Monday, May 28, 2012

Day 35: Lake City, FL to Jacksonville Beach, FL (the Atlantic Ocean!)


We made it!!! Wow. What a hard, painful, humbling, fulfilling, and amazing experience this bike trip has been!

On Saturday night we found out that a tropical storm (1 mph away from being classified as a hurricane) was scheduled to hit Jacksonville Sunday afternoon and continue through sometime on Tuesday. Needing to finish this trip so that Matt and I can make it to our internships, we decided to bike today through the storm.

Last night I read over and over again the scripture in Mark 4:

36 And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships.

37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.
 38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
 39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea,aPeace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great bcalm.
 40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so afearful? how is it that ye have no bfaith?
 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

I knew that if Jesus could calm the wind and still the sea for his disciples, Heavenly Father could do the same for us. I prayed with earnest last night and all this morning while we were riding that our "great storm of wind" would be calmed. We got some occasional rain and wind today, but it was nothing compared to what we could have experienced. I testify that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers. I had an amazing spiritual experience as I was biking today; I felt so strongly Heavenly Father's love for me and got a beautiful, peaceful feeling. It was like He had calmed the winds and me. It is so humbling to see that again and again we have been blessed on this bike trip.


Reaching the Atlantic Ocean came with a basket of emotions; we laughed, gave victory shouts, gave sighs of relief, I cried... What a wonderful moment! To celebrate we all went to Joe's Crab Shack.

We thought that today it would be fun to put a review of our bike trip:

Our Bike Trip Across America
Total miles biked: 2,519
Total days biked (not including rest days): 29
Average miles per day: 87
Maximum miles per day: 124
Minimum miles per day: 30 (the day Amber got her concussion)
States crossed: 8
Flat tires: 7 (that includes the truck's flat tire)

Emergency Room Visits

Best part of the trip

Worst part of the trip

News stories
Possibly more to come!

Person with the most facial hair grown during trip
Matt (yes, he shaved as soon as we finished)

Person with the most sunburns
Amber (even though she put on sunscreen every time we stopped)

Number of bugs swallowed
We didn't count, but it was a lot

Number of dead armadillos in the road
We didn't count that either, but Matt thinks it was over 100

Donations to JDRF
Total amount donated (as of 5/28/12 at 3pm MST): $3,229

A special thanks to all those who donated so far! We couldn't be more grateful!
The Hull Family, Doug and Sharon Martin and family, Century 21 Bushnell, Mason Chenn, Kris Bloomfield, Laura (Grandma) LeBaron (twice!), Alicia Schick, Nicole Nowak-Ahmad, Haylie Lund, Ruth Ann Ferreira, Kathy Ward, Brian Henderson, Georgia Ogles, Jonathan Fischer, Paul and Marilyn Robinson, Curt and Jan LeBaron (our parents), Trevor Evans (twice!), Jared Colton, Riley Cooney, Brittany Miyahara, Val Gene Ogles, Andersen Studios, Alishia Sullivan, Curt and Angi Cummings, Katie Liljenquist, Rhett Weller, Margita Clark, Dominic Anderson, The Sheranian Family, Mette Petersen, Kimball Hansen, Marcus Shaw, Ron Purvis, Todd Castagna, Spencer Ray, Shawna Hamblin, the Haynes Family, Anonymous, Anonymous, Anonymous, and Anonymous

And thank you everyone for following our journey and our blog! We have loved all of the support! We'll do a couple more posts on our recovery process, more donations we get, more news coverage, etc.
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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Day 34: Lake City, FL (Rest Day)

Thank you so much to everyone who donated to JDRF (the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) since last Sunday! We really appreciate your thoughtful donations!

Century 21 Bushnell, Mason Chenn, Kris Bloomfield, Laura (Grandma) LeBaron, Alicia Schick, Nicole Nowak-Ahmad, Haylie Lund, and Anonymous

If you would like to make a donation, click here or on the button that says "MAKE A DONATION!" on the right of our blog under the thermometer. All donations go straight to JDRF; Matt and I don't see any of it. (All of our expenses like lodging, food, biking gear, etc. come from our own savings.) Every donation makes a difference!


We got in another newspaper, the Destin Log. Here's a link if you want to check it out: http://www.thedestinlog.com/news/bike-21946-juvenile-day.html

Last night I slept for ten hours and it felt marvelous! Sundays truly are the best. Today we went to a church near by. (We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For more information click here.) The ward that we went to for church was so friendly! We had a ton of people come up to us and ask if we're visiting, where we're from, and about our bike trip. Florida has had some of the friendliest people we've met on this trip.


We are starting to get pretty nervous about the tropical storm that has hit Jacksonville (it's almost at a hurricane status). The weather report says that winds have gotten up to 70 mph! Yikes. The worst of the storm is happening tonight, but the storm is supposed to last through Tuesday night. There is also talk of potential flooding, and we've already had a lot of rain in Lake City. Cross your fingers that we'll be able to finish this trip tomorrow by riding between the bands of the storm!
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