Thunder Grace the Cover of SI's NBA Preview Issue

Will someone get me a Durant jersey for Christmas?

-Trey

Performance Video

I haven't had a lot of time to blog lately.... I know I know, we're all real busy it's not just me. But finally today I got to do a little casual web surfing and stumbled upon this great parody about cyclists while googling Yakima bike racks... Isn't the web great?



-Trey

Inspiration.

Rockaway Taco, A Selby Film from the selby on Vimeo.

Do what you love. I dare you.

Happy Friday.

Mallory

Dexter McCluster with a great public service announcement about texting and driving.

Lovely Afternoon.

This Saturday I plan on taking baby steps towards my sewing machine. I hope you enjoy your weekend!

Cheers.

Mallory

Friend from the Road

This is an email I received from another transamerican cyclist. We met him in Yellowstone on our first night in the park. We we're cooking dinner when he pulled into camp. We noticed he didn't have much food to eat besides oatmeal so we offered him to join us for spaghetti around the campfire. Steffen was around 25 and was touring from his home state of New York all the way to Washington State. We asked if his family thought he was crazy and he replied, "oh yeah."

Steffen was on the the road to enjoy his last summer before he began medical school. We exchanged information and I had totally forgotten about him until I received his email earlier this week.

Hello friends from the road!

First off, great to meet all of you and thanks for your generosity. People like you made my trip and I am grateful. At every stop along the way, every state, every town, people were welcoming and helpful to me, a total stranger.

The first attached picture is a foggy morning in New York City's Harbor from the southern tip of Manhattan, Battery Park, on the day 1 of my trip, June 14.

I took the "scenic route" from NYC, traveling about 4,000 miles through the northern US and southern Canada. New York, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington. I plodded on through cities old and new, suburbs, small towns, rural villages, the big wheat/corn/soy bean farmlands, smaller produce areas, wine regions, ranch country, frontier country, oil country, mining of every kind, national forests, national parks, the Great Lakes, Land o' Lakes, mountain ranges (that's a BIG plural), a detour to do some proper mountaineering, some high desert, and on and on, and always a stiff headwind out of the west to assure me the trip wouldn't be too easy.

Each place had a unique story to tell and those stories more often than not came when I least expected it. Meeting many of you was a testament to that.


The road going west ended in Port Renfrew, BC, Canada on August 4. The second attached picture's background is the Pacific Ocean from the rugged southwest coast of Vancouver Island. It was a real pain dragging the bike the last hundred yards to the coast but well worth it. I then made my way down to Seattle to spend a few days with old friends, finally taking a plane back east. 7 weeks out, 7 hours back. Next time I might just take the plane both ways... :)

Please pass on my greetings to those in your circles that I met, but don't have email addresses for. If any of you happen to come through my neighborhood in Manhattan, I would certainly extend whatever hospitality I could to you.


Cheers,
Steffen

Day 2 - July 7th 2010

"


I woke up ten minutes to six and took pictures of the river while everyone was sleeping. I love seeing the bikes with all the gear leaning against the giant fir trees. I spent some time in the Word, Psalms 23 took on a whole new life for me. I continue to ask God to reveal himself to me. I pray for wisdom. The rest of the group was up making breakfast around nine. Chris had a broken spoke on his bike and after he replaced the spoke, he realized he had a bigger issue he could not fix. I was thinking to myself how frustrated and angry I would have been had my bike needed repair so early in the trip. On the other hand, Chris never got upset or angry, he simply said, "it looks like I'll be hitching a ride today." God was showing me something here... patience I guess. It's funny, Mallory and I prayed that we would have opportunities to be a light to the rest of the group, but in the instance God was using one of them to teach me something I needed for that day.




The ride on the second day was one of the greatest physical achievements of my life. We climbed over 4000 ft. in 22 miles of riding. I never dreamed I would cross a mountain range on my bicycle, but today I marked the Cascades off my list. Oregon is coming alive as I creep across the landscape on my bike. We climbed for five hours, taking a break every five miles. It was hard but I've been through worse, I feel I have great potential on the bike if I only had an opportunity to compete. The view from the Mckenzie Pass was so breath taking because of the hard work we did to reach the summit. No motorist experienced what we did at the summit that day. I'll never forget the view or what it took to get to the top of that mountain.




It was an easy fifteen miles to the bottom where we stopped in the town of Sisters, Or. for the night. We showered in a park with the water faucet coming from the ground. I took full advantage of this running water because I regretted not bathing in the river the night before. We had a nice dinner in the downtown area and ended up setting our camp up right behind the chamber of commerce on a nice patch of green grass. Hooray for urban camping.

-Trey

Day One

We’re back to continue our blog after a month long hiatus, I hope you can gain perspective of our life on the road. We had the trip of a lifetime and as we begin to process through all that we learned I hope these stories inspire you to live a faith filled existence, one that can only be sustained by the Holy Spirit of God. I’ll start the first of many entries to come with the first day I wrote in the travel journal.

Enjoy!

Day 1 – July 6^th 2010

After weeks of scrambling to prepare, hours of comforting family, and an entire moving-out process, we have finally began what will surely be an amazing journey. I’ve read many inspiring stories about people biking across the country and now I’m living that story. We will go from Eugene Oregon to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Elle, Dez, Chris, Mallory, and myself will be together for the next six to eight weeks. The rest of the group will continue on from Tulsa all the way to Boston, Mass. Mallory and I have not decided if Tulsa will be our final stop with the group; we may continue on to Boston as well. The ride today was beautiful, heading East from Eugene and following along the Mckenzie River for sixty miles until we reached the Mckenzie Bridge, where we set up camp for the night.

That first day seems like a lifetime ago. We had no idea what was in front of us, how we would develop as a group of people, how Mallory and I would come together, how our bodies would adapt to eight hours of biking every day. How our minds would come to terms with the uncertain: life without air conditioning, television, computers, ipods, cell phones, clean clothes, access to showers, time alone, beds and pillows, and our safety. We knew none of these things – and that is exactly why we knew we must embark on this journey. We never planned in our time in Eugene that this is how we would journey back to Oklahoma. However, we had begun to pray that we would have opportunities to live a “faith-filled” life. Because after all - without faith it is impossible to please God.

Having said that, it does not take 35 days of life on the road to live a “faith-filled” life. However, we knew that we would be utterly helpless on this journey without the guiding hand of God. We knew that every single day, every hour, and every minute we would need God to sustain us. When you’re riding a bicycle and all you have is a mere three feet of shoulder while twenty ton trucks whiz by at sixty five miles per hour… you start to pray more frequently then you ever have in your entire life. There would not be days on this trip where we would sit down together while eating dinner and say, “I had an off day today trying to rely completely on the Lord, I just got distracted and didn’t have time to pray or do my devotion in the morning. Tomorrow will be a better day.” That discussion never took place, and we knew the moment we signed up for this trip that the conversation wouldn’t happen. So, as you can see, this trip, while foolish and dangerous and misunderstood by many, was a direct way for God to stretch us continuously without the distraction of everyday life.

- Trey

From Eugene to Boise on the iron horse

One week of riding down and we've gone through one state, a new time zone, and a new perspective on God's creation. The bike allows you to expericene the landscape in ways that you've never imagined. You can feel the climate change after you climb the Mckenzie pass and ride down the other side. You can see the landscape change from lush trees, raging rivers, and high peeks with snow to dry and arid desert. It's real and you do it all with the lungs, heart and legs that God blessed you with. We were made for this and it feels Great! Life changes a bit when you must rely on God for all the small things we take for granted daily. The place we lay our head for the night, good weather, our next meal, friendly people with good intentions, health bodies, wise minds. We've stepped into the unknown and God is the only one we can trust to lead. Thanks to all who are praying daily for our safe travels, we ask that you also pray for God to reveal himself to us more everyday 0n our journey. The names of our other riding mates are; Elle, Dez, and Chris. Pray for them also. Thank you all for your support, we couldn't do it with out you. Sorry I don't have any pictures to share yet.

Love,

Trey and Mallory

There's a hole in my pocket about his size...

Tonight I am spending my evening alone. I have set the evening aside to reminisce about the good ol' days. Tomorrow is father's day and I can't help but wish that mine was going to be different. I keep praying that God will invite me up for a magical breakfast with Him and my dad. If not in the morning then maybe in my dreams. I encourage you to OVER do it tomorrow and celebrate the men in your lives. Shower them with more kisses and compliments than they ever thought they could receive in a day! Happy Father's day to all the Fathers, step-fathers, grandpas, uncles, foster fathers, soon to be fathers, or any men that have chosen to make a difference in the lives of others! We salute YOU!

The Eugene Weekly (a free local paper) had this to say about the market where I work. The article was listed in one of their, "Best of Eugene" issues

Best guilt-free quick mart

With its yin-yang collision of unrepentant 7-11 crap and dogmatic health foody-ism, the New Frontier Market on 8th and Van Buren brilliantly caters to the very worst and very best in our collective nature, as conspicuous and conscientious consumers, respectively. Where else can you grab, all in one five-minute stroll, a pack of cigarettes, a four-dollar bottle of wine and a frozen Frisbee of Totina’s pizza, along with some organically grown local produce, an aromatic stick of Nag Champa and a bottle of enhanced acidophilus milk? Dr. Bronner’s and Dr. Pepper, Karl Marx and Adam Smith, all frolicking within arm’s reach: It’s the American Dream made manifest, an earthly realm of guilt-free bargain hunting where flax seed oil and Necco wafers live in perfect symbiosis and happy harmony. New Frontier Market, 1101 W. 8th Ave.; 345-7401.




We had this posted in a little corner of our store and I saw it for the first time last night while working. I thought it was a fairly accurate description, although I had to come home and do some google searches on about half of the things their talking about.

Not that this is valuable information to anyone....

-Trey

Train: days 1-5

I'll run down the train ride that Mallory, Clint, and myself set out on a few weeks ago. It literally took us Monday through Friday to get from OKC to Eugene on the Train. We departed OKC at 8:20 am and arrived in San Antonio at 9:00 pm. We had a layover in San Antonio until 4:00am that morning, so the three of us set out to explore the Riverwalk. We had a great time eating some authentic Mexican food (we don't have any in the northwest) and then spent a few hours sitting at a picnic table near the train talking about life, god, and politics. We climbed back on the train around two in the morning. While we were sleeping the train departed for Arizona, however, we did not make it that far. Around 7:00 am the conductor came over the loud speaker and said the tracks ahead were damaged from a storm the night before and that the train would be heading back to San Antonio. I was in a sleepy daze during this time and didn't bother asking questions. Sure enough the next time I woke up I was in the exact same spot as the night before.


We were told the train would be delayed 8-10 hours and if we wished we could board a bus that would go non-stop (except for food & fuel) to L.A. That's only a 24 hour bus ride! The three of us debated and decided not to waste an entire day waiting on the train so we climbed on the nice bus. However after the bus filled to the brim with overweight, cranky, weary travelers (some with small crying children) we made a better decision and put our stuff back on the train and set our for eight hours of exploring southern Texas.



Here is a great photo of Mallory posing front and center of the Alamo all alone. Maybe it's normal to stand in front of a national historical site and not have anyone else in the frame but I'm guessing this was a rare opportunity.





So it's now Tuesday afternoon and all all we've accomplished is actually getting further away from our final destination. We boarded the train again and it departed around seven or eight that evening. We got to see some great scenery heading west trough Texas. It's amazing how the climate goes from this lush tropical jungle looking thing, to the desert in a matter of hours. We went to sleep that night and when we woke up..... WE WERE STILL IN TEXAS! What misery! We finally came to New Mexico and only spent of few hours traveling through the southwestern most part of the state. We traveled right along the boarder of Mexico. It was amazing to be so close to a small imaginary line that separated devastating poverty from immense wealth. We made a stop in Tucson Arizona for about a half an hour. The train station in Tucson was top notch. There was a great little market we rummaged through and picked up some grub and other snacks. There was a great pavilion with bars and restaurants and people sitting outside in the sweet weather enjoying drinks and conversations. We were tempted to call it a day and set up a home base in Tucson. However we boarded the train for a another ten hours or so until we finally arrived in L.A. late Wednesday night. Amtrack set us up in the hotel for the night because of the delay in San Antonio. We didn't have much energy but we went out exploring L.A. anyway. We found our way back to the hotel after about an hour or two of walking around the scary dark city. We were all thinking about the real beds calling our name. After three nights sleeping in the upright position using a pillow the size of a paper back book I don't think even a city like Paris could have kept us out all night.



The next morning we grabbed a quick shower, a hot cup of coffee, and tasty bagel and climbed on board the train for the last 28 hours along the beautiful Pacific coast. It's a shame we were so utterly drained from travel that we couldn't really experience the coast the way we wanted. Nevertheless the view from the observation car was like being in a Wes Anderson film. The next morning we woke up we were in moving through southern Oregon. As we approached the mountains the scenery began represent something majestic out of fantasy novel. Sheer beauty I can't even began to explain or a picture could even do the slightest bit of justice.

We spent the next three days doing our best to show Clint the uniqueness that embodies Eugene, Oregon. We rented him a bike (this was necessary as Mallory and I are now car free), fed him as much organic food as he could handle, pounded it into his brain that he must lock his bike up in all situations or it WILL be taken, took him on a few hikes here in town, and took him to one of the art cinemas for a movie. He had the opportunity to meet the folks in our church and also to attend a Lamb Cottage service. We ended up spending more time on the train than in Eugene but we all agreed that one day we'll look back on the entire experience and smile.


-Trey