MEAN ORNERY COFFEE GANG MEMBERS OF SOMERSET

When you're on the road as a two-wheeler, two gas pumps with an attached junk food store are your friends.  So at 6:20 am this morning we wheeled into one of those places and ran right smack dab into an infiltration of the Mean, Ornery Coffee Gang Members of Somerset.  

Apparently, Hell's Angels hadn't been through Somerset in two decades and cyclists were rare as hen's teeth.  So when we walked in the store, the first of the MOCGMOS (Mean Ornery Coffee Gang Members of Somerset) eyeballed us silently from head to toe from the safety of his side of the room.

Amazing how a couple of gulps of bitter coffee can warm the cockles of one's heart.  Soon we were able to engage Rich the Basher (real name withheld to protect his family from his orneriness) in pleasant conversation--he's an immigrant from Minneapolis and spent his life bossing people around in a warehouse.  (Didn't dare ask him what mysterious illegal contraband he was loading on to the trucks.)

Soon three more members of the MOCGMOS barged in.  Big dudes, tough and meanlike.  So they all faced one side of the narrow wall and Rick and I on the other.  Showdown at the OK Corral and Super Mart.

What could have turned into an ugly gang fight between cheesehead and Vike fans, instead turned out to be a bunch of good ole boys and two cyclo-tourists.   We laughed and teased and made fun of each other and asked directions and got good travel advice plus hot coffee and some warm local hospitality.  How good is that?

So remember, just because they're big and look ornery and nasty doesn't necessarily mean they dislike you.  Sure, they may think you're strange, not-one-of-the-gang, and look questionable in spandex and bright colors, but deep down they may be only a coffee gulp away from making a new friend. They just need a little help from you.

How many times have we pre-judged people based on body language, bib overalls, smell, or blank stares to our smile?  Instead, engage others.  Bless them.  And in blessing get ready to be blessed by God through new friends.

Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors

Open hearts, open minds, open doors are nearly akin to those red-lettered sayings of Jesus in our Methodist psyche.  We can rattle off that line faster than our email address.  And for good reason.  If we really mean what we're mouthing, then we're saying a heap.  We're saying that we are generous with our wallets, welcomes, and heart-felt worship.  We are also saying that our minds are open--we can multitask viewpoints, even opinions that don't jibe with ours.  And for two guys pedaling their brains out, open doors means, well, open doors, open church libraries, open accomodations.

Rick and I have put the open doors part to the test.  True, there have been a few OHOMOD churches that have kept the door closed (We're not set up for that  . . . or you can't stay in our church, we might be liable if something happens . . . or no one is around to unlock the door), but for the most part we have been overwhelmingly surprised by all of the open doors that have been opened to us.

Why sure, you and Rick come on over to our church.  In fact, be our guests and enjoy our pig roast on Saturday night.  So when we pulled up to Main Street UMC in North Branch after a terrible, horrible, no good, bad day of flat tires, 50 degree chill, and baptism by sprinkle, splash, and soak from day-long rain, Pastor Phil welcomed us and personally gave us the grand tour of the church.  We have a shower in the women's restroom, he whispered.  So after everyone leaves, have at it. 

And when the hog roast preliminaries began, we felt so welcomed, Rick and I jumped right in and became certified pork pullers, teasing the roasted meat off the bone.  And so the evening went -- eating pulled pork and being welcomed and blessed.

The entire congregation lived and exuded generosity in welcoming the community to their roast.  Way beyond what I'd experienced in other churches.  What's their secret, I wondered.  We're learning to be generous with our lives--that means our building, our wealth, and our time, Pastor Phil responded.  Not bad.

Open hearts, open minds, open doors.

Sacraments of the Holy Bike Journey

As we continue on our P2A Tour, we are entrenched behind handlebars with thigh muscles pumping 25-30 revolutions a minute for six to seven hours a day.   Isn't that boring?  Well, sometimes it is.  Long hours in slo-mo can be boring no matter how gorgeous the scenery.  So what to do during the monotony?

Here's what I do every day as I pedal down the road.  I hold three objects--a key, a piece of water buffalo's horn from South Africa, and my rearview mirror.  As I caress the water buffalo's horn between thumb and index finger, I pray for our mission team--ten teens and adults who will soon fly 11,000 from family and home and help build a house for a family that, as I write, live in squalor and call a corrugated tin shanty with no toilet or running water or furniture the only home they've known.

The key hangs around my neck in a necklace.  Dixie wears the rest of the necklace--a heart with a key-sized hole in it.  So I pray for the one wearing the other part, for Dixie, then for my entire famly.

And my bike mirror.   Sometimes my riding partner, Rick, comes into view.  Sometimes I see people on cell phones, trucks on a mission to drop off their goods.  So I pray for safety and no mistakes.  That Rick and I will be kept safe on the road for another day.

What objects might compel you to pray?  Maybe some of the most common things in your life--a picture, a cufflink, or polished stone may become the very sacrament that will bring you to another place for others.

Heroes of the Plains

In the course of a day we may meet and speak with fifty folks--farmers, table servers, donkey peddlers, gas attendants, tattoo artists, or unassuming passersby ("Where in the heck is Washington Street?").   But of the hundreds of folks we've been honored to meet, there is one subset of people that rise like cream to the top of the milk (an archaic agricultural image).  They are my heroes of the plains.  They are the pastors.

Pastors were among the first to follow homesteaders into the dry, waterless lands of eastern Montana and western North Dakota.  They prayed with families in need, shared their food, blessed and spoke hope into bereaving families saying goodbye to yet another family member who had succumbed to small pox or the flu.  They did their best at preaching even while trying to tease their own acreage into crops.

So Rick and I have have an up close and personal encounter with these pioneer-spirited pastor types.  And with every pastor or leader I've met, I have asked them the  same question:  "How can I pray for you?  What one thing do you want me to pray for you as we depart?"   Pastor Dave spoke most eloquently for his prairie colleagues:  "Pray that we will be able to lead our congregations back out into mission . . . that they will be the church outside the church in our communities."

So pray for these brave soldiers, these prairie hopegivers, these stand-in-the-gap folks who have followed Jesus down, not up, the ladder in order to minister to the remnant of folks who still eke out a living on the plains.

Hi, I'm Bruce and I'm Walking Across America

I-94 is the last place you'd want to take a stroll on a Saturday afternoon.  The Peterbilts, RVs, and harried vacationers zoom past creating back drafts and decibels of noise and exhaust pollution.  Yet Saturday afternoon on I-94 somewhere between Sterling and Steele,  Bruce showed up.  At first neither Rick nor I could make heads or tails of the movement five hundred yards in front of us.  Broken-down Harley biker?  Someone in need?   To our astonishment, it was Bruce pushing a jerryrigged cart he called "Sam."

Bruce walks.  A lot.  Started walking in 2010 when his world suddenly unraveled--his company folded, his wife, brother, and mother all died.  In just twenty-four months he lost everything.  So he began to walk.  Did I mentiion that Bruce is 79 years old?  There are lots of kinds of walks--walks in the park, cake walks, walk the dog walks and then there is the Bruce-Walk.  He has walked from Vancouver, Canada to Los Angeles to Key West then north along the Atlantic Coast and west to Chicago and when we ran into him, Bruce was walking--pushing Sam--diagonally across the nation back home.

Though he carries deep pain and sadness, he also told me that he was sick and tired of being sick and tired.  "So many of my friends have retired and just sit around waiting for the memorial service to happen.  Not me.  I want to walk till I drop.  I want to stay active and in motion until my last breath."

I listened to Bruce's rather complicated philosophy about lymph nodes and movement, and avoiding cancer, but I had to admire a 79 year old guy still walking for what he believed in.  How much passion do you have?  How much passion do I have about anything in life that would cause me to inconvenience myself to that degree if called on to show it?

So Brucey, you keep on walking and find what you're really looking for.  Tom, you keep on biking and find what you're really looking for.  And you--don't ever give up your passion and vision just because it's difficult.

A Well Near the Hebron Cafe

The last fourteen miles had seemed like a dream--moving along at 14 to 20 mph.   Pretty heady when you're loaded to the gills and been pedaling for over forty miles.  We curved off I-94 and down a two-mile runway that opened to an isolated town called Hebron.   Rick and I surveyed the land for two things--a diner and a cool, avant garde, wifi-accessible espresso bar.  We settled for one out of two and sat down for lunch.

That's when Mark, the local crazy guy on a bike blindsided us with a shower of excitement and childlike wonder at our machines.  He looked a little goofy and clownish and drooled some when he talked too fast.  And he had the world's largest tooth gap framed by fangs on either side.  He proudy showcased his own version of a recumbent--a homemade tadpole trike.  "I'm an engineer, and I have my own shop around back.  I got French-made bikes and Schwinns and old vintage bikes."

Our food had arrived so we applauded and praised Mark's cool trike then went back into the diner.  But he wasn't done.  Like a faithful dog, Mark waited outside until we came out.  And then he began talking non-stop.   "Yeah, I moved here from Mott in January and so I have this bike shop."

What bothered me about Mark was that there had been no mention of family or friends in his life.  So I took a risk.  "Hey, Mark, do you have a family nearby?"  Mark squinnied his face into serious wrinkles.  "My mom died in January.  Me and her was really close.  And she was dead in three days.  We ran a thrift shop together and then she died."

The pastor in me took over and I probed a bit more and offered my condolences.  I thought he was going to cry and sob right there in front of the diner.  I could only listen and speak a bit of hope into Mark.  But I did connect Mark with the pastor in whose church we were staying in.

I think a lot of folks look at the Marks of this world as being a nusiance, too much to be bothered with.   Or maybe off-putting because of their appearance.  Not always, but sometimes it takes a simple gift of an ear to listen, and then to offer a short prayer on their behalf.

May God gift you with a toothy, energetic, even eccentric soul that you can begin to see through Jesus eyes and heaven's love, a human being who has value and worth though mixed with pain.

Entertained by Royalty

Americano with two shots, please.  She shoved the cup across the bar and I settled in for some good brew when an old woman jumped betwix cup and lip.  "I saw you at the museum," she chirped. Well, yes.  Great museum-loved the section on cowboys of the old west and homesteading pioneers.  "Oh yes, those are my favorite sections too."

I was tired, sweaty, and in my cyclo-spandex clothes.  So I guess she couldn't help noticing I an out-of-towner.  "Let me introduce you to our mayor who has really moved our little museum forward."

That's when I met Lyn James, a nine-year veteran in the mayor's chair.  "Mighty fine to meet you, sir," Lyn said in a drawl that more belonged to San Antonio than Bowman, North Dakota.  Didn't take long to catch her joy of job and pride of town.   "I'm in meetin's a lot around here, but I still help my daddy with the branding."

Love what you do and do what you love.  That's Lyn's advice to us.  Who knows?  You might find yourself one day roundin' up, separatin', castratin', and branding while still managing to influence your community for good.

All Kinds of Kindnesses

Was in Bowman, North Dakota the other day.  We had cycled an easy 50-mile day and now I had some calls out to churches to request the use of their church to sleep in to keep us from the contrary wind and rain as well as the heat.

One pastor told me, "Let me ask my elders first to see if you can stay; I'll call you right back."  Thanks, I replied.  The call-back never came.  Another minister was quick to inform me that they're "not set up for that sort of thing."  I'm thinking, "what's to set up?  Two guys pedaling through town just need a piece of floor to sleep on."  I even played my ordained UMC card.  Now I knew what it was like to be on the other end--being in need, but denied help.  Being treated like a leper because we offer nothing of benefit to the church program.

My last call of desperation went out to Pastor Dave at the Seventh Day Adventist church.  "I'm new in town--just been here three weeks," he said.  "Okay with me, but let me check with my elders."   Not ten minutes had passed and Pastor Dave was back on the phone.  "The elders want to put you up in a motel, but they're not keen on you staying in the church."  Then he added, "can I come over and meet you?"  So we met at a coffee shop on Main and began to talk about Jesus and the Kingdom of God.  It was clear that Pastor Dave had a heart for God and wanted to help.  At the end of our conversation I asked how we could pray for him in his new pastoral assignment.  "Please pray that I'll be able to lead this congregation to be church outside the church and to do ministry in the community."  So the espresso bar turned into a holy place as we began to pray for each other.  In the end we found other arrangements, but in the process, we met another brother who truly has a heart for people

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Cowboy Hospitality

God Bless Karl and Joyce Muri.  I was wallowing in self-pity and loneliness in a huge darkened church in Miles City--and doing a pretty good job of it--when big old Karl invaded my space.

"Where's the biker," he announced instead of asking.  "That would be me" I countered cautiously.  (When you don't know a soul in a desolate cowboy town, and you're wearing spandex, you learn to be cautious.)

"Why don't you come over to our home and sleep in a real bed."  I thanked him for his neighborliness and declined.  "Staying in the church is fine," I said.  I have  a couch over there and some blankets in the nursery."

He pulled out his repeater:  "Why don't you come over to our house and sleep in a good bed?" he said in that announcing instead of asking voice.  "We're just around the corner on Palmer Avenue."  This guy just doesn't give up I remember thinking.  Truth be known, I would rather have slept in a real bed after 60 miles bicycling into the wind in 90 degree heat for eight hours.  But I'm just not good at this hospitality thing.  I finally had the grace enough to receive his hospitality and away we went off to his house on Palmer Avenue.  "But only for a shower," I said.

Once I got over to the house to take a shower, big old Karl sprang his hospitality bear trap:  Joyce.  How do you say no to an energetic 98 pound woman who looks at you with her netted hair with such joy and welcome?  Exactly.  You don't.  "Why don't you just stay with Karl and me for the evening.  We've got an extra room and a fan already going in your room."

And so it came to pass in the year 2013 on the 13th day of July during the reign of Barack Obama, that Thomas Hall encountered a cowboy hospitality that just wouldn't take no for an answer.

Hole in the Wall

Great place to eat.  "Hole in the Wall," Main Street, Miles City.

This quaint western eatery lives up to its name.  The restaurant resembles an oversized shoebox that even Matt Dillion and Kitty could call home.  Ornate and highly polished cherry wood forms the bar and credenza that houses local and foreign booze.

To step into the Hole for some pork chops and brews is to step back 150 years back in time.   IHOP might have its pancakes and extraordinary server which rhymes with wedge, but the Hole has its cowboy ambiance.

Later, Pardner.

Prairie Ghosts

 In 1909 the US Government, under Teddy Roosevelt, passed the "Enlarged Homestead Act," which opened the vast eastern corridor of Montana and part of the Dakotas to homesteaders.

A media blitz in part funded by both the government and railroad magnates, made this extremely dry western part of the country look like the land flowing with milk and honey.  So they came by the thousands for their share of the American dream--Europeans, urbane easterners who knew nothing about farming but wanted out of the crowded conditions of city life.

And they lost everything.  Life savings, new farm equipment, and hope.  Sure-fire tricks to get seventy bushels to the acre out of 5 inches of rain annually failed.  Defeated, demoralized, and in debt, they left quietly by the thousands.  All across the eastern Montana outback you'll still see their abandoned hope.  Sagging, delapitated, and crumbling, their homes remind us of a people who came with such enthusiasm and hope and left with despair.

Here is one of the homesteads that we happened upon.

Catching the Light

I think we've invented a new long-distance biking strategy.  Rick Stiles and I have pedaled through enough 110 degree days and dodged enough RV's and three-hinged semis to rethink normal bike travel.  

So we came up with this new strategy:  "Twilight Touring."  Every morning we get up at 4 am  and load up our bikes.  At 4:30 am we are on the road pedaling our brains out.  By noon or earlier, we have accrued our 60-70 miles for the day.  Today for instance, we had pedaled 60 miles by 10 am.  From White Sulphur Springs to Harlowton, Montana.  

In this morning's early run we beheld panoramas that are hidden to road eyes from late morning onward.  But in those early morning hours, the antelope do play and the coyote cries, and the orbs of light begin forming around rocks and mountain sides.  

So get a fresh start tomorrow and try to catch the sun's orbs breaking into darkness and revel in the stuptified gaze of unsuspecting deer as you greet the new day.  

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above,

join with all nature in manifold witness,

to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love 

6323 Foot Behemoth

 We had begun the day sober and quiet.  A grim reality unspoken, hovered over our heads.  The behemoth awaited us.  McDonald Pass rises up to 6,320 feet in elevation and lives just west of Helena on top of the world.

For two weekend bikers--non-pedal professionals--ascending such a mountain on two fully-packed recumbents is formidable.  Almost impossible.

Would this winding, curving, twisting, climbing road ever end, we wondered.  As if to add drama to the climb, stoom clouds formed and drops began pebbling our sweaty bodies.

At 3.7 miles per hour, overloaded recumbents heave from side to side, shimmying and causing heel to wheel collisions.  Yet at 1:39 pm two beleagered 'bent riders stood proudly by their metal steeds realizing that the behemoth that first begins in our minds must be confronted and defeated before engaging and conquering the behemoths that lives at the top of the world.

Head West, Young Men, Head West

Hard to believe that we've made it this far along . . . already headed for Helena tomorrow and Roundup, Montana by Thursday.  We're at 750 miles so far and by week's end will be over a 1,000 miles.  Only 2600 miles left!  Yay!

We hope to arrive in Bar Harbor, Maine on Tuesday, August 27th.  May the road rise up to meet us and may the roadkill not be us.  :b

Praise the Lord and Pass the Trumpet

On the weekend following the 4th celebrations, Dixie, our valued and beloved one-day sag driver, oh yes, and my lovely wife, and Rick, and I slid into the third pew from the front for Sunday worship at Blackfoot Community Church in Ovando, Montana.

For the second straight Sunday we were privy to a summer worship schedule that included a special musical group.  This Lord's day featured a family combo--five daughters all dressed in western skirts and white blouses, mom and dad, and a son, whose wife and two kids made cameo appearances.  We hooted and hollered through country, gospel, western, bluehgrass, and praise.

I have to tell you that before the church got locked up for another week, the Balyeat Family had added two more members--a flugalhorn player and a jazzy Dixie-landed gal!

Missoula's No. 1 Server--Pedge and the Men's Group

 Was in Missoula, Rick and I, over the 4th for bike repair, family time, and business.  I called a quick meeting of one of our small groups and we met in one of our favorite haunts--IHOP for a breakfast get together.  

 Pedge, our fire engine red-haired server has the dubious distinction of not only being our server--a high honor in itself--but she is also a member of our men's group.  We have benefited from her service, enjoyed her humor and candor, and prayed and encouraged each other. 

So for the record, Pedge, you are the best all around server west of the Mississippi!