The Journey

Wow, what a great sleep. I was out for about 12 hours. It was amazing, but not quite as amazing as the journey here.

We started at exactly 2pm Friday afternoon from the circular drive in front of the bible building at ACU. Justin Scott got us started out and quickly got us out of town and heading towards New Mexico. Throughout the next 10-11 hours our group traveled over 180 miles, ending up nearly at the border to NM. I really enjoyed my 2 ten-mile shifts during that time. My first shift was pretty difficult as I had a number of pretty tough hills to scale, but my second shift was amazing. I had a straight stretch for almost the entire 10 miles so I knocked it out pretty quickly. It is amazing what a difference it makes when you draft behind a vehicle. I could go about 15 mph with nobody in front of me, but when I followed within a few feet of our lead truck I had an average speed of 25. It was amazing.

Though we made it to the end of our shift a little bit behind schedule, we were in pretty high spirits when we considered the altitude gains we had made. We wished the second group good luck and got a small motel room in the great town of Brownsfield for all "4" of us to crash in for the night. I actually feel fairly sorry for the cleaning crew there. As the ten of us got ready for bed we scrambled for the shower. The shower stayed on continuously for 45 minutes as we got in and out one after another. By the end of our showers, the entire bathroom was covered in water and bathtub was full of at least a foot and spilling over with each movement, but we all felt much better. We slept for a few hours, then we were on the road again to catch up with the other group.

I am sitting in an apartment on the Pepperdine campus in Malibu, CA. This is such a gorgeous place. It's only 9:30 here, but I think I'm about to go to bed. I have only had about 6 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. We are all completely worn out. I'm one of the only people still awake. I'm going to go to sleep now. I'll update as I get time in the next couple days. It was certainly the most amazing trip of my life and one of the greatest adventures ever. Good night for now.

3 Days Left!!!

I just got done riding an exercise bike for over an hour in the middle of the campus center to raise money and awareness for our trip and the OI Foundation. Money has been coming in at an increasing trickle. We are now around $6000, but still nowhere near our $68K goal. Hopefully a lot more will come in as crunch time comes around.

I can see as the trip approaches that I am going to have a fairly difficult time after a day or so of riding. I am going to be quite sore by the time we make it to Cali.

We have split up into our two groups. I am going to be in group 1 which will leave Friday at 2. Our group is going to have 1 more 9 hour shift than the other group, but we also get the victory of driving through downtown L.A. (a slightly nerve-wracking experience, I imagine) and into Malibu. I am so excited about this trip.

I think our computer guy is working on setting up a neat online map which will show our progress and course as we ride. That will be somewhere on our website, so keep checking that.

Anyway, thanks for the prayers and cash. Please keep them coming. We need as much of both as we can get.

Preparations for bike ride to Cali

We are now scrambling around, trying to raise funds for our trip. We have a lot of money to raise and not much time to do it.

There are a few ways to help out if you are interested:

• First of all, though we are doing this to raise money for IO, it is still going to be a somewhat costly trip. I am responsible for paying for my own meals and other expenses along the way. Being a poor college student, I really do not have the means to do this entirely on my own. I would greatly appreciate any help I could receive in this area. If you send checks addressed to me I will use what I need for the trip and give the remainder to the OIF.
• You can also send checks made out to the OI Foundation if you like. 100% of this donation will go to the charity and will be tax-deductible.
• If you prefer doing things over the internet you can visit gsp-kinsmen.com and make a quick online donation to the OI foundation that way.
• Most importantly, we could use your prayers. We really wish to help this cause, so pray that we gather a large sum to support it. Also, we will be traveling hundreds of miles in fairly unpredictable circumstances, so prayers for our safety will be appreciated.

Please send checks or cash to:
Jordan Williams
122 McGlothlin Campus Center
ACU Box 26643
Abilene, TX 79699

I am going to be posting more info here as I get it. As soon as the trip is underway I will try to update whenever possible with pictures and commentary of our progress. Thanks for your support.