A Driving Marathon...

July 28th, 2006

I woke myself up at 7:00 a.m. to finish some last minute packing, and to get in a shower and breakfast before meeting up with my traveling companion. At 8:30 a.m. I'm at Discovery Christian Community church picking up my traveling companion Julianna. Her nickname is actually just "J", so J. and I left the church shortly after to drive down to the airport to pick up our rental car. Getting a rental car became an adventure in itself. After finding a parking space for my old college car and then taking the airport bus across the expansive parking lot and then waiting on the rental car to be delivered it was an hour before we were actually on the road again.

So by 10:00 a.m. were finally leaving Salt Lake City traveling east on interstate 80. At this point you're probably wondering where I'm headed. Destination is Muddy Gap, Wyoming. If you've never heard of Muddy Gap, Wyoming your definitely not alone. I learned later in the day that Muddy Gap isn't actually a town it's just a junction or a fork where three roads meet. There happens to be one service station there and not much else.

Now comes the why. Why was I headed to Muddy Gap, Wyoming? It just so happens that on that particular day there was a group of Mennonite young adults biking through Muddy Gap. If you've never heard about Bike Movement then you should look it up online at www.bikemovement.org

Of course I'll tell you about Bike Movement at a later time, because it's just that cool and you can be a part of it too.

It was a five and a half hour drive from Salt Lake City to Muddy Gap, Wyoming, but it was really pleasant with J.'s company. We arrived at Muddy Gap in the middle of the afternoon and were looking forward to meeting up with Bike Movement. As it happened the cyclists had a change of plans because of an incident on the road earlier. They had moved on to Casper, Wyoming and there was no way of me finding that out at the time. J. and I drove around the area hoping to find them, but eventually we gave up our quest and headed back home. I decided since we had already come that far we should take a more scenic route home and we got to see some pretty spectacular sites in Wyoming.

We reached Salt Lake City around 11:00 p.m. that same night. If I had been wise I would have headed straight home after dropping J. off at her parent's house. Instead I came inside and stayed visiting with Stacey, J.'s mother, until about 2:30 a.m. Once I arrived home, for some reason I decided to check my email before falling exhausted into bed. Here comes kicker, I had received an email from Alicia Horst with Bike Movement. She related the incident and the fact that they were now in Casper, Wyoming.

Well, I thought to myself, Casper isn't that far from where I had been. I also had no pressing plans for Saturday, why not make a return trip. My next dilemma was over sleep, or lack of it. It's 3:00 a.m. on Saturday, the Bike Movement group would be moving out early Sunday morning. It was a six hour drive to Casper and the same returning and I would have to be back by early Sunday morning for Church services in Salt Lake City. Okay, so here's the quick (and not so thought out plan I devised):

3:30 a.m. sleep
8:30 a.m. awake and get on the road
After some stops along the way that took longer than I expected didn't arrive in Casper until 4:00 p.m.
Spent time with Bike Movement (and I'm sure to share more about these amazing, dedicated persons at a later time).
By 10:00 p.m. I was settling down for sleep with with everyone else.
At 2:00 a.m. I was waking up by myself (well Alicia woke up with me to say good-bye and then went back to bed).
By 9:00 a.m. I was back in Salt Lake City and getting ready for Church.

Of course I spent the Church services trying to keep my eyes open. As a tribute to Pastor Steve's sermon I heard everything he said about being lost and afraid, and that was with my eyes closed.

Here's some random statistics from my driving marathon. During a 54 hour period I only got about 9 hours of sleep. During that same 54 hour period I got in about 23 hours of driving time (and I was the only driver). And to top off my random statistics during a 54 hour period I hit and killed to bunny rabbits with my car (trust me it was horrifying - and by the way Wyoming jack rabbits are stupid creatures that don't have the sense to get off the road).

Everyone with Bike Movement seemed so impressed that I went to the trouble driving to Wyoming and then did it again the next day. This is the way I figure it, at the end of the day I can say that the reward was greater or equal to the cost than I'm happy with what I did. Let me tell you I went for two days with little sleep and drove around an excessive amount, but meeting up with Bike Movement and being part of the dialogue was well worth it.

In my next entry I'll tell you more about Bike Movement and how you can join the dialogue. I hope you find it as rewarding an experience as I did.