a thousand miles begins with a single ride

Well today about 4 o'clock I finally met my goal of a thousand miles for this year. I went back and read the blogs. The ebb and flow of the blogs coinciding with my job. I am so glad I kept a record of the rides.( Thank you Steve I would not have kept track of the rides in a blog and some days even riding period without your pushing me!) And thank you to my sister Liz and her husband Dennis and really all my family and friends for being awsome cheerleaders. As I read I relived the rides and it felt like flashes of my year unwinding before me. Some rides were glorious others were funny some were bittersweet. Like my life I guess a smattering of the good and not so good. We go on in spite of the crappy weather and disappointments because of those days when our soul shouts out "I am blessed to be alive at this very moment".



I rode on the trail today and as usual it was lovely. Hard to believe it's the first of October and we are having 80 degree days. It some what makes up for the nasty rainy windy June. A few weeks ago Steve on I went on a trip through the Bitterroot Mountains to walk in the the footsteps of Lewis and Clark and the Nez Perce Indians at the exact same day 205 years ago to the day(Steve's bucket list) . We traveled along three different rivers,the Clearwater, Selway and the Lochsa. Having made a stop at a museum we saw a " boat", a canoe made of a single log similar to the one that Lewis and Clark rode in their final journey to the Pacific Coast. Now what do you say does that have to do with today's ride? Well at Mirabeau a bunch of Kayakers got out of the river . For some reason I thought of that wild and necessary ride of Lewis and Clark. Today we do not have to travel in the river and for that matter even close to it to get to our destinations. Yet we are drawn to the river. It feeds our modern need to feel connected to nature. A river that gave this area life long before we arrived. It has fed my soul for the last 9 months and given birth to hope and health.