RunAcrossTheUSA.com

[Brandon]

Welcome everyone. This is really me, able to post for the first time in over a week. We're relaxing at the Best Western in Sister, OR, nestled underneath the beautiful backdrop of the "Three Sisters," which are three 10,000+ ft mountain peaks. Anything would have been a welcome break from the desert scenery, but this really makes it all the more enjoyable. We even had a huge rainbow greet us (after a tiny bit of rain), which we took to be a covenant from God that we would never have to spend a week walking through the desert again.

I think it's fitting that one of our hardest weeks of the trip (this past one) has been so near the end. You cannot imagine the joy we felt when we arrived in Bend and re-entered civilization. And oh what a joy Bend was! As you can probably tell from the brevity of some of the past posts, our cellphone was not kind to us through that stretch, and a lot of what happened we were not even able to tell our parents, so I'll fill everybody in on that. We've met some pretty weird, interesting, and amazing people, as well as one scum-of-the-earth disgusting person in the past week. Look for that in the morning.

Today we were able to relax for the first time in a while. We got up and had a delicious breakfast with the Robertsons, who went out of their way to make our stay there tremendous. It was hard to leave them in the morning because it felt like we were like their grandchildren instead of strangers they had just met the day before. Hopefully we'll be able to visit them another time in the future. Lois, our hostess, even walked with us for a couple blocks to make sure we wouldn't get lost.

We set out for church at the Cascade Praise Center (sorry if I messed up the name) and arrived there at exactly 10 am when the service started. We were a little confused at first because the service was being held in two languages, english and spanish, and it wasn't until later that we found out that there were two churches who hold different services in the same building were having a special bilingual service. It was the first time they had done it, but from what Matt and I observed, the experiment was a success. The language barrier was not enough to keep these two groups from uniting for one cause--Christ.

Afterward we were invited to the annual church picnici at a Tumalo State Park, which was right on our way, so we gladly accepted and enjoyed some great food. The food ranged from pizza, to potato salad, to tamales, which were delicious. We weren't shy about gorging ourselves on all the delicious food.

After eating we talked for a long time with some of the members of the congregation as I tried to unflimsify our handlebar. I found a metal rod by the side of the road that fit inside the tube perfectly, and I was able to rig it up so at least it isn't bending as much.

The rest of the day we walked, enjoying the pine trees and discussing everything from theology to movies. We only got about 23 miles or so in before getting to Sisters, but we figured that we would pamper ourselves this last little bit, and after Sisters there's a stretch of about 50 miles with nothing, so we won't be distracted. We'll be able to enjoy the beauty of Oregon (finally).

We got a great discount on the room from the desk clerk, something that we really appreciated. Little acts of kindness from people make every day easier.

I'm kinda tired, so I'll stop here, but hopefully in the morning I'll have a summary of everything that was missed in our desert adventure.

Goodnight to all, and I'll see many of you soon,
Brandon