scene of the incident to call 911 and hoped to find out what happened.  They learned that the van had been transporting juvenile delinquints to a different holding facility, but didn’t come to any solid conclusions about the why of the incident.  Fortunately for us bikers, we had long since past that spot and don’t have to deal with those images.  Poor girl.

When we reached Live Oak Springs, we were “hooked up” with this neat A-frame 2 bedroom condo.  It was originally more, but the manager gave us a good deal on it for the night.  The interesting thing was that the night before, the Pace family had given us some money to stay in a hotel for tonight instead of having to camp outside in the high altitude cold.  It was exactly the same amount required for us to stay there!

We went across the street, ordered a huge pizza for dinner and went back to the room.  Dan tried out the jacuzzi tub, but only put a little bit of water in it.  So he had to enjoy it in his own way   We took a hilarious video. I’ll have to post it sometime later.

We’re so excited!  Tomorrow is our last real day of riding!  We’ll be IN San Diego tomorrow night!

So this morning the Crooks (no bad guys involved, don’t worry) made us an outstanding breakfast.  Pancakes, eggs, bacon, orange juice, etc… I don’t know what I’ll do with myself after this trip is over, cold cereal is good, but it just doesn’t compare to this royal treatment we’re receiving all the time

Before we left their house by the Church farms, we got to take a couple pictures with the huge fields stretching out behind us.  Then it was straight pedaling for a long ways.  We stopped once because Eric broke another spoke. He’s a champ at repairing this now since he’s had so many incidences with it in the past.  He just switched out to his extra wheel this time instead of replacing the broken spoke.

We stopped for lunch in the dunes of Glamis and really wanted to ride the four wheelers they had to rent there.  We figured we could get a good deal if we explained that we only had time for an hour because of our charity bike ride.  However the $70 price tag per hour plus a $500 deposit on each ATV dampened our spirits.  Too bad; maybe next time.

We did get some good pictures though

About 10 miles before Brawley, we took a rest right next to a beef farm.  The smell was pretty strong and the cows were funny to watch.  They probably thought the same of us (both sight and smell).  Oliver wanted to go milk a few of them through the wire fences, that is, until we noticed that they were all males… Awkward.  So instead he decided to toss a half eaten pop-tart to them.  Unfortunately, it fell just short of the pen and we will remain in mystery if the cows would or would not have eaten it.

You can see just how much happened to us today from my remarks.

When we finally reached Brawley, after passing Glamis, the only town in between (and really it wasn’t even a town, just a bunch of RVs and trailers temporarily stationed close to that general store), we were relieved to be back in civilization.

The Pace family welcomed us into their home with open arms.  We all washed up and ate a great traditional dinner for the area: Carne Asada burritos it put me in a really good mood!

Well tomorrow is our last difficult day.  We’re 113 feet below sea level tonight.  Tomorrow we’ll be sleeping at around 4,000 ft above sea level.  You don’t have to be a calculus professor to tell that we’ll be going uphill for quite some time tomorrow.  Fun stuff – who knew that so close to the ocean there’d be a huge mountain stuck in the middle of a flat desert!

Anyways I’m gonna go to bed until later folks!

Today was definitely a milestone day that we were looking forward to for quite a while (like, 3740 miles), because we’re finally in California! At one point in my life I was living in an apartment that consisted of me from New York and 5 guys from California, so I spent most of that year making fun of their state just because I could, but I take it all back now.

We had a great breakfast this morning with the Roberts family that included Corn Flakes (along with eggs and pancakes), which my roommates can tell you is my secret love that people make fun of me for. So I knew it was going to be a good day, despite the fact that I got a flat tire like 2 miles into our ride. It was a great ride today, though. It was warm but cloudy, and almost all flat or downhill, so we could cruise pretty quickly. We actually dropped from 2100’ to 189’, and tomorrow we’ll be spending the night below sea level, which is nice for riding. It would be nicer if we didn’t know that there’s a 4000’ behemoth between us and San Diego, but what can you do?
This is an interesting area of the country because, according to the locals, there are very few people in the summer, and then all the snowbirds come down in the winter to escape colder winters wherever they’re from. It’s been fun seeing the tons of license plates from Idaho, Washington, and the Dakotas (I didn’t know people really lived there), and hearing their stories. It makes me feel a little backwards to say that I’ll be heading north after the trip.
So after 110 miles of relatively easy riding in some beautiful scenery we crossed the Colorado River into California and the Pacific Time Zone! While we were riding I was able to get a picture of the sign that said Welcome to California, but I’m kicking myself for not getting one of the “Bicycles Prohibited” sign (we apparently missed our exit, but oh well). Actually, I’ve felt really safe biking along the interstate, and I’m not just saying that because I know my mom will read this. The only problem is that you have to watch out for tire shreds, because they come with those nice metal belts that will do a number on your bike tires. According to google maps and the roadside mile counters we rode around 117 miles today, which is our farthest of the trip, although Oliver alleges his odometer says 127. There was a time in American politics where we called that “fuzzy math,” but if it sounds more impressive I’m willing to go with it.
The highway right after we crossed into California is called the Pearl Harbor Memorial Highway, which is obviously significant since tomorrow is the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I thought that was interesting, and quite thought provoking. Especially while you’re biking across the country, you have lot of time to think about what’s really important in life, and I mean that in a non-cliché sort of way.
We got into Blythe and met the Crook family, who graciously offered to put us up and fed us some amazing chicken off the grill. It’s not everywhere in the country that you can have grilled chicken in December. Anyway, it was a really great day, and I can’t think what else I was going to say about it, so I guess I’ll just post this. Life is good!

I just turned on my Christmas Pandora radio station, so it doesn’t matter what time it is, I’m wired now and it’s time to talk about what happened yesterday!

Sundays have been really fun days on our trip, because we get to rest, go to church, and meet awesome people, which are all things I’m a big fan of. We spent this weekend with the Roberts family, and they are an amazing family, the type of people that you feel right at home with instantly. Their kids were really fun to play with, and I was impressed with how helpful their kids were. Even the youngest seemed genuinely interested in helping out any way he could, which is something you don’t see often in little kids.
Church was really fun yesterday, and it’s fun being in these areas that have a high LDS population, because Wickenburg is a fairly small town, with a really nice church building and large ward. We got to speak to all the youth, which involved telling them about what we’re doing, why, some good experiences we’ve had, and making jokes and telling funny stories (a favorite is definitely when Dan stuck his tongue to my rim after I brought it in from the 9 degree weather). Speaking to youth has also been one of my favorite parts of this trip. I know when I was younger how important it was to have good role models in my life, and I feel like we have hopefully been that to a few youth we’ve met along the way. Addressing groups is also a great opportunity for us to reflect on what we’ve been doing and learning, and trying to figure out how we can apply that to different parts of our lives when we stop being cyclists and start being real people again.

Rereading that last paragraph, apparently the 3 different versions of Silent Night that came on the radio consecutively put me in a reflective mood. In short, church was awesome, and then we went back and relaxed with the Robertses, which was exactly what we needed after a hard week of biking. The Joneses came over for an amazing dinner of enchiladas, and we got to watch the First Presidency Christmas devotional afterwards, which I would highly recommend watching, in case anyone missed it (www.lds.org). Once again, it was one of those days that are really relaxing, and a great chance to get to know some amazing people and learn their stories. We didn’t have a place to stay the next night in Blythe, but Sister Roberts made some phone calls and took care of us, which was fantastic. There are awesome people all over the place.