All posts tagged storming jericho

Cruising Across Utah

Posted
September 29, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
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2 Comments

Well, after a little while without any in-depth progress updates, we’re excited to be back in action on the Storming Jericho blog. One reason we’re so excited? We’re finally done with our last major multi-day stretch between towns. So what exactly does that mean?

For starters, it means not having to carry 30-60 pounds of water in our carts when departing from one town on our way to the next. As a result, we’ll have much more room for warmer clothes, our stove and cookwear, and other items we had to send home to make room for water while crossing the desert.

Another thing it means is that we should consistently have phone service as well as internet access. No more waiting 4-6 days before being able to check in with family, update the blog, or send and receive text messages. So, if you’ve considered calling/texting/emailing but weren’t sure if we’d be able to receive your communication, fear not – you can call/text/email away and we should be able to respond within minutes. At least most of the time.

Finally, it means we’re getting ready for our next major challenge, which is making it over the Rockies while we cross Colorado. Obviously, as the weather is turning colder, your prayers would be more than welcome during this portion of our journey (or any other portion of our journey for that matter).

Anyway, here’s what’s gone on since our last major progress update (which, as you may recall, was just about the time we were leaving Circleville, Utah).

We left Circleville and made, by our standards, surprisingly uneventful progress across Utah, passing through Kingston, Koosharem, Loa, Bicknell, Torrey, Hanksville, then a lengthy, 126-mile stretch across Highway 95 (which would be the aforementioned “last major multi-mile stretch between towns”) before arriving in Blanding, Utah.

Of course, when we say “surprisingly uneventful,” it doesn’t mean we didn’t have any wonderful experiences in beautiful places with some incredible people. Because we can definitely assure you that we did. While Kingston-to-Torrey was relatively quiet, things got a little spicier after we left Torrey.

For starters, there’s an area between Torrey and Hanksville called Capitol Reef National Park, which is absolutely beautiful. Although it meant some uphill climbs and such, the landscape made it totally worth the extra effort.

While we were in Capitol Reef, we came across a really, really fun stretch where there are all sorts of orchards along the road, many of which you can just walk in and pick apples and pears from. The area’s known as Fruita and is an old settlement that the National Park now owns. When you’re walking 20 miles a day, finding a random patch of orchards full of delicious apples in the middle of the desert is quite a blessing. Needless to say, we ate ourselves full of apples before leaving the orchard (which was free, just to clarify).

During that same stretch, we ran into a husband and wife named John and Yvonne Lyrenmann from Minnesota who we’d actually met back at a campground in Torrey a few days before. They told us that the National Park’s campground (which is what we’d been walking toward all day) was full. This would’ve been disheartening news, but they told us that, if the rangers would let us, we’d be welcome to share their campsite with them. We were definitely thankful, and that’s exactly what we ended up doing.

John and Yvonne were Christians who were very interested in our cross-country journey, and we enjoyed a really fun night of fellowship and conversation as we prepared to sleep in one of the most beautiful campgrounds we’ve stayed in so far. The next morning as we said our goodbyes, John and Yvonne left us with a goodie bag containing a nice prayer in letter form, some bananas and dehydrated apples, some delicious trail mix, and more. It was SUCH a blessing to share their company (and to hear their northern accents, which made us feel like we were back at home in South Dakota for a little while).

During that same time frame, we met a really nice couple named Gary and Dorothy Astill who had connected with us on the road after asking what we were doing while we walked along the highway. Gary and Dorothy offered to take us on a scenic drive that we wouldn’t have been able to walk through, and we enjoyed talking with them about a number of things as we explored the Capitol Reef area with them.

Finally we made it out of Capitol Reef (we had to spend a few extra days enduring rain, which you can read about in this post) and arrived in Hanksville, Utah. We had a few packages to pick up in Hanksville, including our fantastic new Kelty sleeping pads to replace our not-so-functional Therm-a-Rest sleeping pads. We stayed at the Red Rock Campground and had a GREAT conversation with the owner, who is a very strong Christian. He had a number of stories to share about the impact God has made on his family. One instance – his niece and brother survived a horrible plane crash that ended up inspiring the film Angel Flight Down. All in all, it was a blessing to have that kind of motivating fellowship before getting ready to head out on our 126-mile stretch.

Speaking of that 126-mile stretch, we left Hanksville loaded up with water, resupplied with food, and spiritually-refilled. As we headed down Highway 95, we were happy to be back on a road that was both busy enough to not feel empty and abandoned, but quiet enough to walk on the road without constant traffic. It also got insanely quiet and peaceful at night, which made for many nights of really solid rest.

After 50 miles, we reached a small (like, 12-resident or so) town called Hite. There we found a tiny store and the ability to refill our water jugs, which was great. Also, one of the store employees, Kim, and his girlfriend Cephelia offered to let us shower at their place. We were thankful, as it had been a few days since showers, and we knew we still had 76 miles to go before we’d reach a town after leaving Hite. That’s a lot of walking, sweating, and getting smelly. After showering, we made our way down the road again.

Due to a few difficulties, we ended up taking a lot longer to walk those 76 miles than we’d planned. Normally that’s ok, but our water was starting to run a little low while we were still about 2 days away from Blanding, the next town that would have water. We listened to another Dave Kaufman sermon—this one about not worrying—and prayed God would provide for us if we needed water before we arrived in Blanding.

As we walked, we came across a trio of guys who were getting ready to go hiking. They gave us all the water they could spare, which was about half of a gallon, and we were thankful for that. Then, a few miles later, this truck pulling a boat pulled over and four younger-aged people were holding water bottles out the window. We were overwhelmed with thankfulness that God answered our prayer and told the group that we’d been praying God would provide water for us because we were running low. Then they just gave us the rest of their 24 pack of water bottles, which ended up being about 16 water bottles total. Our water problem was solved, and God reminded us once again that He’s been walking every step with us on our journey.

After that, we made it into Blanding and stayed for three days. We were only planning to stay two days, but some really bad rain kept us from getting done what we’d hoped to get done and we decided to stay a third day to catch up. As an added blessing, the owners of the Blue Mountain RV Park (where we stayed) let us stay the first two nights for free, which we were very, very thankful for.

Now we’re on the road again, and we’ll have an update on where we are soon. All in all, we’re thankful that God kept us safe throughout this entire stretch—both the recent stretch in Utah as well as this entire Nevada/Utah desert stretch as a whole—and put the right people in our path to help us whenever we needed help. Words can’t describe how amazing this part of the journey has been for us and we’re excited to continue on our way into Colorado and Kansas. God has been beyond good to us so far and we’re excited to see what miracles He’ll work as we continue on across the country.

Thanks again to everyone for the prayers, support, and words of encouragement. On that same note, don’t forget to check out the Storming Jericho Facebook page, the Storming Jericho Twitter feed, and our website for news, updates and fun randomness from time to time. And please don’t be afraid to drop us a line either via Facebook and Twitter or via email at StormingJericho (at) gmail.com.

As always, we’ll be back with more soon (especially since we’ll have internet on a regular basis again) and we look forward to sharing more with you soon.

-Mike, Lindsie, and Jaeda

P.S. – It is starting to get colder, so prayers for warmth and comfort as we climb up into the Rockies would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

P.P.S. – The photos of Jaeda were basically included because people keep asking about her and what she’s been up to during this journey. She is a pretty cute dog though, we must admit.

A Little Bit of Rest

Posted
September 14, 2012
Categories
Spiritual Insights
Comments
1 Comment

After a long stretch with no wi-fi and no cell phone reception (how we survived, we’ll never know), we basically have wi-fi for a day and then we’re moving on to a lengthy 126-mile stretch that most likely won’t have wi-fi, cell phone reception, or pretty much anything else besides beautiful nature and the road we’re walking on.

At this point, we don’t have one of my (Mike’s) overly-thorough updates about what’s been going on with us on our journey, but we should have something pulled together after our upcoming stretch. That said, we didn’t want to go another week without an update, so we thought we’d take things in a different direction.

You may not know this, but the Bible actually tells us that it’s important to rest. As in, take naps, get good sleep, take time off of work, and all of that other fun stuff that you usually feel guilty doing because you’re not “getting something done.”

During the latest part of our journey, Utah–and, from the sound of things, a decent portion of the entire western U.S.– got rained on. Brutally. Fortunately, we had our tent set up in time to avoid the rain (which wasn’t quite as bad in our area as it was in other areas). While we didn’t get blasted with rain like some places, it did rain off and on for 24 hours straight. As a result, we decided to just leave our tent up and rest for a day rather than walking in the rain.

Normally we might feel slightly guilty about that decision. but thankfully we pulled up a recent sermon from Dave Kaufman, the pastor at Holy Life Tabernacle in Brookings, South Dakota. Dave was the pastor for our wedding and he and his wife Jeanne have been close friend of Lindsie’s family for years. He’s also an incredible voice for the Lord.

As we were resting and feeling a little guilty for doing so, we listened to Dave’s sermon and, lo and behold, the entire message was talking about the importance of rest. We figured since it was so ideal for our situation, it would probably be ideal for other people’s lives too. As a result, we’re linking to it here (as in, click there to download it) or here if you’d rather pull it up in iTunes (in which case, we encourage you to subscribe to all of Dave’s sermons).

Some verses Dave refers to in the sermon to back up this point include Psalm 4:8 (“We can lay down in peace, for you, Lord, make me to dwell in safety”), Proverbs  3:24 (“When you lay down you shall not be afraid, you shall lie down, and your sleep shall be sweet”). God is essentially telling us to sleep well and take naps (although Proverbs 20:13 does say “Love not sleep,” so we do need to have balance). And in the context of the sermon, these verses make even more sense, so be sure to give it a listen.

We hope you enjoy Dave’s words of wisdom as much as we did, and we look forward to sharing more details of our journey with you guys soon!

-Mike and Lindsie

New Shoes Lost and New Friends Found

Posted
September 5, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
2 Comments

Sometimes something works out in ways you would’ve never imagined. In fact, that seems to be a pretty common theme of this adventure so far. Thankfully, the Lord has continued to make things work out better than we could’ve expected or even hoped.

If you read about our recent craziness in Beaver, Utah, (you can check out this post to see what we mean), you’ll know that we had an unexpected mess that was resolved by some incredibly helpful people. Oddly enough (or maybe not oddly at all), the same thing happened two days later.

As we made our way from Beaver to Circleville, Utah, Lindsie’s shoes were pretty much clinging on to their last shreds of dignity. In fact, one of her shoes had a hole in the bottom you could literally poke your finger through – that’s how worn out they were. Thankfully, we knew her newest pair of shoes was being held at Stan’s Mart in Circleville, and she’d be ready to put ‘em on and continue down the road once we picked them up.

Or so we thought.

But when we arrived at Stan’s, we quickly learned that the UPS folks had picked them back up from Stan’s and sent them back to the shoe company. Apparently there was a miscommunication and someone thought we’d be picking them up within a day or two, even though we were over 80 miles away when they were dropped off and Lindsie had said very clearly, “We’re walking across the country, so it will take us a few days to pick them up.”

Regardless of whose fault it was, Lindsie no longer had the new shoes she’d been expecting, and UPS said it would take a minimum of 3-4 days (thanks to the Labor Day weekend) before they’d arrive. We were stuck in a pretty small town with no wearable shoes for Lindsie. She was either going to have to walk 3-4 days in her old shoes or we’d have to wait 3-4 days in Circleville for new shoes to arrive. Neither option was ideal. The other problem? Lindsie wears a size 11 in shoes, which isn’t a terribly common shoe size for women, and in a town of 400-ish people, randomly finding someone with size 11 shoes wouldn’t be easy. Once again, we were praying for some miraculous resolution to our situation.

Enter Karen Karbach.

Karen and her family had seen us ALLLL the way back in Nevada over a month ago when we were walking along Highway 50. They’d been driving to Reno and noticed us on the way there and back. Her son, Scott, had seen us in Circleville and told his mom, “I think those are the people we saw walking in Nevada.” She didn’t believe him, so she came up and asked us if we were the same people.

Not surprisingly, we were the same people.

Karen wondered what we were doing in Circleville, and Lindsie explained the shoe situation. Then we heard the magic (or should we say, blessed) words…

“I wear a size 11! And I have tons of extra walking and running shoes if you want to take some of them!”

Lindsie just about burst into tears right there on the sidewalk. Karen said she’d run home, grab a few pairs of shoes, and Lindsie could try on and take any shoes that fit.

A few minutes later, Lindsie had a perfectly-fitting pair of Sauconys that would easily get us by until we arrived in Loa (60 miles down the road) and got her real new shoes. Then Karen said, “We’re running to Walmart in Richfield soon, so if you guys need anything while we’re there just let me know.”

Frankly, it was kind of nice just to know Walmart still existed, as we haven’t seen one in over a month now. We actually did have a need at Walmart, as our lone iPod cord had just shorted out that day, so we were happy to get a few of those without having to pay $30 at a gas station for an iPod cord.

Karen and her kids went to Walmart, got their stuff, got our iPod cords, and came back. Oh, and did I mention they let us do laundry at their place so we wouldn’t have to pay for it? Because they did that too.

On top of that, a woman named Dottie who owns a delicious–and very fairly-priced (particularly for being in a small town)–cafe told us we could have breakfast at her place for free the next morning, which was a really welcome blessing for sure.

The next morning we got up to leave, and, since it was Lindsie’s birthday, we didn’t want to put in a full 20-mile day of walking. So, of course, Karen asked if we wanted to hang out at their place for the afternoon and ride four-wheelers (and their sweet electric car), visit Butch Cassidy’s childhood home, have dinner with them, and, to cap off the night, shoot of fireworks for Lindsie’s birthday. And at that point, they invited us just to stay at their house instead of trying to camp right outside of town for the night or pay for another hotel stay.

Needless to say, it was a VERY happy (and fun) birthday for Lindsie, and we were grateful to spend so much time with yet another wonderful, awesome family like the Karbachs. Karen and her son Scott, her daughters Nicole and Danielle, and her sort of daughter Kasey (and her son Brayden) are just overly friendly, laid back people, and we were blessed to be staying an extra day and enjoying their company. Karen’s husband, Kraig, was working in California for Labor Day car sales, so we didn’t get to meet him, but he also seems like a great person.

All in all, what went from a disaster of lost shoes and a sad birthday turned into another miraculous blessing (I mean, really, the only reason they even talked to us is because they’d seen us walking over a MONTH ago in a totally different state? That’s too much of a coincidence to simply be a coincidence as far as we’re concerned…), and we are thankful yet again that the Lord is watching out for us and taking care of us on this journey.

Thanks to everyone who has wished Lindsie a happy birthday and supported us with encouraging words as we trek across Utah. We feel so thankful and blessed and we’re excited to share more with you.

Also, don’t forget to check out our new website (thanks to Jonathan Kurten of Jonathan Kurten Design), which we are extremely proud of and excited about. Just visit stormingjericho.com to see it in all of its magnificent glory.

We’ll have more info soon as we continue on across Utah. We truly look forward to seeing what other blessings God puts in our path and sharing them with you as we go.

Keep on stormin’, everybody!

-Mike (and Lindsie…if she doesn’t leave me for saying things like “Keep on stormin’!” that is…)

Storming Jericho Has A New (Awesome) Website!

Posted
September 1, 2012
Categories
Sponsor Shout-Out
Comments
1 Comment

As you can tell from the title of this post, we have some really exciting news to share. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the talented Jonathan Kurten, Storming Jericho has a brand new, clean and elegant website for your viewing and reading pleasure.

Jonathan contacted us when he first heard/read about our walk and our mission and asked if he could donate his time and skills to designing us a website (which is something we’d mentioned needing desperately before our journey even started). We told him “Yes, please and thank you” pretty much before he could even finish asking us.

Not only did Jonathan design and build a new website for us, but he also created a gorgeous (and in our opinion, very clever) logo, which you can see at the top of the new website. So now, all in all, we have a new logo, a new visual look, and a website that’s easy to use, easy to update, and easy to be excited about.

If you haven’t visited the new site yet (those of you who receive these blog posts via email rather than by checking the Storming Jericho website directly), just go to stormingjericho.com and see the majesty of the new site for yourself. We’re so thankful to Jonathan for his relentless work on this (and his patience during these stretches where we were stuck for days at a time with no internet access) and his general support of this walk and what we’re hoping to accomplish.

Be sure to check out his website at JonathanKurten.com and feel free to let him know on Twitter how impressed you are.

Thanks everyone, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon as we wrap up our journey across Nevada and head into Utah!

-Mike and Lindsie

Utah, New Friends, and a Rocky Road

Posted
August 31, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
1 Comment

Now that we’re a good week into our stretch of Utah, we’re blown away by how different it is from Nevada. While Nevada was beautiful, it definitely felt like we were in the desert. Meanwhile, Utah has sort of looked like the desert in some stretches, but most of the time it’s just green and mountainous (and beautiful as well). At least, that’s been the case for us so far.

So here we were, expecting vast miles of empty desert, and instead we’re hitting towns every 20-40 miles and there are trees, grass, and plenty of farm animals grazing all over the place. It’s different, but in a completely great way.

Anyway, here’s what happened after we left Baker and crossed into Utah. We pretty quickly came up on a fairly small town called Milford, which had a great diner—Penny’s, if you’re ever there—that let us sit around ALL day and use their wi-fi. We felt obligated to order both lunch and dinner there as a result of our wi-fi usage, which worked out well for us anyway because the food was tasty.

As we were getting ready to leave Milford, we got caught in an aggressive downpour of rain, so we just set up at the Lyon’s Club campground in town rather than moving on down the road. The next morning, however, was much clearer, and we began the push toward Minersville, which was only a little farther down the road.

Minersville was also a great town, partially because of Michelle, the friendly post office worker we met while picking up a variety of packages we’d had shipped to Minersville. Michelle was excited for us and our journey, and wanted to help us out. She ended up going WAY out of her way by bringing us fresh baked bread, still-hot corn on the cob, and a load of hand-picked vegetables from her garden. Also, we discovered Barq’s Red Crème Soda while we were in town, and that stuff is FANTASTIC. Needless to say, we liked Minersville, even though we weren’t there long.

We didn’t want to stay in Minersville that night because, at that point, we hadn’t yet walked very far, but we knew there was a campground a few miles farther down the road at the Minersville Reservoir Recreation Area, so that’s what we set out for. We got there early enough in the evening to have some time to ourselves. It was a little eerie/odd because there were 40 campground spaces and we were the ONLY people there, but we had fun nonetheless. Plus, it rained while we were there and Lindsie was able to take some killer photos of the rainbow that came out as a result.

Later that evening, a guy we’d met earlier on the road from Ely to Baker brought us a pizza and had dinner with us. His name is John Gergen, and his life story is amazing. As he filled us in with the details of how he was saved and born again and what he’s done with this life since then, we just felt more and more blessed that God put him in our path. Plus, the pizza he brought was really tasty. We ended up enjoying a really blessed night of conversation and fellowship that ended in some really powerful prayer, so we were thankful for John’s company and his willingness to share such an amazing story with us.

Anyway, John works in Beaver, Utah, during the week, and then drives back to Ely—where he and his wife own Second Chance Ink, a laser tattoo removal shop that removes gang tattoos for free—on weekends. With Beaver only being 10 miles farther along from the reservoir, we told John we’d probably see him later that night and he told us he’d love to take us out for dinner if we wanted to. We were definitely fine with that, and we looked forward to meeting him later that evening.

At least, that was the plan. Then we got thunderstormed on, hard. Even though we’d only gone a couple of miles that day instead of our usual 15-20, we decided to set up the tent and call it a night. We’d tried to wait it out under a couple of tarps, which led to the disastrous result of both me and Lindsie soaked to the bone and surprisingly cold for being out in the desert.

We told John we weren’t going to make it to Beaver that night and we were sorry for faking him out, but he did what any awesome person would do and just drove out to get us (it was, after all, only about 10 miles away by car). We ate a delicious meal with him again, enjoyed more fellowship, and said our goodbyes back at the tent when dinner was over. We told John we’d keep in touch and we’d be talking with him sooner than later, even if it was just to say hello.

We had no idea we’d be calling him again two days later to work a miracle for us.

So here’s what happened. We made it to Beaver the next day, and it’s a lovely place. We set up at Camperland, which is just a really nice campground on the south side of town, and had an entire afternoon to use our computers and internet, plus we were able to reload on supplies AND send food ahead of us to a town that doesn’t have a grocery store as big as the one in Beaver.

We got up the next morning and began to take a road that both Garmin and Google said was a safe, travel-able road. Lindsie had been sure to set the GPS to “avoid unpaved roads.” We started off down South Creek Road and it wasn’t paved, but it was at least a solid enough gravel road. After 9 miles, we were supposed to turn right and continue toward Freemont Road, which we’d hoped was paved, or was at least good, solid gravel.

Instead, the road looked like the picture you see in this blog post. It was made of rocks. Not smooth, cart/bike/drive-onable rocks, but huge chunks of rocks just strewn about on barely visible patches of dirt road. Needless to say, it was a battle. We were hoping it was just a short stretch of difficult road before hitting a smoother road soon after.

It wasn’t. It went on and on and on.

We ended up camping early for the day so we could decide what our plan was. We ultimately decided that, knowing Freemont Road was only 4.5 miles further, we would just try push on and see where we could get, hoping the road would get smoother once we progressed past the rocky section.

It only got worse. After taking apart our carts and carrying them through massive mud puddles and carrying them around other mud puddles, pushing over rocks, and getting poured on not once but twice, we’d made it a grand total of one mile before my cart finally broke. One mile, when we’d been averaging 20 per day on normal roads.

We were stuck, and really not in a good situation. We were 3 miles out on a backroad where we hadn’t seen a single large vehicle (just two guys on their ATV who couldn’t believe we were trying to push on that “road”), we didn’t know how much farther we’d have to go to reach real roads, and our cart was broken, so going back was essentially impossible.

We didn’t know what to do. We called Camperland, and Andy gave us the number for the area’s Search and Rescue department, just in case they’d be willing to help. Unfortunately, no one answered. The ONLY other person we knew in the area was our recently-made friend, John, but he didn’t live in Beaver, so we didn’t know if he’d have any idea on what to do. Plus, it was a Sunday, so he was back in Ely anyway.

Either way, we knew he was our last option, so we gave him a call. He said he might know someone who could help, so he told us he’d call us back after he asked if his friend could help.

We waited nervously, praying God would send someone…anyone…our way who might be able to help us.

Eventually John called back and said his co-worker, Malissa Anderson, and her husband, Ryan, should be coming out to rescue us. We couldn’t believe it.

Sure enough, after a few phone calls and a few sets of directions and re-directions, Malissa and Ryan pulled up in their Jeep Wrangler. We were saved, and overwhelmed with gratitude. The only dilemma was cramming ALL of our stuff into the back of their Jeep. Thankfully, as you should be able to see in the photo, we made it work, piece-by-piece. Then we took off across the mess that had been kicking our butts for 3 miles. We ended up going out the way we were intending to continue on and we’re amazed to see that we would’ve had to go through about 15 more miles of that brutal rock road if we’d continued on our path. Instead, we enjoyed a fun backcountry ride out in a Jeep and were dropped right back off where we’d started at Camperland. And as a bonus, Andy, the owner of Camperland, felt bad about how awful our situation had been and let us stay for free that night. He actually told us to give the $20 for camping to the Andersons for gas, but they refused to take the money, and we ended up with a free rescuing and a free night of camping. We’ll call that a double blessing.

On the one hand, we were disappointed to end up back where we’d started two days before. On the other, more important hand, we were SOOOO thankful that the Lord provided us with a means to escape our seemingly-hopeless situation. Between God putting a great, uplifting Christian like John in our lives three days before we needed his help to Ryan and Malissa going WAY out of their way to come rescue us, we felt blessed beyond measure. If it meant coming back to Beaver and reassessing things from here, we thought it was a very worthwhile trade-off.

Anyway, we’re now figuring out a new plan of attack and will actually be on our way by the time this post goes live, but we look forward to whatever adventures come our way next. We’re hopeful those adventures don’t involve roads made entirely of rocks, though.

We hope you’re still enjoying following along with this journey and we’re thankful for everyone’s support and encouragement. We’re hoping to plow through Utah from here on out so we can hit Colorado running and make it through both of these states before the snow starts to fall. Please pray that we will make good time as we continue on the road.

Also, don’t tell her I told you guys, but it’s Lindsie’s birthday on Saturday, September 1st (tomorrow), so feel free to comment, call, text, or whatever else you feel like doing to wish her happy birthday. I’m sure she’d love reading happy birthday messages all day, as she’s a pretty big fan of birthdays.

Thanks again to Michelle, John, Malissa, Ryan and Andy for making our first week in Utah a memorable one, and thanks to everyone else for following our updates. We’ll be back with more soon!

-Mike and Lindsie

Utah, New Friends, and a Rocky Road

Posted
August 31, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
6 Comments

Now that we’re a good week into our stretch of Utah, we’re blown away by how different it is from Nevada. While Nevada was beautiful, it definitely felt like we were in the desert. Meanwhile, Utah has sort of looked like the desert in some stretches, but most of the time it’s just green and mountainous (and beautiful as well). At least, that’s been the case for us so far.

So here we were, expecting vast miles of empty desert, and instead we’re hitting towns every 20-40 miles and there are trees, grass, and plenty of farm animals grazing all over the place. It’s different, but in a completely great way.

Anyway, here’s what happened after we left Baker and crossed into Utah. We pretty quickly came up on a fairly small town called Milford, which had a great diner—Penny’s, if you’re ever there—that let us sit around ALL day and use their wi-fi. We felt obligated to order both lunch and dinner there as a result of our wi-fi usage, which worked out well for us anyway because the food was tasty.

As we were getting ready to leave Milford, we got caught in an aggressive downpour of rain, so we just set up at the Lyon’s Club campground in town rather than moving on down the road. The next morning, however, was much clearer, and we began the push toward Minersville, which was only a little farther down the road.

Minersville was also a great town, partially because of Michelle, the friendly post office worker we met while picking up a variety of packages we’d had shipped to Minersville. Michelle was excited for us and our journey, and wanted to help us out. She ended up going WAY out of her way by bringing us fresh baked bread, still-hot corn on the cob, and a load of hand-picked vegetables from her garden. Also, we discovered Barq’s Red Crème Soda while we were in town, and that stuff is FANTASTIC. Needless to say, we liked Minersville, even though we weren’t there long.

We didn’t want to stay in Minersville that night because, at that point, we hadn’t yet walked very far, but we knew there was a campground a few miles farther down the road at the Minersville Reservoir Recreation Area, so that’s what we set out for. We got there early enough in the evening to have some time to ourselves. It was a little eerie/odd because there were 40 campground spaces and we were the ONLY people there, but we had fun nonetheless. Plus, it rained while we were there and Lindsie was able to take some killer photos of the rainbow that came out as a result.

Later that evening, a guy we’d met earlier on the road from Ely to Baker brought us a pizza and had dinner with us. His name is John Gergen, and his life story is amazing. As he filled us in with the details of how he was saved and born again and what he’s done with this life since then, we just felt more and more blessed that God put him in our path. Plus, the pizza he brought was really tasty. We ended up enjoying a really blessed night of conversation and fellowship that ended in some really powerful prayer, so we were thankful for John’s company and his willingness to share such an amazing story with us.

Anyway, John works in Beaver, Utah, during the week, and then drives back to Ely—where he and his wife own Second Chance Ink, a laser tattoo removal shop that removes gang tattoos for free—on weekends. With Beaver only being 10 miles farther along from the reservoir, we told John we’d probably see him later that night and he told us he’d love to take us out for dinner if we wanted to. We were definitely fine with that, and we looked forward to meeting him later that evening.

At least, that was the plan. Then we got thunderstormed on, hard. Even though we’d only gone a couple of miles that day instead of our usual 15-20, we decided to set up the tent and call it a night. We’d tried to wait it out under a couple of tarps, which led to the disastrous result of both me and Lindsie soaked to the bone and surprisingly cold for being out in the desert.

We told John we weren’t going to make it to Beaver that night and we were sorry for faking him out, but he did what any awesome person would do and just drove out to get us (it was, after all, only about 10 miles away by car). We ate a delicious meal with him again, enjoyed more fellowship, and said our goodbyes back at the tent when dinner was over. We told John we’d keep in touch and we’d be talking with him sooner than later, even if it was just to say hello.

We had no idea we’d be calling him again two days later to work a miracle for us.

So here’s what happened. We made it to Beaver the next day, and it’s a lovely place. We set up at Camperland, which is just a really nice campground on the south side of town, and had an entire afternoon to use our computers and internet, plus we were able to reload on supplies AND send food ahead of us to a town that doesn’t have a grocery store as big as the one in Beaver.

We got up the next morning and began to take a road that both Garmin and Google said was a safe, travel-able road. Lindsie had been sure to set the GPS to “avoid unpaved roads.” We started off down South Creek Road and it wasn’t paved, but it was at least a solid enough gravel road. After 9 miles, we were supposed to turn right and continue toward Freemont Road, which we’d hoped was paved, or was at least good, solid gravel.

Instead, the road looked like the picture you see in this blog post. It was made of rocks. Not smooth, cart/bike/drive-onable rocks, but huge chunks of rocks just strewn about on barely visible patches of dirt road. Needless to say, it was a battle. We were hoping it was just a short stretch of difficult road before hitting a smoother road soon after.

It wasn’t. It went on and on and on.

We ended up camping early for the day so we could decide what our plan was. We ultimately decided that, knowing Freemont Road was only 4.5 miles further, we would just try push on and see where we could get, hoping the road would get smoother once we progressed past the rocky section.

It only got worse. After taking apart our carts and carrying them through massive mud puddles and carrying them around other mud puddles, pushing over rocks, and getting poured on not once but twice, we’d made it a grand total of one mile before my cart finally broke. One mile, when we’d been averaging 20 per day on normal roads.

We were stuck, and really not in a good situation. We were 3 miles out on a backroad where we hadn’t seen a single large vehicle (just two guys on their ATV who couldn’t believe we were trying to push on that “road”), we didn’t know how much farther we’d have to go to reach real roads, and our cart was broken, so going back was essentially impossible.

We didn’t know what to do. We called Camperland, and Andy gave us the number for the area’s Search and Rescue department, just in case they’d be willing to help. Unfortunately, no one answered. The ONLY other person we knew in the area was our recently-made friend, John, but he didn’t live in Beaver, so we didn’t know if he’d have any idea on what to do. Plus, it was a Sunday, so he was back in Ely anyway.

Either way, we knew he was our last option, so we gave him a call. He said he might know someone who could help, so he told us he’d call us back after he asked if his friend could help.

We waited nervously, praying God would send someone…anyone…our way who might be able to help us.

Eventually John called back and said his co-worker, Melissa Anderson, and her husband, Ryan, should be coming out to rescue us. We couldn’t believe it.

Sure enough, after a few phone calls and a few sets of directions and re-directions, Melissa and Ryan pulled up in their Jeep Wrangler. We were saved, and overwhelmed with gratitude. The only dilemma was cramming ALL of our stuff into the back of their Jeep. Thankfully, as you should be able to see in the photo, we made it work, piece-by-piece. Then we took off across the mess that had been kicking our butts for 3 miles. We ended up going out the way we were intending to continue on and we’re amazed to see that we would’ve had to go through about 15 more miles of that brutal rock road if we’d continued on our path. Instead, we enjoyed a fun backcountry ride out in a Jeep and were dropped right back off where we’d started at Camperland. And as a bonus, Andy, the owner of Camperland, felt bad about how awful our situation had been and let us stay for free that night. He actually told us to give the $20 for camping to the Andersons for gas, but they refused to take the money, and we ended up with a free rescuing and a free night of camping. We’ll call that a double blessing.

On the one hand, we were disappointed to end up back where we’d started two days before. On the other, more important hand, we were SOOOO thankful that the Lord provided us with a means to escape our seemingly-hopeless situation. Between God putting a great, uplifting Christian like John in our lives three days before we needed his help to Ryan and Melissa going WAY out of their way to come rescue us, we felt blessed beyond measure. If it meant coming back to Beaver and reassessing things from here, we thought it was a very worthwhile trade-off.

Anyway, we’re now figuring out a new plan of attack and will actually be on our way by the time this post goes live, but we look forward to whatever adventures come our way next. We’re hopeful those adventures don’t involve roads made entirely of rocks, though.

We hope you’re still enjoying following along with this journey and we’re thankful for everyone’s support and encouragement. We’re hoping to plow through Utah from here on out so we can hit Colorado running and make it through both of these states before the snow starts to fall. Please pray that we will make good time as we continue on the road.

Also, don’t tell her I told you guys, but it’s Lindsie’s birthday on Saturday, September 1st (tomorrow), so feel free to comment, call, text, or whatever else you feel like doing to wish her happy birthday. I’m sure she’d love reading happy birthday messages all day, as she’s a pretty big fan of birthdays.

Thanks again to Michelle, John, Melissa, Ryan and Andy for making our first week in Utah a memorable one, and thanks to everyone else for following our updates. We’ll be back with more soon!

-Mike and Lindsie

Halfway Through The Desert

Posted
August 25, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
2 Comments

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

Halfway Through The Desert

Posted
August 25, 2012
Categories
On The Trail

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 connecting with 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

Shining A Light On Our Journey – Petzl Headlamps

Posted
August 21, 2012
Categories
Sponsor Shout-Out
Comments
4 Comments

We just wanted to take a moment to write a post thanking one of our great sponsors on this journey. Petzl® makes amazing headlamps and they were kind enough to provide us not only with two of their incredibly handy Tikka XP®2 headlamps, but they also provided us with their CORE rechargeable batteries so we wouldn’t have to constantly purchase new AAA batteries all the time.

These headlamps have been SUCH a blessing. They have a number of options (high power direct beam, high power dispersed light, low power for each option, and high power blinking, along with an alternate option of constant read warning light or blinking red warning light for safety), and we’ve spent many nights using the high-powered beams to set up our tents in otherwise pitch-darkness. If you want to see for yourself how they work, check out the video below (and if you can’t see the video below, click here: http://youtu.be/t25OFnhq5fY):

You may be thinking, “Why spend money on a headlamp when you could just bring a flashlight?” But when you’re sitting off the side of the highway, exhausted after walking 20 miles in day, trying to set up a tent with one hand while holding a flashlight in the other isn’t exactly a treat. Having your hands free to set everything up is a MAJOR plus.

All in all, we truly appreciate Petzl’s support and can wholeheartedly recommend their headlamps if you’re in the market for one. Whether you’re walking across the country or just setting up a tent in your backyard for the night, their handiness is worth every penny.

We’ll have other sponsorship posts and videos coming soon, but wanted to spread the word that Petzl really gets the job done with headlamps, and they get the Storming Jericho stamp of approval, for sure.

-Mike and Lindsie

The Miracle of Prayer

Posted
August 10, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Spiritual Insights
Comments
9 Comments

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 3rd 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

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