A friend recently told me a story of when she and her husband were taking scuba diving lessons while on vacation in the Caribbean. She said the entire scuba class was on the bottom with the instructor while she was bobbing on the surface. She could not get below the surface no matter how hard she tried. After some time passed the instructor noticed her on the surface, he swam to her, took her by the wrist and pulled her to the bottom with the rest of the class.
I feel like I have had a similar experience in my spiritual life over the last several years. Two years ago my wife Mary-Beth and I began a training program to become Spiritual Directors. The training took us to a retreat center in South-East Indiana 10 times over the past 24 months. Each time we would gather with the same group of 15 people and dive deep into the spiritual life as well as each other’s stories. It’s is difficult to express in words what this time was like other than to say, that I felt like before I arrived I was bobbing on the surface of my spiritual life, God saw me, took me by the hand and led me to the depths with Him. In the depths I am finding both things of great beauty and things that are a bit scary. But I would not change a thing in this journey.
We completed our training last May, but God has made it clear to me that He has more for me, that this journey is not over.
Nearly 30 years ago a seed was planted in me by a friend to bicycle across the United States. To make a longer story short, Last Fall, I felt like this is the time. At 63 years old, I felt like it was going to be now or never. I talked to my wife about my desire to do this epic bike ride. She looked at me with those eyes that were saying, “I think he is serious.” I explained how I saw it working and we discussed her questions and concerns. I explained that we would leave the following summer and I would bike the Great American Rail Trail from Seattle to Washington DC. We would get an RV and she would be the driver. I would invite friends & their wives, mainly guys I mentor, to join me for a week of riding at a time. While we are riding each day, the wives would drive to our next destination for the night. We would ride roughly 70 miles/day and the journey would take approximately 8 1/2 weeks.
She had questions and took time to pray. When I checked in with her several weeks later, I knew better than to rush what God wanted to do and she said, “lets do this,” you have been talking about this for a long time and we are in a season where we can do it, it will be an adventure! Her reluctance was melting away.
As you can imagine an adventure of this magnitude takes a lot of planning and preparation. I would need to get in shape for the journey and develop the strength and endurance to accomplish such a feat. I began to work very intentionally to get down to my biking weight, I would need to log miles on the bike, spend time in the gym and prepare and plan all the logistics of this trip.
With a green light from Mary-Beth, I was so grateful and began the preparation for this epic journey.
I will ride out from the Seattle Coast after dipping my rear tire in the Pacific, one month from today on August 14, 2026 God willing.
Why are you doing this?
I can’t tell you how many people have asked me “why are you doing this? It’s crazy!” It’s a really good question that I have thought a lot about, here is my why.
- I feel God has invited me into this next leg of the journey, God will meet me along the way, and that He do a work in me.
- I believe that men should attempt hard things, we were made for it, and this is my next hard thing.
- What a great thing to attempt, and who knows it might just work out.
4. I believe that God has some people for us to meet along the way, people who will have an impact on our souls.
30 days from today this epic journey will begin and I hope to post to this blog at the end of each day, You are invited, so I hope you will join me in the journey!
rickallendunn 
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