Biking from Tampa to Orlando

It has been a very, very busy summer so far. Rick’s hernia repair went well. He is still restricted from heavy lifting for another week, but that is all. He had both sides repaired and one hernia was rather large, but it was done laparoscopically and virtually painless. Earlier the same day, (June 19) I had a gel injection in my knee. That has helped some with the pain and I have been able to walk without my cane at times now for the first time in 6 months. Three days after the treatments we met with all of our kids and grandkids and spent a week together in the Poconos. What fun. Memories. Then we drove Peace down to her home in Florida. We are giving Peace Lasik eye repair for her 29^th birthday. That will happen tomorrow. We also suffered enough from the heat driving from PA to FL without AC, that we traded in our beloved RV van and got a Caravan that has plenty of room to sleep in, but not all the amenities that our Econoline did. (Of all the material things I have ever owned I think that van has brought me more joy than anything else.)

We have been blessed with being able to sell my parents’ home on a rent-to-own basis. It is a young couple, the wife is the daughter of one of Peace’s caregivers here in Florida. The husband works as a handyman and they are gutting the house and remodeling from top to bottom!!! It is such a blessing because if we had tried to sell the house outright there would have been lots of repair with termites, and some bad pipes, etc. This way, they are taking the house “as is”, and we are not investing further money into it. We will get extra money every month from rent, and they will get a house without long term interest payments. Every one is very, very happy. One of God’s provisions.

So, I have realized over the past 2 years that if I want to stay mobile at all, I MUST exercise. The least painful exercise is biking because it is non weight bearing and I have to do it to move around in China anyway. This week we bought 2 used bikes and then have continued to pester the seller by trading them both in for other models with more gears, and also to repair the 5 flat tires we have had. I think we are set now and just because we can we are going to leave Sunday afternoon to bike from New Port Richey (north of Tampa) to Orlando. We will stop at hotels along the way because we have accrued quite a few stays through our credit cards, and the Hillburns, friends from Panama days, have graciously offered to bring us and our bikes back to connect with our car after about 4 or 5 days. We have been biking every day in prep. But being FL we have also been getting wet. Yesterday I ended up changing clothes in the car and was not strong enough to put my pants on sitting down, so just opened the door and stood outside in the rain to complete the process. No one was watching the “grandma missionary flasher”. Haha

At this point we have tickets to return to China on August 13. Prayers as always are appreciated.