Day 11: Hazelton, PA to Knoxville, TN, 654 miles

Today was a gorgeous day--the whole ride was really pretty, especially after the brutal storms last night. I woke up at 8am, and got myself together. I used the iPhone APP, "around me," to find St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church which was only about 2 miles from my motel. I rode up to the church and into the parking lot and the priest was out there greeting people with his huge dog, "Buddy." When I say huge, I'm talking close to 200 lbs... Anyway, he came up to me and asked me if I was riding a "GS." Now this is sort of a loaded question. If you know enough to ask it, then you already know what the bike is because they are so weird looking and kind of rare. It turns out that he rides an "LT," which is BMW's version of a Goldwing. It's a really nice fancy machine. I've never met a priest before that rides a Bm'er so this was a new experience for me. He was a very talented guy and it turned out that it was his last Sunday Mass in the parish after a two-year assignment there. He gave a good homily which I will steal and use the first chance I get. Then he illustrated his main point by performing two magic tricks in front of the congregation. It went over well and he was obviously much revered by the people as he received a standing ovation. Once Mass was over, I jetted looking for breakfast which I found at a chain called Friendly's. Then I hit the road. There was a ton of vacationer type traffic to remind me that I was heading back to reality. People love to ride that left lane so I did a fair amount of right hand passing, trying to make my way south on I-81. So I prayed some for patience during most of the day.

I should talk about the saints as I ride as I guess I haven't so far. I ask St. Michael the Archangel to watch the road in front of me and any hazards that might lay in that direction. I ask for St. Francis' prayers to keep the deer, dogs, & moose out of my way. And I ask Matt talbot to help me keep a reasonable speed throughout each day. My bet is that most of you have heard of the first two but not maybe Matt. He is not been beatified as of yet by the Church, but he is the patron saint of alcholics and addicts. Matt was from Ireland and suffered terribly from the "drink." Matt gave up drinking through the help of God as he could never accomplish this on his own. On a family vacation in Ireland when I was a wee boy, we visited his tomb. I picked up a small flyer about his life and read it. I then asked my parents if I could take "the pledge." They both drank at the time and were not very happy about my interest, but I persisted. They sought the advice of a trusted family friend and priest and he told them to let me do it. So, at the age of 13, I became what is known in Ireland as a "Pioneer." My vow as a boy lasted until I was 21. When I traveled back to Ireland to study in Galway during my time at Marquette, I was hitch-hiking around and arrived too late one night to get into a youth hostel. I had no where to go and all the hotels were booked so I went to the nearest Catholic Church. A very old Jesuit let me in, fed me tea and cakes, and we talked into the night. He asked me if I drank and I told him that I was a Pioneer. He about fell out of his chair as they are rare indeed in the U.S. It turned out that he was in charge of the Pioneers organization at the time. He got his book out and entered all of my information into it and then gave me the pledge, which I have kept all my life. You never know what dragging a bored kid into a European church will do over the long run. My parents are now also Pioneers but it took them a few years to see my way of thinking, but I know Matt Talbot was always there praying and asking God to help them. Sorry for the long post, but you might better understand why Matt Talbot is a good one to ask to pray for me not to go too fast.



So, my thanks to St. Michael, St. Francis (Deacon), and Matt Talbot for their assistance and intercession with dangers, animals, and the demon that lives in each of us.

My thanks to the Holy Trinity that I called out to throughout each day. I also want to thank Mary for her patience with me as I prayed many rosaries on the ride. My mind would wander and so there were a lot of "do-overs" from this A.D.D. deacon-rider. Thanks also to my Pastor, Fr. Chris. I know he scratches is head on a regular basis when I'm around and when I'm not. And to my brother Deacons, Mike, and Chris who have been pulling my weight for the last two weeks in my absence.

My heartfelt thanks for the understanding of my wife Ellie for telling me going was OK. She puts up with a lot, especially during the school year with me gone a lot for football games with UT, quarterly deacon formation weekends,homily preparations, tons of time at the high school, etc...

Last, I want to thank Jesus, my brother and Savior who was my constant companion throughout each day. That I might keep You in front of my face more and more throughout my life. Help me to use these rides to delve deeper into your love, hope, mercy, and forgiveness (which I'm counting on). Please keep me close and help me not to forget You so often. Thank You for the gift of the Eucharist, which is my constant reminder of your fidelity, presence, and intimacy that we share with you. "I do believe Lord, help me in my unbelief." your servant, patrick

Day 10: New Brunswick/Maine border to Hazelton, PA, 689 miles

I slept from 9pm straight to 8am this morning. I woke up and feel good and am ready to hit the road again. Sometimes there are elements from the liturgy of the hours that fit perfectly with each day. Today, this just jumped out at me from the Psalm,

"For you give me joy, Lord, in your creation:
I rejoice in the work of your hands.
How great are your works, O Lord,
how immeasurably deep your thoughts."

Whew, how perfectly put! I have received much joy in riding through parts of God's creation I have never seen before. Such beauty is the ocean itself. How large it is and how endless it seems. Many have contemplated God by gazing at its vastness. My challenge today will be to keep my gaze on God even as I ride through the Northeastern USA, where there are many crabby drivers that could care less about one motorcycle.

May God be with me today and may you all have a great day! Today, I'll pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet in the morning, the Rosary in the afternoon, and in the evening I will just be quiet as I pray for guidance, direction, and balance in my life.

Still heavy on my heart is the loss of my friend Nancy Feist. She was a confidant that I came to really trust and rely on for advice and to share bad days with. Because of Nancy's position in the chancery, she was in a unique position to pray for people in need. She would sometimes call my cell and say, "Deacon Patrick, can you pray for someone for me right now?" I would say, "Sure!" Sometimes she would follow that response with a name, but most times there was no name. Discretion was a huge part of Nancy's charism but her heart would often not allow her to keep things totally to herself. I would then joke and say, "is this person bigger than a breadbox?" She would laugh, and say, "Thank you Deacon Pat, I needed to laugh today." Whenever I visited the Chancery, shelby would always let me in back to get/give my hug from Nancy. I could tell by the look on her face how slammed she was sometimes so I would just wave and smile as I left her doorway. She would jump up and come out in the hallway to see me. She always made time for me. I miss her.

I found a text from January 9th of this year from Nancy, and it reads, "FYI... SJ (Saint Joseph) and SM (Saint Mary's) jv girls are in double overtime. Sophie's game will start late, and the gym is electrified!" She loved kids sports and it's not surprising really, that she collapsed at a baseball game. There is another level of communication at play here in Nancy's simple text message. On the surface she's excited about the game and wanting me to see it. On another level, she knows how tough my work schedule is all the time and how my work at the high school can tax me at times. She was letting me know not to rush as Sophie's game would not be starting on time. She was reassuring me that I would not miss it. It was a sweet message sent in love to a train wreck deacon who is always late for stuff. I miss you, Nancy!

Sorry this is all selfish in my musings, but even as we all pray for Nancy and Peter and all of the surviving family, there needs to be time for our own grieving too. Nancy touched so many people deeply with her life/ministry which were the same thing. I did not know her as well as many others who are also hurting. Many in the Chancery are pretty lost at losing their friend. She was a woman who exuded grace and like the saints that have gone on before us, she shows us a way to live in this here and now, and says with her witness, "you can do this!" And so off I go to ride south on I-95 to try...

... I ended up riding through all of Maine, New Hampshire, Mass., New York, and well into PA today for a total of 689 miles. It was all about getting home from this long journey. I stopped in a couple places looking for a place to stay but everything was booked solid from Scranton all the way to Reading. There was a Jehovah Witness convention, of all things, and it was absolutely pouring rain, so all I could do is head south and try again. The storms got worse to the point where I knew I needed off the highway, so I pulled into Hazelton, PA and found a room. I hit the pillow at 11:30pm.

Day 9: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Maine!!!! 469 mi.

Just got off the ferry at 6am and banged off a quick 100 miles. I'm so excited to be here again!!! We ere up here with a camper six years ago and Ellie and I are pretty sure Patrick started out Canadian, though I doubt their passport office would agree. so this is indeed a special place for us as a family. This is the place where God gave us another child when we had given up after a seven year battle to get pregnant again. It was a great moment of faith for me and Ellie as well. Fr. Finucane always said that god rewarded my faithfulness to respond to god's call as a Deacon as the reason we were given a little boy. I never told Father G. that it was just because Ellie quit being mad at God ;).... More to come later today as I have to "Get Miles, Get Home!!!!"

God's grace and peace to you all!!! love, patrick

update: 9:05pm

Well, I rode all of Nova Scotia and then all of New Brunswick too. I pushed a little further about 60 miles into Maine and then I had to stop. today was about getting home. I pretty much just rode like mad and only stopped for gas, and to eat a few times. I picked up a spiderman T-shirt for Patrick, a pair of pool-side shorts for Sophie, and a Canada T-shirt for Ellie today. I ate doughnuts for the last time at Tim Horton's (eat your heart out Dunkin' Donuts--you got nothing on TH!). I have a pretty good idea I'm going to find some Asian food somewhere tomorrow as I've been craving that for a week!

The day is honestly a blurr. Just small towns, moving as fast as is legal, passing slow trucks up the steep grades, watching my speed, check fuel, temp, set short goals with the GPS, estimate fuel consumption (been averaging around 45 mpg even with all my stuff loaded on the bike).

And praying... Some people e-mailed me prayer intentions after they saw the article in the East Tennessee Catholic. So I've been praying for the Feists as well as some other folks as well. I appreciate that!!! I need a lot to do on that bike each day, let me tell you...

Tomorrow should be much the same, but HOT! I've been wearing all my cold weather stuff, fleece, riding pants, etc... heated grips have been on most of the trip. Today was brutal as it shot up into the 90's. I got hailed on twice last week! What's wrong with that picture? the sun has been out every day since I left Goose Bay, which is great. Road conditions are fantastic now, nice and smooth compared to the 1,000 miles of gravel and dirt I've ridden so recently.

Now is the time to begin the transition back to real life. My phone started working again today for the first time since July 3rd. I will have to start calling people back that left messages soon! But I still have 1300 miles to get home so it will have to wait for now. Gotta sleep now--very tired! good night! dpat :)

Day 8: Newfoundland!!!! 389 miles

Woke up with the furnace cranking at 10:30am today. I needed the sleep for sure. It's now perfect weather so the day is awesome to behold. Newfoundland is so unbelievably pituresque. Little villages dot the coast as I ride from the North to the West. it's nice to be heading the in the right direction again (towards home).

I saw another fox and a black bear cross the road ahead of me today already. More to come later...

Day 7: Cartwright to Blanc Sablon (6 hour dirt ride) then to St. Barbe, Newfoundland (ferry)

more details later... got to do laundry!!!!

The ride from Cartwright to Blanc Sablon (both in Labrador) took me every bit of 7 hours. It would have been faster but I had rain from 7:30am till around 1pm today. Then there were the graders out with their small stone which makes life on two wheels tough and slow. But I knew I was going to miss the 1pm ferry and once I realized that, I was able to sit back and relax a little more, not trying to make the ship. I stopped and ate at a little coffee house that makes their own bread and home made soups. I had a ham and cheese grilled sandwich and a bowl of beef barley soup, which is a favorite combination! It was so delicious and the proprietor really seemed to be interested in my feedback. He asked where I was from, and before you know it, she shared a slice of pie with me (separate forks, of course). She was a nice lady, a retired mineworker from central Labrador. She has to make a go of the shop for about five months of the year as no one goes outside for much of the winter season.

The southern coast of Labrador is exquisite and looks so much like Scotland’s Highlands. The accent is there in the voices of the locals too. What little music I’ve heard in restaurants and hotels has been mostly Celtic. Labradorians are a mixture of aboriginal peoples and whomever beached on their shores, so Irish, Welsh, English, Scottish, French, Portugese, etc… I spend some time with a heavy equipment operator whose people were from an aboriginal line. He told me there are very short in stature and so they are easier to spot. “The shorter they are, the more pure their blood,” said he.

Riding was really fun today as I was only pointed south and west, rather than the obvious opposite. There is some measure of relief now for me that the trip is now past it’s halfway point and will be ending soon. Tomorrow I will ride down the West coast of Newfoundland and go to Port Au Basques, where I will board one last ferry headed for North Sydney, Nova Scotia. She steams at 1am and it’s a 6-hour ride across the sea, so I need to get good rest tonight. Tomorrow’s ride in a car takes about six hours. I will take my time and stop to make more photos as I have all day and most of the night to get there. I might even find a movie to go to, if a theater exists in one of the larger towns along the way. More later as the dryer cycle is ending here in the RV park that I stopped to do wash at. Still have to find a place to stay tonight… Everyone says to stay off the roads at night in Newfoundland as the moose and deer are plentiful, so much so they warn even locals away from night-driving.
The ride across the water last night was really nice. the weather was clear, pretty warm by their standards, and we steamed past many ice-burgs. They are beautiful to watch and, like clouds often do, they resemble things. One looked just like swan in the water.

I met some really nice RV people that were traveling together and they talked me into coming with them to their RV park where I could do my laundry. While my stuff was in the dryer, I started to talk to a guy that lives just North of Goose Bay. He is a wildlife officer in Labrador and was taking his family on a vacation to Newfoundland for a couple weeks. He invited me into their travel trailer for tea and he showed me some pretty disturbing video of natives poaching deer and caribou on snowmobiles. There were over 100 of them all chasing down animals with rifles on their backs. They have barely enough budget for the airtime for the helicopter and so there is no money in the budget for a video camera that would capture faces for prosecution. There are always two sides to every story but this was pretty horrible. It was nice to actually have a conversation with some people. He and his wife had a daughter Sophie's age. I can't even get away from the Jonas Brothers in Newfoundland!!!

After I finished my laundry, it was getting dark so I walked across the street to the only hotel in town and they have only one room available but it was a smoking room. I don't do smoking. So the RV park lady called a few places down the road but to no avail. I hadn't showered in two days and needed a shave. She took pity on me and showed me down the hall to the utility room where there was a massive gas furnace cranking away supplying heat to the building as well as all the hot water for the bathhouse. It was carpet over concrete and I couldn't have been happier! I took a long hot shower, shaved, and crashed hard around 11:30pm.

Day 6: Happy Valley-Goose Bay

Day 6: Awesome!
Today was a great day on many levels. 1., I made it to Goose Bay in one piece, which has been my goal for over a year. 2., I got on the ferry headed for Cartwright. 3. Tonight will be another first for me in that I’ve never spent the night on a ship before. 4. I got to witness an amazing sea rescue training activity right aboard the ship today while underway. You can look for a YouTube video in the next couple of days of that one. This huey helo came right over the top of the ship and started to send down rescue swimmers onto the deck, one by one. Then they would fly off, come back and pick them up again, all of this while the ship was probably doing 18 knots and maneuvering between navigational buoys. It was awesome to see. The helo was maybe 40’ above the deck of the ship and in maybe 30 mph winds. The guy was rock solid on the stick and made not one mistake in over an hour of training.

OK, enough about the Canadian Air Force. The last 165 miles of my trip today was sort of for my two buddies, Deacon Chris Rehl, and Tony Budnick. Deacon Chris and I became friends about a year ago when he was at All Saints. He began to come over the KCHS and help out with reposition and preach occasionally at our daily masses. Now, Deacon Chris is at our parish, Saint Albert the Great. Chris has been a good friend to me, and a confidant in church stuff. I bounce ideas off of him and ask him his opinion on various things. We get into heated discussions about all matter of things and though we sometimes disagree, we have a mutual respect for the other and I know we both grow from our conversations. Tony Budnick is a producer for Channel 8 TV and is the guy behind Rick Russo making things happen for all things VOLS. Tony is a parishoner at SATG and a good friend. Tony recently sold his home to a friend at a reduced price, and had to find a home for his cat and many other things. He’s not suffering from financial hardship but he will be unemployed shortly. Tony will be entering St. Meinrad Seminary in the fall, and will open himself up to God’s call to the priesthood. All of us at SATG are so proud to have the next seminarian for the diocese of Knoxville, even though we still don’t have our own worship space completed yet. There is something really powerful about a vocation coming from a parish. It’s something I’ve never experienced before and is very exciting. When you figure we have 50 men show up with chain saws to a work-day, I can only imagine the care packages Tony will receive in Indiana this fall and winter. He could stand to gain a few pounds, that’s for sure! I prayed a rosary for each of my buddies today and prayed for their ordination/formation, respectively.

The last 165 miles today were not as good as the prior days’ rides. The road got a lot wider about 50 miles in and there was a lot of gravel truck and grading activity which meant slow speeds in dangerous heavy gravel. So I’d spend 30 minutes running in 3rd gear at idle making maybe 28 mph, and then I’d hit a long stretch of road where I could run in 6th at 55 mph. I let everyone who could get behind me pass by hitting the hazards and pulling over. Most would slow down to a crawl to pass but a few showered me with rocks and huge dust-clouds. The scenery was beautiful today, but the cherry of this trip was definitely Rte. 389. My only regret is that I never even saw Goose Bay. I rolled into town and had to go straight to the ferry to waitlist my way on board.

This ship grumbles and vibrates constantly which should be good for sleeping. They tried to sell me a berth when I bought my passage, but I declined. They have a room setup like a huge airplane with reclining seats packed in. With my snoring, that did not seem to be the best option. So I spoke quietly to a woman in the cafeteria tonight after dinner and asked if I might lay down my bedroll on the floor there for the night. She smiled, told me they are not allowed to let people do that, winked hard, and told me to have a good night and showed me where the light switch was. So, I’ll have the largest sleeping berth on the ship tonight, thanks to her kindness.
OK, so the ferry left at 5pm on July 6, but it won’t arrive in Cartwright till 6am on the 7th. I will ride off the ferry first because I was the last one on, and I will go find a laundromat as I am in NEED. I have one more days worth of clothing and that’s it. Then I’ll have a 4.5 hour ride on all gravel roads to get to where the ferry jumps off to Port Au Basque, Newfoundland. So, God willing, I’ll be there tomorrow, as long as I can get to the ferry in time. Once in Newfoundland, I will ride south along the northwest coast to make the next ferry crossing which will take me to Nova Scotia. From there, I’ll ride south again to a last ferry to Bar Harbor, Maine, where the lobster rolls will be wasted on this landlubber. Then it will be time to punch in, “home,” on the GPS and go straight to Hack Road in Powell ASAP. The grass has been growing, the pool awaits cleaning, there will be a lot of unpaid bills, and a little boy who happens to share my name who is waiting for me. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves! There is still a lot of gravel, pavement and ocean in front of me before that day comes, but may it come soon!

day 5 video blog (Rte 389)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxAkBXAbGAQ