Friday, April 30, 2010

End of the Road

Dear Friends,

we have been quiet for a few days because on arriving in Amarillo Monday evening I realized that I was profoundly exhausted. This exhaustion was the result of inadequate nutrition and few support services along the Route 66 corridor, not to mention the battering of sun and wind over the twenty days we had been riding. In short I hit the wall.
After talking with Dave and then my doctor I decided to end the ride. we are disappointed, of course, not to have gone the whole distance, but proud to have ridden so strongly for those twenty days. We climbed over two mountain ranges going from sea level at Dog Beach to over 7300 feet in the Rockies. We crossed a desert and rode a substantial amount of the high arid plains in the Rockies before descending to Texas plains at just 3900 feet. The 1200 miles we did ride were great, although the absence of places to eat or buy food echoed the general ghost town nature of much of the 66/40 corridor.
I thank everyone for their support, and hope that the end of this trip will not mean the end of generous support for the work of the Hardisons in Africa. Truth is that the absence of nutrition we faced is mild compared to the devastation in northeast Kenya. So please be generous in supporting our work among more than 40,000 AIDs orphans and their guardians.

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