My carrot on a stick

I arrived in Westfield, NY two days ago and was handed a curious envelop addressed to me! Who could have sent me a big envelop? Why to this address??? The return address was from a pastor in Wolf Point, MT, who we were thinking of staying with but didn't actually end up doing so. In fact, this pastor didn't really know me at all.

When preparing for the trip, my pastor in D.C. emailed a pastor friend of his in Williston, ND, who called me up and offered Eric and I a place to stay when we came through. It turned out that we already had a place to stay in Williston, so I asked him if he knew anyone in eastern Montana who we might be able to stay with. One of the two names he gave me was the pastor in Wolf Point who I called, but who for what ever reason didn't return my call, so we just biked through there.

Why would he send me a big envelop? How did he get the address of where we were staying in New York?

I opened the envelop to find another envelop! The second was from my friend Johanna in Germany. An accompanying letter from the pastor explained that the envelop came for me with instructions to forward to New York in case we had already passed through. This guy who I never met, who knew little to nothing about me, was kind enough to send the envelop on to me in New York.

The package from Johanna was filled with a variety of thoughtful and encouraging things including flowers from her garden, some cool postcards, and a wrapper from a Doener with an accompanying drawing comparing a donkey and a carrot on a stick to me on a bike with a Doener on a stick, which was very amusing. I decided to tape the Doener wrapper on to my bike handlebar. There may be no Doener inside, but the day after I got the wrapper, we biked 125 miles!

In addition to the unexpected surprise from Johanna, we had a really good time hanging out with Anna's brother Jon and his fiancee Lisa in Westfield, NY. They are really friendly and were fun to talk with. I think they may also have talked me into trying out eharmony.com (Nathan also deserves some credit for that).

From Cleveland our route has been really scenic, taking us along Lake Erie up to Buffalo, NY, and then over the border into Ontario, passed Niagra Falls, and down along the Erie Canal towpath in the direction of Albany. Right now, we're staying over with Eric's sister, Lauren, at RIT in Rochester, NY. From here, we will continue along the Erie Canal to Albany where we will then travel southeast towards Connecticut.