All posts tagged walking

On The Road Again

Posted
May 7, 2013
Categories
On The Trail
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Wonderful Uncle Charlie!Well, after pausing our walk for a few months in winter and waiting for spring in Sioux Falls, the Storming Jericho team of Mike, Lindsie, and our ferocious guard dog Jaeda, has hit the road again. Thanks to Lindsie’s Uncle Charlie, we got a ride back to the exact same place we’d left off originally in Colorado and were able to begin trekking along just like the good ol’ days.

Although it’s still chilly up in the Rocky Mountains, we’ve been thankful that the weather has at least been bearable. Although we tent camped on the side of the road for a few days, the weather didn’t present anything too challenging. Other than the wind. The wind has been crazy, to the extent that one night I feared our tent would blow away (with us inside of it) and we’d wake up hours later in the land of Oz with Munchkins singing songs outside of our tent.

The beautiful Blue Mesa Reservoir LakeFortunately, we survived the wind, only to wake up the next morning to gigantic, South Dakota-esque snowflakes falling all around us. On a cross-country walk, few things are as disappointing as the idea of traveling down the highway in a grey, blustery, snowy day, and I (Mike) was really dreading telling Lindsie that we’d be walking in a winter wonderland. But, like He always does, the Lord took care of us and within 30 minutes the snow was gone, the sun was out, and we were ready to push onward.

At this point, we were on day 4 of walking without a shower. When you spend 3-5 hours a day being physically active and NOT showering, you really, REALLY start to stink. We had finally reached a National Forest Campground, but none of the running water had been turned on yet (thanks to the nights still getting cold enough to freeze pipes and whatnot). So our plans for cleaning up were thwarted, and we were really hoping we’d get somewhere that had a way for us to clean ourselves.

Mesa RV Resort staff (with Mike)After making a solid 12-mile push toward Gunnison, Colorado (the first real city on our route), we made it to the Mesa RV Resort just a few miles west of Gunnison. The wonderful owners and staff members there went above and beyond to make sure Lindsie, Jaeda, and I were taken care of in every sense of the word, and for that we are extremely thankful. On a side note, we highly recommend spending the night there if you’re ever in or near Gunnison. It’s worth a night’s stay, to say the least.

The next morning, we headed toward Gunnison, which was only 4 miles away from the town. Thanks to the folks at First Baptist Church in Gunnison, we knew we had a place to safely spend the night out of the wind and cold, which was a wonderful incentive to get into town quickly. On the way, however, God decided to work His magic as He always manages to do on this journey.

About ten minutes after setting down the road to Gunnison, we came across a gentleman who was painting a fence. After unweaving himself from the fence posts, he came over to chat. After introducing himself as Adam McKee and asking us about our reasons for walking across the country (teaching ourselves to trust and rely on God and His provision), Adam told us that just hearing the purpose of our walk was a fantastic reminder to him about where his focus should be. He invited us to attend Christian Challenge at the university in town (Western State) that night, and offered to pick us up and bring us when it was time to go. Since fellowship can sometimes be hard to find on the road, we were excited at the opportunity to spend some time with fellow Christians. Needless to say, we were not disappointed.

Our new friends in Gunnison (left to right: Rich, Joy, Rachel, Mike, Hannah, Adam, Rich, and Shelba)We went back to the church to spend the night, ready for our first night of indoor sleep since resuming the walk. There was only one problem—Lindsie had a cold that had developed from slight cough to full-fledged stuffy-nosed, congested throat misery. Walking across the country isn’t easy. Walking across the country with a cold is hard. Walking through the Rocky Mountains with a cold is just awful. So when Adam and his wife Hannah invited us to stay at their place the following night, we decided it was an offer we couldn’t pass up. Any chance to get Lindsie healthier was worth it for us. Plus, we really liked Adam and Hannah, as well as a few of their friends we’d met at Christian Challenge that night.

The next day in Gunnison was a treat. We hung out with Adam and Hannah, and also got to go to a game night with a bunch of really great people. It was there that we met Rich and Joy Kettles, who, like Adam and Hannah, invited us to stick around until Lindsie was healthy (or at least healthier). Because Lindsie still sounded like a honking goose when she coughed, we decided to accept the offer. We spent a couple of great days with Rich and Joy, Adam and Hannah, and also spent some quality time with Rich and Shelba Townsend, who do ministry work in Gunnison. And, thanks to the timing, we got to attend church and Sunday school with Rich and Joy, which was an added blessing. Lindsie also got to attend a bridal shower for a lovely young lady named Heather, which was both random and fun for her. It’s funny to see what activities you get involved in when you make new friends during a cross-country walk.

Yay for wedding showers!

All in all, after 4 nights in Gunnison, it is, unfortunately, time for us to move on. Although Lindsie’s not quite 100%, we’re going to have to make some progress down the road or this journey will never end.

We want to thank all of the people in Gunnison who went out of their way to take care of us. It’s one thing to have a place to stay for a night or two. It’s another thing to be surrounded by fellow believers and people who truly just want to lift us up in prayer and see us succeed in our journey. It was a great chance for both me and Lindsie to get refilled spiritually, and we are extremely thankful for that opportunity.

The crazy thing is that, right before we started walking the morning we first met Adam, Lindsie and I prayed that God would put some people in our path who would make us feel welcome and that we could spend some time with on a spiritual level. We certainly didn’t expect God to put an entire GROUP of fellow Christians in our path, but He certainly seems to enjoy blowing our expectations out of the water on a regular basis. God’s pretty cool that way.

Anyway, we’ll soon be heading on down the road from here—the 11,500-foot Monarch Pass looming in the distance. Although we’re not thrilled about the challenge it will present, we have faith that God will make our climb as doable as we could hope for. It’s possible that with some good timing and some willing help, we can get our 100-pound carts up to the top before we make the climb ourselves, which would be fantastic. Either way, we know the Lord will take care of us.

Thanks so much for your prayers, and we’ll have another update as soon as possible. For now, we just ask that you pray for sunny days and warm nights as we finish our journey through the Rockies. And as always, please don’t hesitate to let us know if we can pray for you. We have all the time in the world to do it, and we’re always thankful when we have an opportunity to pray for others.

We hope you have a blessed day (or night, depending on when you’re reading this), and we’ll be back with more soon.

-Mike and Lindsie

Making Some Tough Decisions

Posted
November 18, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
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13 Comments

Hey friends and family,

After a few weeks of very careful and prayer-filled deliberation, Lindsie and I have made a decision.

Since the beginning, our plan was to walk across the country throughout most of the winter (minus a month-long break in December when we’d return to stay with family in South Dakota). We purchased/gathered extra winter gear as the weather got colder, and we knew we were planning to just grit it out and continue the journey, rain or shine (or snow).

Unfortunately, after getting snowed on last week and trying to walk the next few days as the temperature continued to drop, we realized something really, really important: we had lost the joy of this journey.

Even though we were physically capable of walking through the snowy, increasingly-cold Colorado mountains, we discovered that neither one of us seemed to be enjoying it as much as we were before. There’s something about waking up inside a snow and ice-covered tent and knowing you’ll be walking 15+ miles in 18 degree weather that just isn’t as fun/adventurous/exhilarating.

The point of this walk isn’t to just “get” across the country. It’s to do it in a way that strengthens our relationship with God, connects us with people along the road we can share our (and God’s) story with, and making memories that will last for the rest of our lives.

Beyond that, Linds and I have spent the past few weeks and months really focusing on learning how to discern God’s will. While we’re certainly not experts (and maybe never will be), this was a wonderful experience for us to strengthen and grow in that sense. Although we didn’t realize it initially, we both were beginning to feel like God was encouraging us to make a decision that we hadn’t once felt called to make on this entire journey until very recently.

As a result of all this, we’ve decided to temporarily (note: temporarily) postpone our journey until spring rolls around. We fully intend to pick back up exactly where we left off once the weather’s a little warmer and we can continue walking without the risk of losing our extremities to frostbite or waking up on the side of the road as cross-country popsicles.

We’ll spend the next few months in South Dakota (which, really, only adds about 2 extra months of resting in SD, since we were going back for all of December in the first place), and we look forward to reconnecting with our friends and family in SD once we’re back.

To be clear, we will continue posting on the blog throughout the next few months. Many of the posts will be more of the “spiritual insights” and cool/inspiring things we’ve come across rather than updates on our progress, but we hope you’ll continue following along with the blog and our updates anyway. We’ve really enjoyed connecting with so many people through the blog and Facebook and would hate to see that slip away while we waited to restart our journey.

Thanks to everyone who has been so helpful and encouraging as we’ve walked up to this point. One of the main reasons we’ve made it this far is because we’re so motivated by the conversations and comments we’ve shared with you all on and offline. We can’t wait to fire that back up in the spring and start Storming Jericho again when the time is right.

Our only request is that, during this break, you continue encouraging us as you have encouraged us so much already. We’ll still need your help over these next few months to keep us focused on our goal and, more importantly, focused on the Lord and what He wants for us as we go. That encouragement will help keep us fired up to hit the road again when March rolls around.

Thanks so much, everyone, and we hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving if we don’t get another post up before then!

-Mike and Lindsie (and Jaeda)

P.S. – 1) HUGE thanks to our friend Cheryl (from our stop in Ridgway http://stormingjericho.com/showing-true-grit-to-reach-ridgway-co/) and Kellie from Ridgway Community Church for rescuing us from a random stretch of Highway 50 and bringing us back to civilization so we could figure all of this out. 2) EXTRA HUGE thanks to Lindsie’s uncle, Charlie Page, for driving 8 hours down from Casper, Wyoming, to pick us up in Montrose, Colorado, and bring us back to Casper so we could drive home to South Dakota from Casper using his extra car. All kinds of generosity, to say the least.

P.P.S. – All of these gorgeous pictures were taken by my beautiful wife. She’s awesome.

Showing True Grit to Reach Ridgway, CO

Posted
November 6, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
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5 Comments

Well, as we’d hoped in the last post, we were able to get back to the Dry Creek Basin area of Colorado and pick back up on our journey. Thankfully, we were blessed right out of the gate. After spending an extra day and night at our friend Lonni’s house to catch up, re-pack, and re-group, it was time for us to mosey on down the road toward Norwood, CO.

Before we left, however, we got to meet with some hunters staying in Lonni’s cabins. The group was from Missouri, which was fun because Lindsie and I had been living in Springfield, Missouri, before starting on the journey. One of the younger guys, Cale, was incredibly friendly. We had a great conversation with him the night we got back into town, and he helped us out with a few other things as well as we prepared to leave. For all we know, the Lord might put Cale back into our path when we go across Missouri. As we’ve learned on this trip so far, nothing is impossible.

Anyway, the morning we decided to head out of Dry Creek Basin, Lonni was kind enough to drive our carts up ahead of us about 9 miles, which helped us avoid a huge (and beautiful) canyon that we would’ve had to go down and back up to get through (on a gravel road, no less). Instead, Lindsie, Jaeda and I were able to safely, casually, and comfortably walk through the canyon in order to reach our carts, which we’d left at a place in Redvale, CO.

From there, we grabbed our stuff and headed toward Norwood. It meant that our first day back was a 17.5-mile day, but we had a destination ahead of us, which always makes it easier. Our plan was to stay at Norwood Southern Baptist Church whenever we reached town, and with that goal in mind, we pushed on.

We ended up reaching Norwood that night, but before we got to the church, a woman named Sam Guthrie caught up to us and invited us to stay with her and her husband, Joe. They had seen us walking down the road that day and knew Emily, a mutual connection we’d made a few weeks before. Sam and Joe fed us a delicious dinner of chips and chili, let us take showers, and spent a fun night sharing really interesting conversation with us. All in all, we were thankful for their generosity and are appreciative that they wanted to help.

The next day, Sam drove us back into town (they lived a few miles outside of town back the way we’d come) and dropped us off at the church. The church pastor, Joe Bowman, was really friendly and offered to let us stay at the church that night. We gave our overwhelming thanks and enjoyed a walk-free day of foot rest as we performed a few much-needed tasks like sewing up tears and holes in our carts. The Bowmans also offered us showers, which, as a rule, we never turn down, so we were thankful for that as well.

The next day was Sunday, which was perfect because we really wanted to attend the church service that morning. Pastor Bowman gave a truly inspired (and inspiring) sermon, which we thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed. We had originally planned to start walking toward our next town after church, but the Bowmans invited us to have lunch with them, and the opportunity for more food and fellowship was too good to pass up. We decided to just stick around an extra night, which gave us time to have lunch with Joe, his wife Judi, and their kids Cameron and Casey. It also gave us a chance to spend the afternoon enjoying fellowship with them, going to look at elk (which Lindsie was very excited about), and getting a little bit of laundry done as a bonus.

The next morning, Cameron and Casey did us a favor by driving our carts down the very steep Norwood Hill, which had a sharp drop-off on the side we’d be walking down. Once again, we felt much safer walking without our carts, and we definitely appreciated their offer to drive our carts down for us.

We pushed hard that day, but still ended up needing to sleep outside for the first time since the weather had gotten colder in the area. Fortunately, my Aunt Penny and Uncle Lenny recently offered to get us warmer sleeping bags (Aunt Penny basically said she’d sleep better knowing we weren’t going to freeze to death), so we got some sleeping bags that are rated down to -20 degrees, and we stayed warm and toasty in them even though the weather was pretty chilly that night.

The next day we pushed again, and made it to just a few miles short of the Dallas Divide. The Dallas Divide is right around 9,000 feet high, which meant it would be COLD if we stayed up on top of it that night. As a result, we stopped about 8 miles short of the Dallas Divide so we could stay at least a little bit warmer at night. Then, after a truly cold night of sleep (it was 22 degrees in our tent when we woke up at 8 am, and the sun was out at that point…but our sleeping bags kept us safe and warm all night—have no fear Aunt Penny), we packed up and made our push toward Ridgway, CO.

On an interesting side note, Ridgway is the area where the original True Grit was filmed. And it’s beautiful.

Anyway, we had called Ridgway Community Church that morning to see if they knew of a place we could stay, and we were happy to discover that they were having their “HarvestFest” celebration that night at the church. Besides having a place for us to stay, we were going to be able to get free food, fellowship, and even enjoy a bonfire at the church. All we needed to do was get into town that night.

That meant an 18.75-mile day of walking for us. And thanks to the mountains, 19 miles is a little harder to pull off than it used to be. Like we said in the title of this post, we knew it would take some true grit to reach our destination that night.

Obviously we were motivated, and that motivation (and God’s strength) helped us push on, even when we were out of breath and exhausted. After a full day of walking, we dragged ourselves into Ridgway about 20 minutes before the event started, and we could smell the delicious food before we even walked in the door.

We ended up having a blast at the HarvestFest. Besides the free food, we met some great people, including the Darcy family, who offered to let us spend the night at their place in a nice, warm bed. Of course we said yes, and we enjoyed such a great night of sleep that when they asked if we wanted to stay an extra night, we told them we would love to stay an extra night.

This also gave us a chance to grab a quick lunch with Alex, a guy we’d met at HarvestFest the night before, as well as a few other high schoolers who meet for lunch once a week. Alex is a high school senior who is considering his own cross-country journey (most likely by car rather than by foot), and we really had a great time talking with him at HarvestFest about his plans and, more importantly, what God has planned for his future. The lunch we got to enjoy was rushed, but we did get to meet Pastor Hank, a pastor from Honduras who is doing some amazing work for the Lord down south, so we were happy we got to do that.

Later that night, we got to enjoy yet another unique experience on this journey. The Darcy kids, Trevor and Alexis, are into rock climbing, and there’s an “open gym” for rock wall climbing in Ridgway certain nights of the week. We were invited to go, and we readily took them up on the offer. As you can see from the photos, we went at it pretty hard for newcomers, but it was really fun (and incredibly challenging).

We woke up the next morning a little stiff, but generally ready to hit the road. After getting a ride into town from Cheryl, we picked up our carts at the church and were just about to leave. Then, a new friend—John Zacharias, who we’d met the night before—pulled up. He saw us leaving and loaded us up with extra food, water, and all around kindness. Needless to say, we were thankful.

All in all, Ridgway was a true blessing. Even though the weather has gotten colder, we felt as warm as ever (both literally and figuratively) thanks to the people we met in town.

We are excited to keep moving on down the road, and we’re praying that God keeps us safe, warm, and dry as we go. We would be pretty thankful if you didn’t mind praying for those things too. And if there’s anything we can pray for on your behalf, please don’t hesitate to let us know, either on Facebook or via email at StormingJericho (at) gmail.com.

Thanks everyone, and we’ll have another update coming soon!

-Mike and Lindsie

Halfway Through The Desert

Posted
August 25, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
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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

As Far As The Eye Can See

Posted
August 3, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
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8 Comments

As you may have read, we’re crossing the desert right now. It’s warm out here. Really warm. And beautiful though it may be, the desert doesn’t exactly go out of its way to be friendly toward walkers, but we’re making the best of it. To keep the updates rolling along, once we left Fallon, we continued east toward Utah. Even though it may be hot, we’ve had some great experiences.

For starters, we’ve done plenty of stealth camping along Highway 50. Mostly because there aren’t a lot of people to stay with, places to campsite camp, etc. between towns. In fact, there’s not a whole lot of anything between towns, other than emptiness.

That said, it seems emptiness is good for the soul, because Lindsie and I both feel like our heads are clear out here in the desert. Lindsie’s often said that this portion of our journey reminds her of her favorite part of Hosea, in which God says he will take Israel out into the desert and strip her of all her distractions (it’s in Hosea 2 if you’d like to look it up), and I’m pretty sure Lindsie couldn’t be more accurate. With nothing out here to distract us, it’s much easier to focus on the things that really matter. Sometimes we don’t even have cell phone service, which means we can’t pull up Twitter or Facebook to get distracted with. It’s just us, Jaeda, the sun, and God most of the time, with an occasional car driving by every 10-15 minutes.

Anyway, back to filling you in on our recent activities. We left Fallon over a week ago and have continued walking east along Highway 50. After a couple nights of stealth camping, our first stop outside of Fallon was Middlegate Station, which is pretty much a combination of restaurant, bar, motel, and a single gas pump. Just having an opportunity to shower after three days was wonderful, and being able to eat real food and sleep in a real bed made it extra enjoyable. Due to Lindsie having a bit of heat exhaustion, we actually stuck around an extra day in Middlegate, which was nice. Thankfully the motel was cheap enough (only $35 a night) that our bank account wasn’t hit too hard by the extra stay.

From there we moseyed on down to Cold Springs Station, which was a short, 14-mile jaunt down Highway 50. In a wonderfully-blessed bit of God’s handiwork, Lindsie’s mom’s cousin, Nancy, and her daughter Deanna happened to be in our general vicinity. You may remember Nancy and Deanna from this post where they met us in Davis, California, paid for a hotel room that they let us share with them, and bought us dinner. Thankfully, they were equally as wonderful in Cold Springs Station, paying for our campground for the night, buying us a delicious meal, and, most importantly, driving on ahead of us and doing water drops for us on our next stretch of road.

You may be wondering, what’s a water drop?, so here’s the explanation. A gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. It’s been recommended to us that we drink a minimum of 2 gallons per day out here in the desert. Some of these between-town stretches can be anywhere from 50 miles long to 80 miles long. That means anywhere between 2-6 days of walking in the desert with no water fountains, gas stations, or rest areas to fill up with water before the next stop. If you might have 6 days of walking, that’s 12 gallons of water EACH. When you do the math, that ends up being about 96 POUNDS of water each. Our carts max out at a 115-pound weight limit, and they have about 60-70 pounds of stuff in them without the water.

Essentially, we aren’t able to carry enough water with us every time without running the risk of breaking our carts. So, as you can see, water drops are incredibly helpful out here in the desert. Beyond that, having the water dropped off ahead of us means our carts don’t have to weigh a ton when we’re pushing them up the 7,000-foot summits we come across here in the desert.

So with a heart full of gratitude, we said goodbye once again to Nancy and Deanna and prepared to leave Cold Springs Station on a 50-mile stretch to Austin, Nevada. We were excited to head out on a really-rely-on-God-because-this-is-a-longer-than-usual stretch, even if it did mean early morning wake-ups and late night walking.

Although Lindsie and I enjoyed great conversation (and enjoyed listening to audiobooks) during this part of the journey, there’s not exactly a ton to report about it. We were sort of out in the middle of nowhere, we were stealth camping every night, and we didn’t really see anything earth-shattering. We did, however, come across some great road angels during our Cold Springs Station-to-Austin stretch.

For starters, we came across a gentleman named Jeff Martin, who worked at a military facility along that stretch of road. He and his wife had seen us walking for a few days, so he kindly dropped off a cooler full of ice, Gatorade, iced water, PayDay bars, and gum. It was such a blessing because most of our water had heated up from the sun and the difference between ice cold water and lukewarm water when you’re out here in the desert is very noticeable. Plus, we were able to use the cooler for another week, filling it up with ice whenever we could and having cold water more regularly.

Later on during that part of the journey, Mike Green, one of the guys we’d met at Parkside Bible Fellowship in Fallon, saw us on the way out to a weekend trip and dropped off several cold bottles of water for us. Then, coincidentally, we ended up seeing him again after his weekend trip and he gave us the rest of his leftover bottles and ice, which made for a double whammy of cold waters during hot stretches of travel.

We also met a gentleman named Rich DeBraga while we were taking one of our midday breaks and he dropped off some deliciously cold iced waters, some Arizona tea, and a friendly word of encouragement. We ended up seeing him a few days later and he dropped off even more water for us, which was fantastic.

It’s crazy how, even in the middle of nowhere, God puts people in your life to help give you that boost of cold water, love, and support just when you need it. It seems like so many people were willing to help us for no other reason other than “you look like you could use some cold water,” which is such a blessing when you’re out there sweating in 95-degree heat with lukewarm—or just completely warm—water in your cart.

Anyway, after a few days of travel, we reached Austin, NV. Unfortunately, right before we got to Austin, we got caught in a very uncharacteristic downpour. The night before arriving was rough, but thanks to some help from a few more road angels, we got our tent up in the whipping wind and rain. The next day was sort of clear, and we thought we’d get to Austin before it rained again.

Unfortunately, about 4 miles outside of Austin, we got destroyed by rain. We didn’t have time or a place to put up our tent, so we got out tarps, covered the carts, and then tried to cover ourselves. It wasn’t fun. It cooled things off, but it rained for so long (again, uncharacteristic of the rain out here) that we started to get cold. And we were already wet. As soon as the sky cleared up, we powered up the hill into Austin and found some food. We were trying to stay with some people in Austin but weren’t able to connect with anyone, so we made our way down to a motel in town.

Unfortunately, we got yelled at pretty aggressively by the guy who runs the Pony Canyon Motel for “doing video” and “using up 1000 megabytes in an hour” on his internet (to be clear, we hadn’t “done video” for even a second, but that’s ok), so we decided to call it a day and get on out of Austin. We stayed at the Bob Scott Campground a few miles outside of town for a couple of nights to rest and enjoy some time to just hang out with each other in a beautiful, quiet, open area.

The next stretch of road was our biggest without any water or rest stops along the way. From Austin to Eureka is 70 miles, and Lindsie and I were both excited and slightly intimidated by the distance, but we knew if there was a time we’d need to rely on God, it would be now. On the plus side, it’s always gorgeous in the mornings and evenings (as you can see from the photo).

Once again, this post is getting long, but I can say that we DID end up having to rely on God during the Austin-to-Eureka part of the walk, and I’m excited to share exactly what happened in the next post. Not only did we have to rely on God, but he provided more abundantly than we ever could have dreamed.

We’ll be trying to use up the internet here in Eureka as much as we can before setting out, so we’ll try to have another post ready to go before we take off. We also have plenty of other stuff to share/reveal in the next few days, so we’re pumped to finally have internet access again.

Thanks for reading these posts and for leaving encouraging comments here on the blog and on Facebook. We can’t tell you how much we appreciate the love and support we’ve been shown on this journey. It has made every step even more worthwhile than we could’ve ever imagined.

Back with more soon, as usual.

-Mike and Linds

Finding Life In The Desert

Posted
August 2, 2012
Categories
On The Trail

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)

So Much Going On (In So Little Time)

Posted
June 29, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
4 Comments

After finally getting a wi-fi connection (and time to get some stuff posted), we have another update for you, dear readers. Rather than make small talk for a paragraph or two, we’ll just jump right into it.

Once we left Davis a few days ago, we continued toward Sacramento. We had a fun, peaceful night camping at the West Sacramento KOA where we met some incredibly kind people (and enjoyed a few s’mores out by a fire) before heading to bed early.

The next day we pushed on into Sacramento. After stopping by the beautiful state capitol building, we kept on walkin’ along. We were hoping to find a place to stay (either with a personal connection or camping in a church yard), but we couldn’t connect with anyone and ended up spending the night in a Travelodge. Even though hotels are nice (showers, beds and air conditioning are never a bad thing) we need to start saving money, so we’re hoping to stay as hotel-free as we can from here on out. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, we left the Travelodge for Folsom, CA, where we met some of the kindest, most enjoyable people we’ve met so far on this trip. Thanks to a Rotary Club connection through Lindsie’s Uncle Charlie, we met Terry and Jackie McNeil in Folsom, CA. We got to their home, and even though we’d never met them before, they welcomed us in like we were prodigal children returning home.

We simply thought we were getting a place to set up our tent, but Jackie immediately offered us their guest room, as well as showers, a delicious dinner, and s’mores out by a backyard campfire. Two of Terry and Jackie’s three daughters, Jen and Amanda (and Amanda’s two great kids) were also there, so we enjoyed getting to know them.

After the McNeils provided us with some extra emergency gear, a few extra survival tips, and some route-strategizing, we went to sleep following a wonderful night of kindness and generosity from the McNeil’s.

The next morning we were off bright and early to head toward Rescue, CA (though not before Jackie was able to cook us up a tasty breakfast). Thankfully, the folks at Foothills United Methodist told us we could camp out in one of their youth rooms, so we just had to put in a good 13 miles of walking to reach their church.

During our walk, Jackie swung back by to bring us emergency safety vests (to be sure people would see us on the road). We really don’t understand why Jackie and Terry have been so great to us, but we just keep rolling with it.

Once we reached Foothills United Methodist in Rescue, CA–which has an unbelievably fun, unique, and beautiful set of buildings–we were blessed to spend time talking with Barbara Gillespy (who works at the church and went out of her way to ensure we’d have a safe place to stay) and Pastor Dave Bunje, who took time to talk with us, discuss our route, and just bless us with his company even though he most likely had plenty of other stuff he could do.

Then, as a bonus visit, Jackie and Terry drove up from Folsom to pick us up again (how they weren’t tired of us at this point, we really don’t know). They ran us to a few sporting goods stores to be sure we had everything we needed supply-wise, then were kind enough to grab us some In-N-Out Burger, which is delicious. And, as we learned during dinner, In-N-Out Burger is owned by a Christian family that writes Bible verses on the wrappers of the burgers/fries/etc., which we thought was pretty cool. After dinner, the McNeils dropped us back off at Foothills United Methodist; we said a second sad goodbye and went to get some sleep.

After enjoying another comfortable night of sleep (Barbara and Dave were kind enough to let us sleep inside the youth room), we headed on toward Placerville. Or so we thought. But, thanks to Barbara’s relentless willingness to help us connect with people and places to stay along our route, we ended up staying with a lovely woman named Ida Mae in Diamond Springs, CA. Even though she’d never met us, Ida Mae offered to let us stay in her guest room, and she made us a wonderful meal of spaghetti and meatballs. We enjoyed chatting with her about her kids, her grandkids, and her great-grandkids, and then we called it a night before Wheel of Fortune had even started (yes, we went to bed THAT early).

The next morning, we grabbed some breakfast, said thanks and goodbye to Ida Mae, then began the trek to Camino, CA. It wasn’t easy. Like…really wasn’t easy. We started at 1,400-foot elevation and ended the day just around 3,000 feet of elevation. There were LOTS of hills and pushing 80+ pound carts up those hills didn’t exactly make it easy, but we finally made it to Camino. Thanks to Barbara’s aforementioned relentless willingness to help us, we were able to spend the night at the 7th Day Adventist Church in Camino. The maintenance man on the property, Dan Smith, gave us plenty of info and some really helpful tips on dealing with the animals we could end up running into during the next portion of our walk. He also had a great life story that he shared with us, and we really enjoyed the conversation.

Then we set up shop in the church’s enormous gymnasium and enjoyed a night sleeping in a very unique location (as you can see from the photo).

Which brings us to today. We’ve reached our next location for the night (which we’ll share about later), but it has definitely been a fun, occasionally-grueling adventure these past few days. It’s amazing how much happens when you’re just walking around. We’ve met such wonderful people, and it’s only the beginning of our journey. We couldn’t be more thankful for everyone’s help and support. We’re not sure if there are words that can do it justice.

We’ve definitely got an “adventure” ahead of us, as we head into animal country. Bears, mountain lions, and probably snakes all await us as we head toward the Lake Tahoe area. We’ve got bear spray with us, but we’re open to any and all prayers as our journey continues, just in case.

Thanks to everyone who has helped us so far, as well as everyone that continues to help us even though we’re out of their areas now. We have some exciting things coming up and we can’t wait to share the next steps of our journey with you.

We’ll be back with more, hopefully sooner than later!

-Mike & Linds

From Cow Town to Davis, now on to Sacramento

Posted
June 22, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
2 Comments

Since our last post, we’ve only been blessed even more abundantly, which is amazing. Just thought we’d start this post off by mentioning that.

After reaching Vacaville (Cow Town in Spanish), we had an opportunity to spend the night at Valley Church. Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of Ricardo Villareal, the chaplain at Valley Church, we were able to get a hot shower, and he even bought us dinner (and breakfast the next morning). He also spent tons of time sharing stories with us and providing a wealth of insight on the Word. And thanks to Ricardo and Kevin Anderson, another Valley Church staff member, we were able to sleep safely and comfortably inside the church.

We woke up bright and early the next morning and, after a quick breakfast with Ricardo, we were moving on toward Davis. We had originally considered spending the night in Dixon (kind of a halfway point between Vacaville and Davis), but we had a church to stay in once we got to Davis, so we decided to make the big push to get there in time for a comfortable night’s stay.

Unfortunately, getting to Davis in one fell swoop meant pushing on for 21.7 miles (definitely a new record for us so far). Add to that the fact that it was an almost 100-degree day, and you can imagine that we were just about dead on arrival in Davis.

Thankfully, Bensie Cheney from Davis Christian Assembly met us in Davis with plates full of delicious Chinese food and another church to safely spend the night in. PLUS, we stayed in the preschool room, which had an extra-thick padded carpet, so we were basically sleeping in the lap of luxury as far as floor sleeping goes. Even though we were exhausted from our 22-mile journey, it was great talking to Bensie and spending some time with her and her two adorable kids, Helen and Conner. Then she was kind enough to bring us bagels the next morning and let us bum around the church for awhile, which was an added blessing.

The 22 miles took their toll on Lindsie’s feet (which are pretty horrendously blistered up, to say the least), so we were thankful that Lindsie’s mom’s cousin, Nancy, and her daughter Deanna, asked if we’d hang out with them an extra night in Davis. With an offer of fun company, a free meal, and a warm night in a comfy hotel bed, we were more than happy to take them up on said generous offer. It was great talking with Nancy and Deanna, hearing family stories, and spending time with people who care about us.

Finally, because of Lindsie’s still-messed up feet, we’ve decided to stay here in Davis for one more night. Tomorrow morning, Saturday the 23rd, we’ll pack up early and head to Sacramento. We don’t have any connections in Sacramento yet, so if you know of anybody who wants to let two cross-country travelers set up a tent in their backyard, feel free to let us know (or have them let us know, if that’s easier). They can email us at StormingJericho@gmail.com or they can call my (Mike’s) phone at 605-521-6762.

We want to thank everyone again for the great words of encouragement. We hope we aren’t sounding like a broken record, but it’s just been amazing to see the outpouring of support we’ve gotten in the past few weeks. It seems like no matter what challenges we come across, God is there to help us figure out what to do next and there are always people we can rely on to keep pushing us on. So again—and certainly not for the last time—thank you.

We’ll have more updates soon, and we’ll try to mix things up with a video or two here in the very near future. We have a few great products to highlight via video (and Jaeda’s starting to complain that she hasn’t been featured enough on the blog), so we’ve obviously got more work to do soon.

We hope you’re doing well, and we encourage you to drop us a line, either directly via email or phone or by leaving a comment on this blog or the Facebook page. We love hearing from our friends and family, plus we don’t stay as up-to-date on everything that’s going on in “the normal world” when we spend all day walking down the sidewalk. So keep in touch, por favor!

Back with more soon!

-Mike and Linds (and Jaeda!)

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