Did you read part one and part two?
We made it to Prescott at last and pushed through the last few miserable miles to my friend’s house. Her and her husband were waiting for us to arrive and had prepared an amazing barbeque. We gorged that night on beef, showered for the first time in 7 days, and slept peacefully in the warmth of their house.
We woke up to a beautiful morning, and the smell of coffee brewing. The wind fled during the night and showed no signs of coming back, much to our relief. After a delicious home cooked breakfast of pancakes and fruit, we mounted up for our final day. This was the longest day of riding of the entire trip, 95 miles, but was our most enjoyable day by far. The wind was nowhere to be seen, and the long stretches of down hills whisked us quickly back into the valley of the sun. We ate lunch at the bottom of the incredibly steep Yarnell Hill with a man we had met our first day on the way to the canyon. Mike was a local artist, carving intricate murals out of wood for people all over the world. We chatted and shared stories of our travels over the beer he offered us. This place seemed to be a gathering point of interesting characters. I swear Santa Clause himself drove up on a motorcycle with a sidecar that looked like it was from the Cold War. All sorts of men gathered here, the real salt of the earth types. It looked like they worked hard, and loved it. They wore their Carhartt overalls proudly, and firmly shook hands with their dirty, weathered, and beautiful hands.
The sun rose high and showered us with its warmth, which felt good after the icy chill of the previous day. The miles here were flat but quick as we passed through a few more small towns that mark the outskirts of Phoenix. Before long, the sun was at our backs as the traffic of the big city picked up and the traffic lights signaled our journey was coming to a close. Relief that rest was coming soon was met with a sense of sadness that our adventure was coming to a close. The Safeway that was our staging point for our departure greeted us. The unsuspecting shoppers were clueless as to why a small group of cyclists were celebrating in the parking lot. We gave each other high fives, loaded up our gear and all crammed into the truck. We sleepily drove across Phoenix to make it back to my parent’s house where we were greeted with much joy, relief, good food, and great beer.
It was not always easy, in fact, it rarely was. But that is what made it an adventure. The painful miles of biking and hiking, the wind laughing at us, the bike problems, were all part of the adventure. I think a life following after God is often like that. It is usually the really difficult parts that were the most defining moments. The challenges are there for us to test our mettle, so that at the end, we have something refined by fire, which is hard to come by these days. I believe life is an adventure, and it should be lived as such.
