sunrise over the great sand dunes

I (Will) wrote this last week sometime. I think it was July 5th? I’ll try to add pictures soon from that morning, and many more, soon.

It’s morning, and this is Will.  6:34am to be exact.  Other than Andrew, the rest of the guys are still sleeping, which means I’m enjoying the few minutes of complete quiet.

I’m writing on a picnic table in San Luis State Park, which is at the westernmost edge of Great Sand Dunes National Park, halfway between Salida, CO and Antonito, CO, where we will stay tonight after what is now an easy day for us of 75 miles.  I woke up thinking I was going to clean my bike or read, but as I walked around the campsite shivering, I began reflecting on the trip, and looking forward to that which will come next.

The sun climbs the back sides of the peaks before me quickly, and the hazy Great Sand Dunes begin to come out of the shadows of this part of the Sangre de Cristos.

Denver, where we’ve been resting for the last four or five days, marked a milestone in the trip for me.  A little over halfway, Denver separates the West from the East and the Great Plains.  With that is another separation, at least for our trip.  We are moving out of the lands where we spoke to people almost nightly, telling the story of Falling Whistles, and our story, to hundreds of people from North Carolina to Kansas.  I honestly think we probably spoke of the whistleblowers, and the world’s largest war in Congo, to well over 500 people in person, and probably thousands more when it comes to Facebook, Twitter, our blog, and the news stories different news stations did about us along the way.

For the last forty days, our lives have been largely reactionary with intent.  The intent was to tell people about the war in Congo, and what Falling Whistles is doing as a campaign for peace.  But even with that basic intent, it has seemed to me as if we were living in constant reaction to what might happen next—where we were going, what we were saying based on who might be there, where we were sleeping (family, twentysomething, older couple, etc), and what the next day might hold.

When you combine forty days of that with living out of a suburban, spending 8-10 hours a day on a bike, and sleeping.eating.cycling.existing with the same four guys, it gets to be exhausting, and I think as we pulled into Denver, all of us had deep questions about why we were here and what we were doing.  For five guys around the age of 20 with debatably small or large doses of immaturity, it’s hard to hold on to the fundamental motivations and ideals we talked about with our back wheels in the Atlantic Ocean 40 days ago in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.

It was hard to leave Denver, knowing what was ahead of us—mountains, desert, more mountains, more desert.  And I wasn’t sure what this part of the trip would hold as we have less speaking events, less, people, more miles, and much.more.heat.

But this morning as I walked around our camp in a high-altitude valley in Southern Colorado, I watched the sunrise and thought about how the trip is changing.  The morning is cold, and I’m wearing pants and a jacket for the first time since the last snow in Sewanee in March.  After the cyclists arrived last night, we cooked and cleaned and talked fought mosquitoes and watched the sunset and lay down to sleep–together.  This morning we will shiver and cook and clean and pack and get on our bikes to cycle—together.

We pulled out of Denver a few days ago to cycle to Salida from Colorado Springs (Andrew and I rode the 70 miles to Colorado Springs on one of our rest days), which was a 110 mile day at high-altitude.  We spent the day climbing through a canyon next to the Arkansas River, watching as rafters went downhill the other way, and the falcons and eagles soared overhead.  Yesterday, the guys rode out of Salida up 7 miles of Poncha Pass to 9,000 ft of elevation and got to the top saying that was easy before they rode down into the San Luis Valley.  Andrew and I found a dirt road up into the Sangre de Cristos Wilderness Area and sat on top of a hill feeling the 40 mph wind pass through us as if it were nothing.  We sat for hours next to a brook in an aspen grove, silently reading and writing, letting our souls fill back up in the silence and peaceful wildness of the high mountains.

I think this part of the trip is about us.  And our transformation.  And the rest the earth, in these beautiful and barren places, will give back to us after these past 40 days.  And the silence of 100 mile days of absolutely nothing.  And the sparse cell phone service that will prevent us from staying connected.  And the friendships that will grow and change and transform on these cold desert mornings, as we huddle around a small camp stove with a pot of water boiling for oatmeal.

It’s not that we won’t continue speaking to people about Falling Whistles and the war in Congo—how an illegal minerals trade with minerals that end up in our cell phones and computers is funding a war that is killing 1500 people a day.  But we’re practiced with the story now, and there will be fewer events and more days when we sleep in places where there are no people for hundreds of miles.  So I think the trip is changing for us, in some small way, but I think it is of no less value, to us or to Falling Whistles.  This is the part of the trip where we will begin to prepare for the next stages of our lives, and I know we’re all thinking about how to transition into those places and people when these 15 days are finished.  In these final days, we will make decisions on how we are to continue telling the story of Falling Whistles, the story of the war in Congo, and our stories wherever we are, whatever we are doing.  I think that some of the most intentional transformation is beginning.

I hope that in these next two weeks, we will begin to “stop living in reaction and start letting a vision for what lies ahead pull [us] forward.”  (Rob Bell in Velvet Elvis)

I hope that for myself, and I hope that for the guys around me.  I hope and pray for their transformation, and for this trip to be a beginning for them.  A beginning of a vision.  A beginning of the continuum of these stories, where we remember our belief that life is sacred, and that 1500 people are dying every day in a war that our purchases help perpetuate.  A beginning of what WE are going to do about THAT.

And I would rather do that in no place but this one, where the mountains surround us on either side, the arid lands stretch out before us, and we cycle every day with the thought of a front tire in the Pacific Ocean—a thought that grows ever closer to its realization.

Last night, Justin crawled back in the tent and nudged me, saying, “Will, the clouds are gone… you gotta come see this.”  I groggily scooted up to the edge of the tent and poked my head out into the air, and looked up.  “Oh.  Oh WOW!”  Tap Andrew.  “Andrew, wake up.  The stars.  You gotta see this.”  Wrapped up in jackets, we stepped out and silently stared.  “Wow, so that’s what the Milky Way looks like.”  “Yeah, it’s really there.”  It had been a long time since I’d seen that, the last time probably being in the Rift Valley in Kenya.  It was good to remember.  In the silence and the subtle light of a frillion stars, everything just seems tied together, like there is something holding it all together.  “Will, it’s cold.”  Shiver.  “Yeah, I know.”  “Ok, cool.”  Back in the tent.  Back to sleep.  Smile on our faces.

It’s getting warm.  That means “GO TIME.”

Love and miss you all,

Will

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