Halfway Through The Desert

Well, we have plenty to update you guys with after several days (weeks?) with little internet access and even less phone access, so we’ll just get right down to business.

After leaving our good friends the Smiths and Moons in Eureka, Nevada, we began the 77-mile stretch from Eureka to Ely, Nevada. We knew it was sort of our last major stretch of emptiness in Nevada, and we were excited to be on our way (even though we knew we’d miss the Smiths and Moons greatly as a result of having to leave Eureka).

We set out toward Ely and were a few miles down the road when the aforementioned Smiths and Moons showed up to deliver some delicious food, some Gatorade, and play on the giant pile of gravel we were camped out next to. We’d set up our tent to avoid rain and we picked a perfect spot because the gravel provided about 45 minutes of excitement before our friends headed home.

Also on the way to Ely, we met a couple named Ken and Ruth Walter from Napa, California, who turned around their travel van to see what we were doing, because we had “piqued their interest.” They were fellow Christians and were excited to hear about our journey. They also kindly gave us a HUGE handful of Chewy Granola Bars because they weren’t going to eat them all. Getting any food on this journey is a blessing, so we were very appreciative. We were even more appreciative of the conversation we had and the prayer they prayed over us before continuing on their way. All in all, it was an awesome experience meeting them.

We eventually made it to Ely, and set up shop at the Motel 6 for the first night, mostly because we just wanted a comfortable bed, wi-fi, and a clean, private shower to use. It was a great night’s rest, to say the least. The next night we headed only a little further down the road to the Ely KOA, which was equally as splendid (especially for only $25). The reason we stayed an extra night in Ely is because we had a 140+ stretch to Milford, Utah, coming up where we wouldn’t be able to carry enough water in our carts. That meant doing water drops, and, thankfully, Ely had a car rental place in town.

After loading up with 20-ish gallons of water at the grocery store, we got in our rented car, drove out toward Utah and started dropping off water every 10 miles or so. While it ended up costing around $135 when it was all said and done, doing those water drops was worth EVERY penny.

Unfortunately, we noticed that the sky was looking more and more ominous toward the end of our water drops. More unfortunately, it was looking ominous over the general vicinity of our campsite in Ely. As we cruised home, the storm got worse and worse. Sure enough, we arrived at the KOA to see that our tent was SOAKED. You see, we had left our rain fly off the tent in order to let it dry while we were doing our water drops. When we’d left Ely, it was a perfectly clear sky above us. However, that was definitely not the case 4 hours later, when we finally returned. Without the rainfly on, our tent had accumulated puddles deeper than our hand in certain places. And a decent number of our things were inside the tent, so they were pretty (really) wet as well.

That said, we knew everything would eventually dry, and we were thankful to have had an opportunity to do water drops, even if it did mean our stuff had to get a little bit wet. It was still worth it to know we’d have water every ten miles during one of the last major stretches of our journey.

We would’ve left Ely that next morning, but our friends the Smiths decided to come out and see us one more time and spend the afternoon at Cave Lake to do some fishing and grilling. It was a blast to see them again, and we enjoyed the adventure of fishing at the lake, eating the delicious steaks Rich grilled up, and generally just having fun with them one more time. All in all, it was a treat to see them again.

After three nights in Ely, it was time to move on (and finally finish crossing Nevada). As we headed toward Baker, Utah, we stopped at a small lake just outside of Ely. We realized we had made a slight mistake, however. Even though we’d calculated enough water for the water drops on the way to Milford, we’d forgotten to keep two extra gallons with us before setting out from Ely. We prayed God would provide a way for us to find some extra water, because, at this point, we knew He would answer our prayers somehow. As we contemplated pumping out lake water into whatever water containers we could scrounge up, we were blessed with another answered prayer. A few families were fishing at the lake, and we heard one guy yell to some people in a boat that he was going to run out and grab some water to bring back.

We knew it was our chance, so I walked up, explained our situation, and asked the gentleman if he was planning on going into town, and, if so, whether he’d mind grabbing a couple of extra gallons of water for us. He mentioned he had just been planning to go to his campsite nearby for the water, but wouldn’t mind going into town for us anyway. Very thankful for his offer, I gave him $10 and said just two gallons would be great, and if he could snag a few extra Gatorades if there was money left over, we wouldn’t complain. I also remembered to introduce myself and he said his name was Carl.

Carl came back with a load of supplies. He brought us 4 gallons of water, 4 Gatorades, and then handed back our $10 and said he was happy to help. Talk about a blessing (and an answered prayer). We thanked Carl and then went back to wait out the afternoon heat.

As the afternoon came to a close, we noticed that the clouds looked sort of terrifying. We’d learned that it was “monsoon season,” which means that, in this area of the country, storm clouds form quickly in the evenings and rain will suddenly come out of nowhere, sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for an hour or more. We decided that, rather than fight the rain again, we’d set up camp and avoid getting soaked.

It was great until about midnight, when a group of (we’re assuming) high schoolers drove out to the lake and started shooting off fireworks like crazy. That was a pretty rude awakening. We eventually fell back asleep, but it was certainly a surprise.

Anyway, other than one other afternoon of rain at a rest area (where we hid in our waterproof bivy sacks until the rain stopped), the rest of our trip to Baker was relatively uneventful. Once we arrived in Baker, we randomly and unexpectedly found wi-fi at the Silver Jack Inn and Lectrolux Cafe, which was an AWESOME place run by very cool, fun, friendly people. Even though we didn’t have cell reception, it was a blessing to be able to email our parents, send some tweets, respond to some emails, and do some other internetty things. If you’re ever in Baker, Nevada, for whatever reason, be sure to hit up the Silver Jack Inn and Lectrolux Cafe. You won’t regret it.

After that, we moved on from Baker and crossed into Utah, which was cause for celebration. We could now say we’d conquered two states, one of them being the menacing desert stretch we had been told would be “just about impossible during the summer.”

Since then, we’ve been plowing through Utah at a pretty good pace. We’ll have more to post soon as far as a location update (once we’re a little further down the road), but we’re excited to have wi-fi again and have the ability to post this.

On a different note, we have had more and more people share prayer requests with us and we are SO thankful people are willing to do that. We really do love praying for people out here and it has helped us grow ourselves in many ways too, so if you have prayer requests, please don’t be afraid to share them, either by contacting us on Facebook, emailing StormingJericho@gmail.com, or by any other way you want to send us a prayer request. We have been so blessed with prayers and encouragement on this trip, and we’re honored to be able to pray for others as well.

Thanks for your support, and for the kind words on our recent posts and updates. We look forward to sharing more news (and possibly posting more frequently now that we should have hopefully internet access a little more consistently) as we continue on across Utah.

Back with more soon. Until then, keep on Stormin’, everyone!

(That’s just a cheesy tagline/closing line option that I’m giving a test run, much to Lindsie’s dismay. We’ll see if it catches on.)

-Mike and Lindsie

The Miracle of Prayer

As mentioned in the last post, the 70-mile distance between Austin and Eureka was intimidating. Even if we’re cranking out 20 miles a day, it’s still a 3 ½ day journey for us without a guarantee of water or new food.

As we walked along, we ended up taking longer than we’d initially planned. What we thought would be a 4-day trip, maximum, was progressively turning into a 6 or 7-day trip, minimum. We knew we had enough water prepared, but our bigger concern was becoming our food supply. While we definitely had enough to survive for a few extra days, there are only so many peanut butter sandwiches and crackers you can eat before you want to avoid peanut butter for the rest of your life. Lindsie and I were starting to hit that point.

Then, to make matters worse, we started to notice that Lindsie’s right cart wheel was starting to look more and more bent out of shape. Like…looked like a cartoon after Daffy Duck runs his bike into a rock bent out of shape. We tried bending it back and forth with minimal success. In fact, I think I actually made it worse as a result of one bending attempt.

Needless to say, we were disheartened. We were running low on our food, we were still two days outside of Eureka, we had no cell phone reception, and we had wheels on Lindsie’s carts that looked like they were about to snap in half and leave us stranded in the desert forever. And it was getting hot.

As Lindsie and I looked at each other, we felt like we were running out of options. So, as usual, we left it up to God. We hugged each other and said a prayer that God would send somebody our way who could help. Whether it was a person with a truck who could drive us into town to get the tire looked at or just someone who knew a thing or two about bike tires, we didn’t care. We just needed help.

And of course, as He has every step of this journey, God answered our prayer.

While we were praying, we noticed an SUV driving by. We finished our prayer, looked around, and wondered what would happen next. About 15 seconds later, that SUV pulled up alongside the road. The driver looked out the window and asked if we needed help. We gave him a resounding “YES, please” and he got out to take a look.

Within seconds he told us the problem – our spokes were WAY too loose. As in, you could pluck them easier than guitar strings loose. He also noticed that our inner tubes for Lindsie’s tires weren’t working the way they should’ve been.

He introduced himself as Richard Smith and mentioned that he was on his way across the state so he and his family could go to church the next morning, run to Walmart, and see family. Rich said he’d grab us some better inner tubes at Walmart and asked if we needed anything else. We mentioned that some extra bread and peanut butter (we recognize that we were ready to give up on peanut butter forever a few minutes before that, but peanut butter doesn’t exactly go bad and it’s filling, whether we get tired of the taste or not). He said he’d get that no problem and would drop it off the next day after church.

Rich asked why we were walking and we told him it was to learn to rely on God and get ourselves out of our “normal” life routine. His short and immediate response was more inspiring and motivating than many sermons we’ve heard in our lives – “My family and I serve the Lord 150%. We’ll be back with that stuff for you as soon as we can be.”

As Rich drove away, Lindsie burst into tears of thankfulness and gratitude, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little choked up myself. Not even 3 minutes before they pulled up, we were both wondering if we’d even make it to Eureka with food in our stomachs and our carts still functional. Suddenly we had a solution for fixing our cart and knew fresh supplies were on the way in less than 24 hours.

And the most incredible thing is that God sent us this family of Road Angels DURING our prayer for help. Not a day later. Not several hours later. Not never. He sent us help IMMEDIATELY upon hearing our prayer.

I’m pretty sure people wouldn’t even believe it if I were writing a fictional story. I barely believe it myself. But the wonders God works can often be too crazy to believe, even when they happen to us.

We stopped on the side of the road, said a prayer of thanks and gratitude, and tightened our spokes. Needless to say, that fixed our problem almost 100%. After taking our afternoon rest, we were able to continue on down the road and keep making progress toward Eureka.

On an interesting side note, Lindsie’s mom’s cousin Nancy, who had recently met up with us in Cold Springs Station with her daughter Deanna, has another daughter, Autumn, who is currently in Nevada herself. Although she lives in Alaska and is part of the fire crews there, Autumn was down here in Nevada fighting some of the summer fires that pop up in this incredibly dry desert.

Autumn met up with us on the road and walked with us for almost two days, heavy backpack and all. It was fun for Lindsie to catch up with her (they hadn’t seen each other since Lindsie was a 3^rd grader) and it was great to meet her myself. She spent one night camping with us, which brings us back around to Rich and his family.

Around 10:00 that night, Rich pulled up and dropped off our bike tubes, the requested bread and peanut butter, and much, much more. He and his incredible family—wife RaeAnn and daughters Anastasia and Chloe—also dropped off two gallons of extra water, two bottles of sunscreen (on our list of things to buy in Eureka), a first aid kit, some bags of M&Ms, chapstick, and then the motherlode – 5 freshly cooked and still warm steaks, a bag of ribs, 3 ears of corn on the cob, and an entire bag full of rolls.

We had a feast on our hands at 10:00 p.m. in the middle of the Nevada desert, and Lindsie didn’t hesitate to dive into the steak right then and there, with only her hands for silverware. Ironically enough, Lindsie had just been telling me and Autumn that she really wanted steak and potatoes when we got to Eureka, and, as if God wanted to add a cherry on top of this perfect ice cream sundae, we were given delicious steaks without even asking for them. Talk about a  true blessing in every sense of the word.

Rich told us to keep in touch as we got into Eureka so we could connect with them there, and we thanked him as much as we could (which, in our opinion, still wasn’t enough).

The next morning, Autumn walked a half day with us and then headed back to Reno to get back to work. We said farewell to her and continued on to Eureka. That night, the Smiths drove BACK out to drop off some ice water. The reason they made the 30 mile journey to drop off ice water? “We were just sitting on the couch watching TV and thought you guys might want something cold to drink.” Talk about an amazing family.

We made it to Eureka soon after, and the Smiths (and their close, close friends the Moons – Arron, Vicky, and their kids Arron Jr., Jocelyn, Julianna, and Jenavieve) have essentially adopted us. We’ve had a number of delicious homemade breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and we’ve been able to do laundry, clean ourselves up, and—far and away the most important thing—had amazing, spirit-driven conversations about our faith and beliefs.

Everything these two families do is driven and inspired by the Lord, and it is a blessing we can’t even begin to describe. Lindsie and I were afraid we’d feel empty and drained crossing the barren desert, and instead we’ve spent several days in Eureka getting as spiritually and emotionally filled as we have in any other place we’ve visited on this journey.

By the time this post goes live, we’ll already be down the road toward Ely, but we just wanted to share with everyone how incredible the Lord can be when you need provision.

Isaiah 58:11 says, “The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.”

Similarly, Paul writes to the Philippians in Philippians 4:6-7, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.” Later, Paul writes in verse 19, “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”

I’m not sure how many more verses could be more applicable to this situation. I’d imagine there are dozens of similar verses (and if you know of any, please add them to the comments on this post or mention them on the Facebook page so we can mark them in our Bibles), but my point is that God tells us CONSTANTLY throughout the Bible that all we need to do is ask for His help and He will provide. We mentioned that in this post about answered prayers back in California, and there have already been several other times on this journey where God has answered our prayers – as soon as we remembered to ask.

That’s what I’d encourage you to do after reading this post. Take a look at the things you do in your everyday life that worry you, wear you out, or take away from your time with the Lord, and just ask God to lift those burdens. Whether He answers your prayer in seconds like He did with us through the Smith family or He answers it weeks later, God WANTS to help those who trust in Him and ask for His help. It says so right there in the Bible. Want proof?

In the book of James (which has been one of my favorite books to read throughout this cross-country journey…take a look for yourself and you’ll see why within the first three verses), James writes in verse 5, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” And, like I said, there are TONS of verses that back this up completely.

Anyway, this post is getting long, but it’s hard to keep things short when God is relentlessly working miracles in your life.

We are so thankful for the Smith family and the Moon family. Like I said, the conversations have been spiritually filling, the food has been physically feeling, and the sense of peace Lindsie and I have felt in Eureka has been as emotionally filling as any place we’ve been so far. We feel so blessed to be here, and so blessed that we could share yet another incredible story from this journey.

Thanks for reading, as usual. Feel free to leave a comment of support here on the blog, over on the Facebook page, or via email. And, as always, please let us know if you have prayer requests. We have plenty of time for prayer on this walk.

We won’t have internet access for a few days on the road to Ely, so we’ll be back with another update as soon as we’re able.

-Mike and Lindsie

Finding Life In The Desert

Good news – we FINALLY have internet! Anyway, there are a few update posts coming to make up for the long hiatus from the blog. This is the first one, and we’re hoping to have more soon!

After leaving Carson City, saying sad goodbyes to Jenny and Rob, and setting off into the great unknown (which is actually just the Nevada desert traveling east along Highway 50), we realized that we had a much larger task in front of us than we’d even sort of imagined.

You see, there’s really not much out here in the desert. Shocking, we know.

Our first destination past Carson City was Dayton, NV. It was only a few miles, but we quickly realized that, unfortunately, the weather was hotter than anticipated. I know you’re probably thinking, “Duh, it’s the desert,” but the area we were traveling through was actually suffering from a heat wave so it was even hotter than “normal,” (if you can call desert temperatures normal, that is).

We pushed through the heat and got to the edge of Dayton that morning. There we found a lovely city park right along the side of the road, about 100 feet from a gas station with a Quizno’s. Since we were already struggling due to the extreme temperature, we decided to set up at that park, grab some lunch, and wait out the afternoon in the shade of the trees.

Let me backtrack for a second so I can fill you in on our general plan. The goal was/is to get up as early as we’re able in the mornings—for Mike that’s about 4:30, for Lindsie it’s about 5:30—and start walking until the sun is fully flared up and raging. Then we pull off for a few hours, get ourselves in the shade, and wait for the sun to start going back down again. You would think that a 6-8 hour midday break with nothing to do but read/rest/relax would be AMAZING, but, as much as I hate to complain, it’s not as amazing as imagined. Mostly because there’s a sweltering heat all around you and, sadly, you can only sit and read or listen to music for so long before your body starts saying “Get up! Move around! Do something!” But sitting in the shade is still better (and safer) than trying to walk through the heat, so sit we do.

Anyway, while we waited in the shade in Dayton, I (Mike) quickly realized that the two books I’d bought from Walmart would only last me another few days at best. I told Lindsie, “It’d be great to find a used book store along the way where I could buy some classic books a little bit cheaper than trying to buy books from Walmart.” Once the sun cooled down, we started off again and the very first store we saw, sitting just a little ways up and across the street, was a used book store. Semi-prayer answered.

After loading up with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Life On The Mississippi by Mark Twain, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck, we were on our way again. We ended up stealth camping just outside of Dayton, which was somewhat nerve-wracking but mostly adventurous.

The next day, we spent most of our afternoon camped under the shade of an abandoned gas station between Dayton and Lahontan. It was hot—very hot—and we decided the giant roofed area above the old gas pumps was a better place for shade than trying to set up our tiny rain fly to cool off under. While we waited, an incredibly nice kid named Alex, who lived just a few hundred feet away from the gas station, came over and brought us water. We were thankful, and then we were even more thankful when his mom and siblings came out to give us bread, peanut butter, ham, tuna, and more. It was an unexpected blessing on a hot, tiring afternoon. Later on, a biker named Christian came rolling up. Christian had ridden from Virginia to California and was now on his way BACK to Virginia. We sort of thought he was crazy for doing that, but we’re not ones to talk, seeing as we’re walking across the country ourselves. Regardless, it was great to enjoy some lunch with a fellow human being, and we enjoyed the opportunity to connect with Christian.

After stealth camping again that night a little further down the road, we got up and made our way toward Lahontan State Recreation Area. Around 9:30 in the morning it was already hot enough to pull off, so we set up under some trees near the water, and waited out the heat. Along with three different swims in the lake area (it was so hot outside even Jaeda swam…and she enjoys water about as much as cats do), we hung out under the shade and tried to rest.

After waking up to get moving again, we were feeling a little defeated. It was so, so hot outside and we still had miles and miles and days and days of desert walking to do. There really wasn’t much of an option for us besides prayer, so we said a prayer that God would give us strength and energy, and we were on our way. We had about 16 miles to go to reach Fallon, NV, and thankfully, one of the pastors at Parkside Bible Fellowship, who we’d contacted that morning, told us we would be able to spend the night with his family and, equally as important to us, attend church with them the next morning. We were thankful we at least had something to look forward to down the road.

After another night of somewhat sleepless stealth camping between Lahontan and Fallon, we made our final push toward the city of Fallon itself. Unfortunately, about 2 miles outside of Fallon, Lindsie got a flat tire. We pumped it up, hoping our Green Slime would fill the puncture and allow us to keep moving, but, unfortunately, the slime wasn’t strong enough to keep it full. As we contemplated how we would fix the tire, three bikers pulled up and started chatting with us. They had met Christian, the gentleman we’d met at the abandoned gas station. He’d told them about us, and they’d been keeping an eye out for us as they rode along.

Thankfully, in a coincidence that only God could orchestrate, the trio had an extra tire repair kit they weren’t using, so they offered it up to us so we could use it to fix our flat. We were thankful, obviously, and after fixing the flat, we made our final push on to Fallon.

After all of that mess, we arrived at Fallon’s Super WalMart around noon on Saturday, July 14th. We connected with Brennen Behimer, the aforementioned pastor, and were able to get to his house soon after that. Brennen, his wife Stephanie, and their kids Brianna, Megan, Sophia and Gabriel are all just incredibly fun, outgoing, good-natured people, so it was a huge blessing to arrive to such a welcoming presence once we got to Fallon.

In order to let Brennen prepare for the sermon he was giving the next day, we actually went to the home of some Parkside Bible Fellowship congregation members. Brett and Tree (short for Teresa…or Theresa) Jones, and their lovely 14-month-old Avery, invited us over to have some lunch, take a shower—which was a welcome blessing after 3 days—and just spend time relaxing and chatting. Needless to say, we were incredibly thankful for our entire visit to the Jones household.

Later in the evening, we went back to the Behimer abode, ate some delicious burgers, and spent time hearing their incredible story (living as missionaries in Russia, traveling all over the place, and more) and learning about the many talents of their kids, which was a blast. To be clear, the Behimers weren’t bragging about their kids’ talents or anything; I just kept asking about them over and over because it was fun talking to them.

The next morning, we got to enjoy a great sermon from Brennen about husbands loving their wives—Lindsie obviously enjoyed it quite a bit—and met some people from the church. We also were invited to lunch by Gabby Stone, who works with the church youth group. Gabby was a delight, talking with us about our journey as well as sharing her life with us (and some other exciting details we aren’t allowed to discuss yet), and we enjoyed grabbing lunch at a somewhat-historic Fallon establishment.

After putting on new tires (our old ones had worn away at that point) and putting new inner tubes in, we debated heading out of Fallon. However, it had gotten late, and we decided to take up the Jones family on a previously-made offer of letting us stay at their place on Sunday night if we weren’t ready to leave Fallon. That got us 4 miles further down the road, which was nice, and we had a safe, comfortable place to stay one last time before heading east through the vast desert emptiness.

Rather than making this post a hundred pages long, I’ll go ahead and stop for now. We have much more to update you with sooner than later, but essentially right now we’re just cruising down Highway 50 toward Utah, enjoying the landscapes as much as possible and avoiding the sun as best as we can. We’ll have another update soon, hopefully.

On a side note, if you have prayer requests or anything like that, please don’t be afraid to let us know, either by leaving a comment on the blog, commenting on Facebook, or emailing us directly at StormingJericho (at) gmail.com. We have LOTS of time to be praying and would love to pray for all of the wonderful people who have certainly been praying for us over the past few weeks.

Thanks again, everyone.

-Mike and Linds (and Jaeda)

Into Nevada: The Desert Awaits

A few days ago, Lindsie and I officially walked across California and have now reached Nevada.

If it’s ok with you, I’d like to write that one more time. Lindsie and I have officially walked across California and have now reached Nevada. After just a little over 3 weeks, we’ve crossed our first state, and we are so thankful that God has helped us make it across completely safe and sound.

Anyway, here’s an update on what has gone on since our last post.

We left the Prestons in South Lake Tahoe, CA, on Saturday morning, and Cynthea was kind enough to drive our carts up to the top of Spooner Summit so we wouldn’t have to push them up the not-that-enjoyable incline. We dropped the carts off at a state park with the hope that we would pick them up upon arrival and camp in the park.

Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to camp in that specific area of the park. We were told that the camping area is 2.5 miles from where we entered, and you have to go through rougher “backcountry” and hiking trails to get to the campsites. That meant no carts, and no place to sleep.

We decided to roll with it anyway, knowing we’d maybe have to try and push to Carson City that same day, which would make for a 30-mile day total. We weren’t thrilled about that idea, but if it had to happen, we’d make it happen. At worst, we’d camp on the side of the highway. After a 15-mile uphill climb (without the carts, thankfully), we arrived back to where we’d dropped the carts off that morning. It was 4:30 pm and the park rangers were supposed to be gone for the day. We also still had 15 miles to go, and we were pretty much dead already.

Then we decided to pray.

If you’ve read some of our other posts, you’ve probably recognized that answered prayers are becoming a blessedly common thing for us on this journey, and you won’t be surprised to learn that, once again, our prayer was answered.

After praying that God would provide us with some safe place to sleep that night, we sat for about a minute. Then, a park official walked out of the seemingly-closed down ranger station and told us we could go ahead and camp in a restricted area reserved for a research group. It was just a few hundred feet away from us AND it had a bear box so we could keep our food (and ourselves) safe from bears.

Like I said, it was an answered prayer, and we were incredibly appreciative.

From there, we pushed our way (downhill, thankfully) to Carson City. We met with Ted Oxborrow, who is the Nevada State Coordinator for the American Discovery Trail, on the way down (he was riding uphill on his bike). Ted has been an amazing, incredible resources to us as we prepare for this desert crossing. But we’ll get to that later. For now, Ted mentioned that he’d dropped a line to Jenny Scanland, who is in charge of recreational trails in Nevada (and is the Parks and Recreation Events Coordinator).

Jenny and her husband, Rob, were AMAZING. Besides offering us their guest room/apartment for a few nights, they let us use their Xterra, they made us dinner, they took us swimming in the river behind their house, and they took us to their respective Tuesday morning Bible studies. Add that to the fact that Jenny knows a TON about the various parks, trails, and general environment here in Nevada, and you can see why we were so blessed to have met her (and Rob) in the first place.

We basically felt like family immediately after meeting them, and couldn’t be more thankful for everything they did to help us prepare for the desert. With some truly knowledgeable and experienced insight from the Scanlands as well as Ted Oxborrow, his wife, Jill, and his son, Trevor, we feel more prepared than we ever would’ve dreamed we could be as we get ready to set out across the deserts of Nevada and Utah.

Obviously the desert is going to have plenty of challenges. The main challenge will be staying hydrated and trying our best to fight off the heat. All we ask of you is prayer. Lots and lots of prayer. Prayers that we will always have enough water (even if it means road angels stop and drop water off for us), prayers that we’ll stay safe on a pretty lonely stretch of road, and prayers that we won’t have to walk through any out of-the-ordinary heat waves.

We are very, very confident that we will be perfectly safe. We’ve got complete faith that God will continue to walk with us every step of the way. But that doesn’t mean we’re not open to plenty of prayers and words of encouragement.

Thanks to everyone for following along with the journey. The udpates might be fewer and further between once we hit the desert, but we’ll do our best to keep you as up-to-date as possible.

On a final note, don’t forget to check out the wonderful story Jill Callison from the Argus Leader wrote about our trip. It was fun doing the interview and we’re overjoyed with the story she wrote about us. It’s such a blessing to be able to share with people the what and why of our journey, especially through a paper as wide-reaching as the Argus Leader.

Thanks again, everyone, and we’ll be back with another update as soon as we can be.

-Mike and Lindsie