Good morning. It is the morning of day 14 and I am in a small town called Cambridge, Idaho. I’m sitting in the back of the hotel that we’re staying at. It’s very fancy.

We are on a rest day, and we’ve got a few big days of climbing and rain ahead of us.

It’s been a fantastic time getting across Oregon. My friends in Oregon, you guys live in a beautiful state. I saw places that I just didn’t know existed. There is a place called Halfway, Oregon that I want to look into moving to. It was just stunning.

This is a hard ride, but it’s also interesting to work through relationship stuff. A couple of nights ago, you know, Kevin just shared some of his experience and some changes he wants to make. There’s what he said, and then there’s what I heard. Unfortunately, what I heard triggered an
“I’m not enough” response inside of me. I kept my mouth shut for the most part, but nonetheless needed to process it with the help of my wife, daughter, and a good friend Alison.

I came to understand, there’s what people say and then there’s what we hear. Kevin doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body, so he wasn’t trying to hurt my feelings or anything, but I allowed it to hurt my feelings.

Fortunately, over the course of our conversation that night, I was able to articulate to him, I might not be enough for you, but I’m enough for me. And I think that’s a really important concept. I think it’s important for us to know ourselves well enough and to accept ourselves as we are. Of course we’re always growing, but it’s important to accept ourselves as we are so that we can confidently say “I am enough” – period. Or “I am and I’m enough for me.” I recognize that I might not always be enough for the people around me, but I don’t think that’s actually my responsibility anyway.

The other thing that I have experienced all the way across Oregon, that I hope we continue to experience, is kindness.

When COVID started with all of its political nonsense, one of the things I wanted to do was identify what I I could control in the scenario. The thing I kept coming back to over the last few years was being kind to people. Being good to people is all I can do. On this trip across Oregon toward Idaho, the further you get to the Idaho border, the more the political beliefs change, and some of those beliefs are quite apparent.
But nonetheless, no matter who it is, what I have found is that just being kind to people results in them being kind to me.

In the pictures, you’ll see a gentleman sitting underneath an awning. That gentleman was at a campground that we stayed in the night before last. We rolled in around 4pm, hot, sweaty, having had a long climbing day. A couple of miles back we had already passed the last place to buy beers. So when we got into the campground, there was a camper with his tent and an awning set up. We were talking about how we were going to set up camp and this guy walks up. I mentioned that we made the mistake of not buying beers, and he then hands us two ice cold beers. So Keith, hello to you, and thank you so much. You are a very kind gentleman.

And it gets better – he then proceeded to make us two hot dogs and allowed us to use his awning when it was raining. He let us hang our laundry on his awning, and gave us some Oreo cookies and hostess Ding Dongs.

We were just struck by the kindness of this total stranger. But that was really representative of our experience across Oregon, as most people were really kind to us.

So I just want to encourage you, no matter what trials and tribulations our country is facing or you’re facing personally, kindness and gratitude might be your answer.

I hope you’re enjoying these blog posts. I hope you enjoyed my daughter’s blog post. I certainly did. And I hope that you’re out doing something fun yourself this Memorial Day weekend.

Thank you to you all and enjoy the ride. I certainly am.