If every night is a crapshoot, today I got a full house. Each afternoon or evening, we pull our bikes into driveways not knowing what to expect. Accomodations? No idea. Friendly host? A toss-up. So far there has not been a single place that hasn't met my expectations and even exceeded them. Here in Casper, Wyoming, the couple with whom I'm staying, Sue and Gary Berchenbriter, have been more than gracious. A gourmet dinner (artichoke pasta from Italy, fresh dill-flavored bread with oil and vinegar, grilled peppers, and chickpea salad), good music, my own basement apartment - gorgeous, by the way - and a most scenic dusk tour of the mountains to the southwest of town where the Berchenbriters designed, built and own an eco-friendly and Architecture Digest article-worthy cabin. Overall this has been my favorite day this summer.

As far as I'm aware, there are two of us on the Rockies route without Ipods or mp3 players. So I find myself (as does Ky) singing solo along the highway shoulder, trying to dig up the lyrics to the most ridiculous songs from the archives of my mind. This morning, having departed from Medicine Bow, Wy, pop. 254, frigid but flying at 23 mph, all the tunes that tapped my shoulder were those of the Christian genre. For several years I listened mostly to Stephen Curtis Chapman, Third Day, LaRue, Michael W Smith, and dcTalk, and to my surprise I remember many of the verses to their compilations. Fuschia sunrise on my right, a panaromic display of mountain silhouettes as I turned my head around as far as possible, a dozen hymns flooded my heart, and the beauty of His creation brought me to near tears. For three hours straight I hummed the melodies the landscape inspired within me. To have this opportunity - to ride along a corridor of the scenes Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams spent their lifetimes attempting to capture - makes me wish every person I know, and those I don't, could spend a season traveling this way, up close and personal with the magnificence that is Mother Nature, the majesty of His playground.

Team morale is high. We had a couple rough days: a pinch of drama, the unforgiveness of the West's elements, et cetera. But now that our bodies have passed the initial hell days (that is, the first two weeks) and we grow accustomed to putting our muscles and joints through incredible stress, we're coming back together, supporting one another, resolving issues and rearranging priorities. It's a good thing. I love all my brothers and sisters on this team. As I've written before, we are a single entity: a family. Where one hurts, all do. Thus everyone takes it upon him- or herself to guage the mental/emotional/physical status of the other cyclists, for the benefit of the collective. This group means more to me by the hour. I'll have to count on my churchies to catch me in the fall semester as I go through T4K withdrawl.

Lately I've been having deeper thoughts than normal. (Scary.) About life, love, faith, career. I shall dub them "Chrisco moments," named after Laura Chrisco for the time in the van we were descending Pike's Peak, and she pressed her hands and eager face against the passenger window, sighed, and said "What am I going to do with my life?". It was adorable, and even she realized the humor in the seriousness of the question in that setting after I smiled amusedly but admiringly when she turned to face me. Today I had a Chrisco moment, gliding a cool 15 miles from Travis's rest stop to Tony's. "What am I doing after I graduate?" I asked myself. It's nothing I'm worried about, because everything will work out as it's supposed to; serendipity runs its course, God unfolds His plan. But the choices I make in the next couple years will determine a great deal. What's my purpose? How can I do any good in this huge world? Staring out over the immense expanse of peaks and buttes and timberlines, it's natural to think these things, to make speculations about the present and future. I was explaining to Liz yesterday why and how I might make any sort of difference in the community I finally decide to call Home. (Boulder? Austin? Sydney? Nairobi? No clue.) The key is, I hypothesize, to know in my heart that I am contributing something, no matter how insignificant my offer may look on paper. I will keep that in mind as I happen upon more "Chrisco moments" this summer; they're sure to rear their pretty heads again sooner or later.

Till then, it's to bed.