Day 9: REST DAY in Big Sky, MT

Day 9: REST DAY in Big Sky, MT

Miles on the road: .08 (I walked my bike from the bike shop to my car) other than that we did a whole lot of nothing. And it felt real nice. "Real nice, Clark, real nice."

Video of the day (from Saturday)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe8Arsn0OYE

SHOUT OUTS:

I gotta give it up today to my boy, Chris Hill of Memphis, TN for the hook up of a place to stay in beautiful Big Sky, MT. This morning, we drove from West Yellowstone, MT to Big Sky, MT for the day. Tomorrow morning we will drive back to West Yellowstone and continue our journey. Chris is a good buddy of mine who I used to teach with when I lived in Memphis way back when. He also stood up in my wedding last summer. He's got quite the blog himself--check out http://www.mrchrishill.com/ I should actually be giving a shout out to his wife, Kristen. It’s her parents place that we are staying at ….and we have them to thank for graciously offering us room and board for our day of rest. It’s just what the doctor ordered after 8 days of hard riding.

Here’s a run-down of what we’ve done today:

Luke and Davis watched tv for 7-8 hours. When they got done with that, they threw gummie worms off the balcony onto the golf course of where we’re staying. In between these two strenuous activities, they managed to pound all 22 otter pops that were left in the freezer by the last guests that stayed here as well as 3 Diet Cokes. Please lift these two warriors up in prayer when the Lord brings them to mind as they are truly exhausted from this arduous day of events. After I cooked them dinner, Luke mentioned (for the 15th time) how much he wants to watch the “Lion King.” Unfortunately, we were just not able to make this happen. However, he was able to take bubble bath late this evening. Can I get PTL for bubble baths, anyone?
Fellas, nice work this past week! You deserve the rest.

For myself, it’s been a pretty good day. Definitely thankful for Big Sky. What a sweet spot on the map. I’m not sure that I ever would have ventured here on my own without the connection to the Hill family. We’ve been blessed a couple of times now on this trip by friends who knew folks along our trail and who committed to opening up their homes to us. Now, I definitely would love to come back as BS is kind of like Breckenridge, CO, but not as commercialized or “resortee.” And that I really like a lot. We met a good dude at the one bike shop in town who did some minor repairs to my ride. He said that the skiing here is off the chain. So, I guess that settles it--I am going to have to find a way to get myself back here!

In the past, rest days on the Hunger Ride are good for laundry, sleeping and organizing all of your stuff/junk in the sag vehicle (my car) and getting some down time out in nature. For me, the latter was literally just walking outside of our place and sitting on a rock ……and just looking at the spectacular panoramic views here in Montana and trying to take it all in. Once again, hard to sum this up in words. But it was indeed breath-taking. It certainly renews the meaning of Psalm 19:1 to me.

Tomrrow’s Ride: about 105 miles to Sheridan, MT

THE HUNGER RIDE WELCOMES….
You’re just going to have to wait until tomorrow to find out who the next sag wagon crew is. But suffice it to say I ‘m pretty stoked about who is on deck. In fact, I’m surprised that we were even able to get them to drive support and be a part of Hunger Ride 2010. There is no one that is traveling further to take part in this adventure than these two cats. No question that adventure, fun and many deep convo’s are ahead.