Last Minute Trainers

People for Bikes

2011-07-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

Found out a really cool site supporting bicycle future around the country called, People for Bikes. They have lots of great information about how you can help advocate biking in your local community as well as on a national level: you can sign their pledge, send your representatives a letter (they have a good stock letter that you can add to and e-mail), do a write up and tell your story (I wrote about Evan and I touring across country to help the American Cancer Society), and lots of other ways how you can get connected in your local community. Really easy things to do signing the pledge and sending letters to your representatives and I believe the more they get e-mails about adding more bike lanes, better bicycle education, and the health/economic/climate advantages is best. So check out their site and tell all your friends!

A Good Cause to Support!

2011-04-02T21:52:00.001-07:00

Hello all (not sure who all is).

Dear readers.

My oldest brother, Ian, and his family (the Charles) have been raising funds to build a new section on a hospital in Connecticut, it is a family and children section. It is a clinical care center for cancer and blood disorders. It is a very good cause and a little bit will go a long way. Check out the donation site to learn more: A Brighter Hope

No obligation but I am very proud of my brother and his family with this grand endeavor.

Thanks all.

day 88

2010-08-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

got up this morning to a full house, people sleeping on mats all over the floor, lots of other couchsurfers. we finally got all ready to go and headed to new york. we wandered around a bit to find a place for breakfast and went to au bon pain, which was not very good, sorry au bon pain fans. i then decided that i wanted to find a barbershop to get a haircut and a shave so i found one and we headed over to it. walked right in and they sat me down, classic barberstyle place, and i told her that i wanted a short haircut and a shave so thats what i got. evan and matt were laughing probably the entire time because she cut most of my hair into a bowl cut and then moved onto my beard so we all thought she was done cutting my hair. she then shaved my beard off but i told her to leave the mustache but trim it up. she then finished cutting my hair and i moved into the shaving chair. i'd never gotten a barber to shave me, i never shaved with a knife razor either so a lot of firsts. it was a super relaxing experience and i got like a face message too, it was glorious. got all cleaned up and thanked the two ladies who tackled that daunting feat. i really feel like a whole new person and i look at least 10-15years younger, its crazy. i keep laughing at myself because i don't recognize myself looking so neat and trim. we headed out and had to say goodbye to matt, he was making his way back to his car in new haven and then heading back to upper new york. it was so great having him along for the end of the journey and always fun hanging out with him. he went his way and we went ours, down to the financial district to see wall street then on down to battery park. we got tickets and waited in line to go to the statue of liberty and ellis island. last time i was in nyc, it was shortly after 9/11 so the statute of liberty wasn't open to the public so it was nice to be able to go out and see it but sadly the tickets to get up into the crown were sold out. it was still a pleasant boat ride out there and it is amazing how big it is. we then cruised over to ellis island for a bit to learn about how people immigrated over to america and we tried to lookup some family members (they charge money to do that at ellis island but you can search all the same records online for free so i'm going to search online for free when i get the chance). they do have a search computer to see if any relatives of yours are in the databases and there were 2 leonard hacketts in 1912 and 1922 so i will have to do some more research on that and look into my other side of the family! i'm actually really excited about it. we got back to the mainland of new york and took the subway all the way down to coney island. we got nathan's famous hot dogs for dinner and we walked the boardwalk. a once thriving boardwalk scene was now only a block or two of rides and shops. it was just nice to be next to the beach people watching. we decided to head back to the house and catch up on the blog (catching up as we speak) and check some stuff out for tomorrow. we made the long subway ride back to brooklyn and just spent the evening chatting with several other couchsurfers before heading to bed.

day 87

2010-08-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

this morning we set got up and ready to set off for new york city. matt left earlier to bike down there since the subway doesn't allow bikes at peak riding times so evan and i just met him down there. after a little bit of confusion, we found the train station and then the bus station. i grabbed some breakfast and we loaded onto the bus. the bus ride was about 4 1/2 hrs to new york but it wasn't too bad, but then again i'm used to traveling by my own pedal power. all three of us read, listened to music, or napped along the way. we pulled into nyc and unloaded from the bus. we then started the journey of learning the new york subway system. we decided to go straight to our couchsurf surfing host, paul's, house. it was a fairly easy ride over to brooklyn and his place is right next to the subway so that is nice. we settled in and dropped off our stuff and chatted for a bit before heading back to new york to find some dinner. we were going to go see our favorite mewithoutYou tonight, so we decided to head to the venue and grab something to eat close to it so we wandered into the edges of chinatown and enjoyed a dumplings and soup. we then wandered around since we had an hour or so before the show started. the thing with new york is that it is so big you can wander and always see new things. i love it! we wandered to the venue and waited till the doors opened. we grabbed a table upstairs until mwY started. the first two bands, whoever they were, were not doing it for me so i was just eagerly awaiting them to finish. when mwY started i stayed uptop for the first song to soak it all in and snap some pics then i moved down to the front with evan and matt. it was a great show and i am so glad to have finally seen them. when the show got over we wandered around broadway and stopped in at tgifridays for some late dinner, it was like 1am. after we ate, we made our way back to brooklyn to go to bed.

day 86

2010-08-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

we left diana's place and hit up an abandoned club on the waterfront which was awesome. a three story building with lots of graffiti was what we got to explore. it was neat to see what once used to house bands such as kansas and other bands. we headed out and grabbed some breakfast at dunkin donuts then headed to the stuck-up bridge which is an old bridge that is in the stuck-up position. it was cool to climb around it and see this massive steel bridge just pointing up towards the skies. we took some photos there then continued our final ride to the boston coast. it was a cool day and things were just going our way, it was great. along our way, i noticed a street sign that was named, "hackett" and was totally thrilled! it was our day for sure, sadly there wasn't a chaney, gilroy, or even a matt or evan nearby but still it was cool. we kept riding and got a little lost due to no street signs but made it into the boston area but needed to weave through some busy streets to get to old harbor where we would end our trip. we cruised down some sketchy torn up streets and through busy one ways and finally arrived at the coast, where we've been imagining 3 months prior. it was a surreal moment, not fully realizing that all this hardwork, sweat, tan, time, energy, money, laughs, tears, smiles, anger, and sheer love of travel was finally coming to an end. i don't know if it even seems real now, a few days after being done. i know we were super excited and anxious to roll our bikes down into the ocean to finish the trip. in our excitement we seemed to have rushed the experience a bit but it was a good time nonetheless. we took some pictures and had the lifeguard take a final pic of matt, evan, and myself. we made it folks! thank you so much for your support, prayers, encouragement, faithful readings, and excitement for us along this journey. we wrapped up the trip but still had to bike a couple of miles to alex's house, lia's brother. ha. when we arrived, our good friend mike bartlett was sitting on the steps waiting for us; he had been in boston doing some work and stayed an extra day to hang out with us, it was so great to see a familiar face. we gave hugs and handshakes then started our way up the three stories to unload our bikes and gear into alex's living room. so thankful for alex and his roommates for taking us in with all our stuff. we sat around and chatted for a good amount then decided to go celebrate with some boston clam chowder! so we took the "T" (subway) downtown and got a table at a great restaurant. they had unlimited corn bread (which we all ate a ton!) then savored the large bowl of soup and i got the pot roast which was very tasty. it was a lot of food but we fought through it all. we then wandered around philly watching some bocci ball games but mainly chatting with one another about this, that, and the other thing. we finally made our way back to the house and we stayed up watching arrested development, man i have missed that show. i can't wait to take some time and relax and watch a movie or tv shows! it got later and we all decided it was time to go to bed. calling an end to the bike trip. i will continue to add new posts about our travels to New York City and Boston but once evan and i part ways, i will be moving away from this blog and be posting on my regular blog so follow me there at Tall Tale of a Life Well Lived

day 85

2010-08-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

today was a shorter day from charlestown up to providence. we mainly just rode the highway on up to providence; we also got to ride on some good bike paths for once but it was short lived. at one point during the ride, two racing cyclists blew past me and one said, "on your left" a little too condescending so i thought i'd teach them a lesson. i then broke away from matt and evan and started hauling it after the racers, yes i am still fully loaded and they were a couple miles ahead of me but i soon caught up to them and gave them a little, "on your left" treatment but kinder. it was just amazing to see that i could pick up some good speed and pass racers while i was fully loaded. we rolled into providence but our host, diana, was still at work so we hungout downtown and grabbed some donuts. we then stashed our bikes behind her apartment and walked down to go watch "the other guys" (this isn't a movie reviewing site, but one of my other blogs is, but not at the moment so i'm not going to go in to much depth here). it was mildly entertaining but wouldn't recommend it. diana was home now so we went over to the house and just chilled with her and talked about our trip, providence, and her job. we then left to go get some jamaican food; had some wonderful curry chicken, after failing to get some jamaican food in philly several times. we then went to a pastry restaurant and got some cakes to go. that evening we all just sat around at chatted but for a bit we jammed on the guitar, harmonica, and melodica. it was nice to play music but it'd been a long long time. i then routed our final stretch from providence, rhode island to boston, massachusetts! thats all for today, folks.

day 84

2010-08-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

we awoke this morning and ate some cereal while we waited for ian to come back from his meeting. we got to get in some more mario cart wii. ian came home and we started the drive to charlestown, rhode island; ian had to make some work calls on the way so we just enjoyed the drive. we got to charlestown and met up with jamie, the kids, and bob (ian's dad); waylon was the first to recognize me, easton was a little hesitant at first then it clicked, but london wanted nothing to do with me. uncle al, wasn't so uncle-y. we grabbed some lunch and headed down to the beach; we weren't real sure what the beach was going to be like but it was awesome. the water was super warm, the waves were great, and the sand wasn't too hot! matt, evan, and i had a great time boogey boarding; we got pretty good about reading the waves and swimming into them. we were out there for several hours and bob came out and joined us. we then met up with ian and the boys and headed back to the house to clean up. we then headed out to a seafood restaurant and enjoyed some great food! we then headed back to the house and sat around and talked for a good amount. lets just say there were a lot of laughs to be had; mainly at my expense but thats ok, i'm used to it. i do look pretty rough. everyone then retired to bed and called it a night.

(yes that is a picture of evan falling back there)

day 83

2010-08-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

today we all got up and packed our bikes to head out to grab some breakfast; hans biked with us for a bit and dropped us off at a restaurant. we grabbed some french toast and eggs. we rode from new haven to new london so it was a shortish ride about 45 miles. it was nice to have matt biking with us; we stopped off at a cool farmers market to eat some blueberries and a huge melon! we chatted with the farmers for a good amount then headed up to new london. when we rolled into new london, we stopped at the pier and a girl came up to us and chatted with us. she worked on a sail boat and she gave us a tour of the boat, it was great. we then grabbed some dinner at a seafood place and waited for my brother, ian, to pick us up and take us up to hartford. ian rolled up and greeted us and helped us load up our bikes/gear into his truck. he drove us up to his house, but we hit some traffic which slowed us down. ian had a good time heckling me about my facial hair but we still had a good time catching up. we got to ian's house and he had a fresh pizza waiting for us to devour, it was glorious. he gave us each a bar of soap and we all got cleaned up, cause we needed it. we then had to play some mario cart wii, which i dominated but we did a team competition and we had a rough time but finally won! we were so bushed we went to bed.

day 82

2010-08-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

today we slept in and decided to roam around town. hit up some bookstores and finally picked up a copy of "the mountains of california" by john muir, been looking all over the county for it. we heard about a cool abandoned power plant, so we went down to it to check it out. after some time, we finally headed in to check it out and it was completely locked up. we were bummed cause it had such huge potential. we headed back to walk around yale and meet up with our good friend, matt gilroy. he just got back from iraq a month or so ago and he lives in upper new york so he drove down with his bike to finish biking the rest of the trip with us. we stopped in at the apartment and just chilled and matt showed up and we caught up since the last time i saw him was 2 years ago in amsterdam. we went with hans and his girlfriend to a community dinner and it was a lot of fun. we enjoyed some good food and then went around the room talking about things we needed and tried to see if others could help, it was beautiful. evan got some "learn romanian tapes" and matt got a free place to park his car instead of in a parking garage. we walked to move matt's car to the house and we grabbed some dunkin donuts and matt really struggled finding his validated ticket. it took literally like 5 minutes for him to find the ticket and pay for it. i felt really bad for the parking lady. we roamed some more and finally decided to go back and catch some zzzzz's.

day 81

2010-08-11T05:49:00.000-07:00

today we head out on a 70 mile day up to new haven. it was a beautiful ride since we rode along the coast of new york and connecticut. it didn't take too long to get to the connecticut border and they actually had a sign so that's good. as we were riding we rolled into a city, i can't remember the name of, but there was the WWE headquarters there so we tried to go in and see if we could take a tour but they aren't "open to the public" as the receptionist said through the little speaker at the entrance. we love WWE because of its ridiculousness so we thought that it would've been a great time to see the inner workings of the fixed sport. we pressed on and rode out of the city and into a small beach town that was having a farmers market so we stopped and chatted with some people there and enjoyed some great nectarines and banana bread! i love banana bread. we rode down to a little restaurant called the 101 and it serves milkshakes and sandwiches so we got some of those and they were very very delicious. from then on out we were riding along the beach and we decided to stop and just soak in the wonderful weather and the ocean which we haven't seen in such a long time. we talked with two ladies for a bit about our trip and they were just loving it. we rode, rode, rode and finally made it up to new haven where we spent some time checking out the city waiting for our couchsurfing host to get back from work. we went and got some falafels then went to a really good pizza joint. supposedly new haven claims to be the inventors of pizza and burgers, so pizza and burger joints were everywhere. we then sat on the front steps of cris' house until one of his roommates let us in and we brought in our bikes and gear and made ourselves at home. cris just started a new job that day working on a pilot for a new tv series so he was being worked to the bone till pretty late. we chatted with his roommates for awhile and shared our stories with hans and his girlfriend. they are such wonderful people. cris made it home and we stayed up late talking about his new job and about movies and everything else movie related. it was nice to chat with someone about that stuff. we then just crashed after a full day.

day 80

2010-08-07T15:43:00.000-07:00

when we got up and going we enjoyed a nice breakfast of cereal and waffles, two favorites of mine. we packed up our gear and loaded up our bikes and said goodbye to neil and martha. thanks for having us! we set off for the big city. today we were heading out of new jersey and into new york and biking through northern manhattan and up to white plains area. there was a lot of traffic and it was hot out again so we were sucking down water and getting caked with exhaust. we caught glimpses of the new york skyline and it was super impressive, we kept riding and caught the bike path to ride on to cross the george washington bridge. we got a super awesome view from their and got welcomed to the state by their welcome sign, which we missed with a handful of states. sadly, this was the most recent welcome sign we'd seen in a long time. hopefully the other states like new jersey, delaware, maryland, and pennsylvania will get their act together. we then entered new york and it was rush hour so we were weaving in and out of traffic trying to make our way out of the city. it was a wild time since there were so many cars and the roads were terrible. it was a long ride because of the traffic and all of the lights so we finally arrived at colby's, our couchsurfing host, place. we did our introductions and got settled inside and we unpacked our gear. we just sat for a bit rehydrating and telling of our trip and talking about food options for dinner. we decided to go eat at so dam hot, and we all got pulled pork sandwiches and they were awesome! we then hit up whole foods to get some breakfast stuff for tomorrow. that evening we just went through the atlas and showed colby and his friends our route and told many stories of our travels then colby told us about his crazy roadtrip across the country. we just had a wonderful night swapping story after story.

day 79

2010-08-07T15:32:00.000-07:00

today we setoff from phila and made our way to highland park, new jersey. we rode on highways the whole way there so there wasn't much to look at. it was a hot day so we had to stay hydrated (thanks sun for having an explosion that sent plasma into our atmosphere to increase the heat for a couple of days.) we stopped off at a tiger noodles and grabbed some lunch which wasn't that great and they only accepted cash so i had to go out and search for an atm. the town we were in was princeton so it was a super ritzy place. we then kept riding and hit rush hour traffic on our way into the highland park area but luckily arrived at neil and martha's, our warmshowers hosts, place before it got too hectic. when we arrived we got cleaned up and put our bikes away in their garage and chatted about our trip and about their tours. neil and martha are a super nice couple and made us feel right at home. neil made a super awesome pasta for dinner then we all went out and got some ice cream! since they are bikers, they know how much we love ice cream. we then just chatted that evening and hungout. it was nice to just relax and that was the place to do it. we were pretty tired so we decided to call it a night and crash.

day 78

2010-08-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

after a nice relaxing and chill day yesterday, we had a full day. we got up and set off to go check out the basilica of saints peter and paul which was a beautiful church on the inside but the outside was under construction so it was covered in scaffolding. we then had to pose with rocky at the base of the art museum. ADRIAN! we then spent a couple of good hours roaming around the art museum checking out monet's, pollacks, manet, van goghes, lots of asian sculptures, medieval swords and armor, the evolution of guns, and then the renoir collection that is there for the summer. it was wonderful seeing paintings and sculptures that you've heard about or read in textbooks/classes. i put on some gustav holst as well as the amalie soundtrack as i soaked up the wonderfulness called art. they had some amazing rooms that were filled with japanese tea huts, an old roman columned fountain, and old chinese pillars. it wasn't recreated but dismantled and reconstructed in the rooms to make it feel like you were actually walking through these constructs. i was blown away at how well they transported you to a new region and time. we then headed down to south street to visit the philadelphia magic gardens which is a huge complex that was created by a local artist who makes mosaics and the entire building, from top to bottom, were mosaics. it was a totally different type of art but it was way impressive; the garden outside was like a maze of magnificence. we then went down to the kiln area and chatted with the artist for a bit. the day just kept getting better cause we then headed up to circle of hope to get ready for the psalter's show. we enjoyed some amazing pancakes from sabrina's restaurant and the names at the restaurant were super long and elaborate like the triceratop mountain of fruit goodness pancakes (that wasn't the name but an example, everything had a dinosaur reference though). we arrived at circle of hope and enjoyed the music from sun and moon (i think thats the name) and timbre but the headliner, the psalters, were pretty great. they played a lot of new music and only one song i knew so it was more of the experience of being a part of their intense shows. i always enjoy seeing people who are super in to the show and it makes me smile to see them way happy and satisfied right then and there. the show was a great end to a busy past couple of days. thanks philly for the great sights and sounds.

day 77

2010-08-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

today was a lazy day for us. we hungout at the apartment for sometime just relaxing. i went out and hit up a bookstore then we decided to go check out the U.S. Mint. it wasn't as cool as it sounds, which was really sad. they showed how they make coins but not how they make bills but there wasn't much activity going on in the factory part since it was the end of the day. still it was nice to go and see what was up there. we then met up with pauline and another couchsurfer who was a french girl so we were all going to go out and grab some dinner. it was monday and i guess every restaurant is closed early on monday since we tried to go eat at a couple of jamaican places but settled on a place that one of the 3 stooges had some connection to. we then parted ways and evan and i walked down to the museum to go take some night pictures around there; it was a great night, nice and cool. we just enjoyed people skating at the LOVE sign then enjoyed the views from the museum. we then headed back to the apartment where we got ontop of the roof and we took some pictures up there. it was a wonderful sight and ended the night very nicely.

day 76

2010-08-02T10:55:00.000-07:00

we awoke to a busy day of sightseeing. big thank you to miss tricia snyder who put together a great list of attractions and food to partake in while we are here in philly. so we just went down her list and set off. we had to get some dunkin donuts to start our day since they are EVERYWHERE on the east coast. we then headed to see independence hall, the liberty bell, betsy ross' house, ben franklin's grave, penn's landing, tomb of the unknown soldier, and that's just the old part of the city. its nice to see the super touristy things but we also had a good time just roaming the streets ducking into used bookstores and little shops that seemed interesting. we then went to south street where we walked the strip of shops and waited in line at jim's steak to get philly cheesesteaks and some birch beer, a delicious pennsylvanian dutch root beer. we then headed back to pauline's apartment to relax before we biked up to northern liberties to attend a church service at the circle of hope. it was only a 2-3 mile bike ride up to circle of hope and we were excited to attend. circle of hope is a set of church groups that cater to younger adults and two bands that we love, mewithoutyou and the psalters, attend this church so we thought we'd check it out. it was a very comfortable atmosphere and the music was very great, a nice blend of english, spanish, and latin songs. the message was also very good where we went over the story of jacob wrestling with God and then we looked at several art pieces depicting this story from the renaissance. it was basically a large group discussion and it was a nice change from most of the traditional churches i have attended. the service was over and we stayed around and chatted with a few people then went down to the corner to get some dinner. we got a great special of 2 medium pizzas, 20 hot wings, and a 2 liter of soda for 20 bucks. we were eating like kings in the park. we then biked over to the waterfront to enjoy the nice night. i caught up with friends on the phone, which was wonderful and after a couple of hours we decided to head back to the apartment. just a solid day in philly and excited for what the next couple of days will hold. oh yes, almost forgot, while we were at circle of hope we saw that the psalters were going to be playing a show the day we leave, so guess we are staying another day to go catch that show! this is great.

day 75

2010-08-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

we got off to a later start this morning since we stayed up late the night before but luckily we only had a short 40 mile ride to do today to get to Philadelphia. it was a weird route to get there but we made it. nothing to interesting to share, just riding. we rode through west philly before entering into the downtown and that place was a crazy part of town but i was very happy when we chatted at a stoplight with an older black man who was taken back by our journey. he brought a smile to my face. so we ride into the heart of philly and get to a bunch of big buildings and give pauline a call, the lady we're staying with on couchsurfing, and there was a mix up and we were still 10 streets away, ha. we rode through stoplights and were just amazed at the beauty of the city. we arrived at her apartment building, which was 2 streets down from independence hall and the liberty bell, and we got settled in. we chatted a bit and pauline is from france but here in philly working for a bit. she is so close to everything which is so great! all 3 of us then headed down to meet a friend of ours, sarah bechtold, who has been working in philly over the summer. north african grill was where we dined for dinner and it was fabulous, we had a great time just catching up with sarah and telling her of our adventure. pauline headed back home and the three of us walked all over downtown philly and found ourselves marveling at the fountains and beautiful sunset. i ran up the rocky steps (from the movie) and was singing the song out loud, but will do that again when we go to the art museum in a couple of days. it was just a great cool night for a walk and a good way to get an introduction to the city all the while reuniting with an old friend. we soon had to part ways with sarah and we saw her off at the subway station and then evan and i kept roaming the city. we eventually headed back to the apartment and crashed.

day 74

2010-08-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

today we set off to head to newark, delaware. not a whole lot happened on that ride, we basically rode highway 40 the whole way so it was very direct and not too scenic, hence no pictures for today. we did come to a bridge that we were supposed to be able to bike across, but it was under construction so bikes were prohibited. the next closest bridge was the interstate bridge which we couldn't go on either so the next closest bridge was 10 miles north of us and then we'd have to come back down another 10 miles so a total of 20 miles out of the way and that didn't sound to fun to us, we just wanted to get to newark. we finally went to a gas station and asked a couple of trucks if they'd shuttle us over and the second person we asked took us! we loaded up our bikes in the back, as well as ourselves and made the actually long trek across the toll booth bridge (not sure what would've happened if we did bike across and there was a toll booth, do we pay? i doubt it). we got dropped off at the nearest gas station and kept riding on. we arrived in newark around 7ish and had a bit of a time finding the apartment that susan, our couchsurfer host, was at. we eventually met up and susan and her boyfriend, a very kind and funny indian man (sadly i can't remember his name right now) and she lived on the 4th or 5th floor of an apartment complex with no elevator so i carried my bike up the stairs while evan unpacked some of his and made the trek upward. we settled in and enjoyed some good conversation before heading out on a wild adventure to a restaurant. we got lost, even with a gps and 2 smartphones; it was a sad but funny display of technology. my phone took us to a shady apartment complex, shame on you mr phone. we finally arrived at the restaurant where susan's two friends, tarule (to-rule, to-rule the world as he said, from turkey) and his girlfriend (sadly can't remember her name either, from columbia) were waiting for us. we had a wonderful evening just chatting and telling stories until late, then we all headed back to susan's where her neighbors were throwing a party so we just enjoyed more conversations and susan's delicious vegan cupcakes. evan and i always say how surprised we always are with our couchsurfing hosts, every single one of them have been very different and so much fun. we finally had to call it a night after we were all looking like zombies because it was so late. a great end to the day.

day 73

2010-08-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

today was a good day, an interesting day, some would say (wish i could make this whole entry rhyme but i don't have the time). jake, jodi, evan, and i walked to the grocery store to pickup some breakfast but while we were inside it started to storm like crazy out so we, along with many other shoppers, were trapped in the mall because it was raining and blowing so hard. so we all sat in the entry way eating some goodies and watching jodi interact with everyone, makes me really want to get a dog (a weiner dog of course). the storm finally passed us and we were able to walk back home where we ate our food and gathered up our bikes and evan and i made our way downtown baltimore to start exploring. we hit up red emma's, a bookstore, strolled around and saw some old churches and monuments, and then to the american visionary art museum. it was free and there were a couple art pieces that really impressed me while a lot of the others seemed fairly juvenile at best. sadly we weren't allowed to take pictures but if you are interested in some of the artists i enjoyed here is a short list: ala bashir (an iraqi doctor/artist who was saddam hussein's personal doctor), pedro martin declet (he did a great piece on the death of native american chiefs), and then jesse howard (who did a bunch of pieces in a series of wood boards from hell with bible verses and sayings from people). i then climbed the top of a fort/hill to overlook the waterfront and city, it was gorgeous. they were getting ready to have a free movie night on the lawn at the art museum and it was king kong, the classic version, but sadly we had to scoot. we headed back to try and watch jake at his bocci game but we arrived too late but nonetheless we went and hungout with his team at a restaurant to get some cheap burgers. evan and i needed to go head back down to catch the concert we came for, so we started walking several blocks to the wind up space. we arrived to a neurolux-esque venue (but no smoking and more well lit), we grabbed a seat and really enjoyed the slowest runner on earth with their instrumental goodness. then the moment we were waiting for, the ascent of everest came up to play and just blew us away, sadly they weren't headlining (no clue why) so they only got to play a handful of songs but each one was so epically executed. the last band, no clue what the name was, didn't even fit with the genre of the other two and just felt like a high school band, so we left and started the winding walk back up to the house. we arrived home late and went to bed.

day 72

2010-08-01T22:53:00.000-07:00

today we would leave DC. we awoke and packed our bikes and setoff to ride a long bike path out of DC, sounds pretty nice doesn't it? 20 miles of paved bike paths not needing to worry about cars but no. this bike path was more of a labyrinth trapped inside of a garden maze that was built upon a house of mirrors (a la inception). there were maybe 3 signs on the whole bike path and one was at the beginning and at the end of the trail, then the other one was who knows where. and the path would split but you wouldn't know which way to go. we rode on it then evan decided to go on the road and i stayed on the path, so we were separated and evan's road took a sharp left and my path took a sharp right then split in 2 so i went right, it split in 2 again so i went right, then it split again so i went right and was in a neighborhood. needless to say we were both lost and we somehow miraculously arrived at the end of the bike trail. we then took some back roads to get into the shaddy part of baltimore. when we were about 5 miles away from our couchsurfer's place, evan's shifter decided to not work anymore so he was stuck in his lowest gear (so he was pedaling very fast). luckily there was a bike shop along the way to jake and owen's place where he got it fixed. we finally arrived at jake and owen's house; we sat around and talked for a bit and met joni, their dog. two very cool guys and a great dog, so we went out and got some awesome pizza downtown. jake gave us a quick and dirty tour and told us some places to hit up for tomorrow. we then went back to the casa and just chilled.

day 71

2010-07-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

today we got up early to head out so we got a bowl of cereal then headed out the door around 8:30ish. we took a bike trail all the way down to the mall which we will take tomorrow to head out of dc. since it was early there wasn't a lot of people out so we decided to hit all the major tourist attractions at the mall like lincoln memorial, washington monument, ww2 memorial, vietnam wall, capitol hill, then we headed to do inside stuff like the library of congress, botanical gardens, native american smithsonian, air and space museum, and the old post office tower. granted we went fast through a lot of it but we have both been to dc before and you can only spend so much time at certain things like the monuments and memorials, its the smithsonians that i wish we had days to explore, o-well, i will be back for 8 hours when i train from connecticut to michigan so there are some things on the list that we didn't get to. so i will share some highlights of the day instead of rambling on for pages about what we saw. my most favorite exhibit i saw today was in the native american museum which was a section by an artist named, brian jungen. he created some cool pieces out of ordinary materials and it just really impressed me so i will share some photos of them and hope to do them justice. my most shocking moment of the day was seeing the hubble space telescope at the air and space, it just blew me away how huge it is and they had an exhibit next to it showing a ton of pictures it has taken and i was literally flabergasted that it was right in front of me. best smell of the day went to the entrance of the botanical garden with is hundreds of exotic flowers, i was just loving it. most disappointed part of the day was the library of congress because we went to the jefferson and madison buildings and they weren't as impressive as i had in my head and i think i might be thinking of a different building in my head from the movies of what the library was supposed to look like. we biked everywhere we went which helped us go faster around town so we were just cruising through the busy streets of dc. we hit up some bookstores and some good hole in the wall restaurants. we were very protective of our bikes so we would normally u-lock our front tire to our frame then use our wire locks to wrap around our helmets, saddles, and to each others' bikes and that would be around a pole or something. most terrorist moment was when evan tried to sneak in a knife into the library of congress and he had to go back out and put it with our bikes, but he accidentally had it in his backpack. it was a good busy day and our legs are tired from it. we are heading to baltimore tomorrow. can't wait to come back and do some more exploring.

day 70

2010-07-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

we got up around 8:30ish to pack up and eat some breakfast before we setoff towards dc. we said goodbye and thanked our wonderful host, sarah, when she headed off to work. we got underway and it was a very hot and muggy day already. we were biking on a very heavy trafficked highway that would lead us all the way to dc so that was good to have pretty much a straight shot there. we were about 20 miles or so away from warrenton and evan's backtire to give us some more grief and a spoke was broken. we were shocked and upset cause it just doesn't make any sense so we busted out our trusty "bike broke" cardboard sign that we've had since before cedar city, utah but we didn't expect much of anything to come from it since it was a roaring highway. after some time we founded out there was a bike shop maybe 3 miles away so we were just getting ready to start walking when 3 different vehicles stopped to pick us up; the first was a small car that would take awhile unpacking and trying to fit 2 bikes and gear in it, the second was a van that we thought had an empty back (it wasn't empty but didn't know until later), then after we agreed to the van a truck offered but had to take a u-turn to get to us but we told him we'd take the van up. evan somehow crammed his bike into the van and set himself in a contorted way while i started to bike towards manassas which was still 7-10 miles away. evan got his spoke fixed and retrued and i met up with him at the bike shop. we then started our way back up to washington dc. we stopped off at a mcdonalds to get out of the heat and i grabbed some extra calories. the traffic died off after manassas for a bit then it picked back up and got more and more hectic the closer we got to dc. we were just taking hwy 50 and were a few miles out of dc when a cop car pulled up and told me the road was too dangerous and had no shoulder and that he would escort us the rest of the way into dc. i was shocked cause i thought he was going to tell us to get off the highway but he was cool about it. he followed us and guided us with his loud speaker and no cars messed with us or got in our way so we had our own lane and traffic pretty much stayed behind us. when we crossed the bridge he said, "have a safe trip" and jetted off to who knows where. it was a pretty epic way to enter the capital. we found our way to our couchsurfing house to unpack all of our gear and find a bike shop so evan could get a new back rim. we spent a good 2 hours at the bike shop then struggled for an hour or more to find a place to eat dinner. we decided on a mexican restaurant that was super good but when you walked into it you would think it would be a cheap place but it was pretty expensive. just a different adjustment coming to a big city instead of being in smaller towns. we then headed back to the house to meet our wonderful hosts! we enjoyed getting to know gil and nancy; we sat in the living room and chatted for a couple hours about our trip, their lives, d.c. and any other topic we stumbled across. we then decided we should get some sleep to conquer tomorrow.

day 69

2010-07-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

we awoke to a sweltering room and everyone was asleep still so we tried to pack up quietly. we said goodbye to brian and thanked him for a great weekend. we went to bodo's bagels to grab some breakfast then started to make our way to warrenton. we were making great time since we were taking the highway straight up to it and did about 40 miles in 3 hours. we arrived in a town and decided to go see inception since we didn't get to see it the night before so we hit up a grocery store for a snack then waited in a cafe for a bit till the movie started. when we got to the movie theater we met lone cyclist who was riding up the atlantic coast for a bit. it was nice to take in a movie and inception was a good one, a thinker for sure. just nice to do normal things instead of just biking. we got out of the movie and there was a bad storm north of us and we were hoping to not get hit by it since we had 25 miles left to ride. we busted out the remainder of the miles in good time and made it to warrenton and found sarah's house at the top of a steep hill on high road. ha. we stored our bikes inside her shack then went inside and enjoyed a great home cooked dinner of salmon, greek yogurt, vegetables, and cider; it was so good. we then enjoyed some ice cream as we continued chatting about college, traveling, our trip, and her work as a pastor. she is a super nice lady and has been to some great places including boston and washington d.c. so we wrote down lots of sights to visit while we were in each city. for the rest of the evening i caught up with my dad and friend, chris, on the phone and i believe evan and sarah talked for a bit longer. we all then headed to bed for the evening. i past out right when i laid down since we haven't been getting much sleep lately, but we had to be up early to leave when she headed off to work, so still not enough rest. i didn't take any pictures really because there wasn't anything that caught my eye or that was too exciting, so get ready for d.c. there will be lots of pics, i promise.

day 68

2010-07-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

we woke up in the attic where brian's room is and the a/c doesn't work cause of a weird circuit braker, so it was super duper hot up there. we sat around watching tv for a bit before strolling down to the bagel shop, bodos bagel, which was very good. we headed back and got ready to head to blue hole which is a river pond with a rope swing. a good group of us went there and hiked in which was super hot out so when we swung into the water it felt so refreshing! there were tons of people there so that was great too. there was 1 guy who was doing some cool moves off the rope swing, then his friend almost killed himself several times by almost smashing into people or the rocks on the other side. luckily no one was injured from the rope swing. one of the guys that came with us bent up his big toenail so that ruined his day for the rope swing. we hungout there for hours because it was so refreshing. i wandered around for a bit taking pictures and exploring. we then headed back to the casa where we were going to have a grilling party so we enjoyed burgers, steaks, hot dogs, and chips and salsa. as i said these guys are super cool and chill, we felt like we actually lived there with them. evan and i wanted to go see inception so we rode over to the theater but got lost and finally got there, its 5 miles away from their house, and found out it was sold out! grrrrr. we've been wanting to see this for some time so we biked back. we got back and just updated the blog and sent out couchsurfing requests for our next sections of the trip: d.c. and baltimore. hope to get some good sleep tonight.

day 67

2010-07-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

we were awoken by the sun and its heat so we packed up and headed to kroger to grab some breakfast. we then headed out on the short ride to charlottesville. only rode for about 3 hrs which was nice. we didn't have a crazy hill to climb, just a bit of a gradual incline then had a wonderful long downhill where we could catch glimpses of the shenadoah valley, sadly there weren't any places to pull off and take pictures, i tried! we got into town and met up with brian, the guy we would be couchsurfing with. he lives in a college house that is exactly what i picture in animal house. there are a handful of guys that live there and they are all great. we hung out with will and brian and then we got showered and did some laundry. we then headed downtown to the historic mall which is a cool place where we hit up a bookstore, eco store, sign shop, and then saw the music pavilion down at the end where they have live music every friday night and it was friday! we grabbed a burger and fries at 5 guys, which was super good. we rode our bikes down there then tried to hit up a boise bike project style shop called community bikes, but they were closed that day. we went back to their casa and chilled until returning to downtown to meet up with some other guys they live with. we then hit up the show where jebus was playing, they weren't my kind of music but it was fun to just hangout and chat. oh earlier that day brian showed us a mural he did just a bit ago for the university. it was the 4 seasons and we had to lift up a grate and climb down the ladder to see it since it was for the faculty offices which were in the basement. we then went back to their casa and hungout till late that night. we met a ton of their friends and got to chat with them about our trip and what they're up to. it was a great evening. did i mention we wathed who framed roger rabbit and jurassic park 3? ha! we also went to a cool pizza place, like the pie hole, twice that night. it was that good!

day 66

2010-07-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

we didn't get much sleep last night either because it was so hot, we were sleeping on concrete, and we were literally right next to the tracks where they hookup the trains together so they were either honking their horns all night or slamming into one another. then people started coming to the park to walk around it and the path led them right next to our tent and its so hot out we are both in our underwear so we got up and got dressed so we wouldn't scare anybody or get arrested. we packed up and i got some milk at the store so we had cereal for breakfast. then a bus full of kids pulled up and took over the pavilion where we were so we headed out. today we were just going to have another short day to vesuvius but we took some alternative routes that made it a lot faster so we headed all the way to waynesboro which bypassed the blue ridge mountains which was our last big climb for the rest of the trip! we tried to go see the natural bridge but they were charging for that and the wax museum so we passed on through. when we got into waynesboro we grabbed a blizzard to cool off then hit up a cool bookstore/soup shop where we chilled for an hour or so. there was supposed to be a church hostel but they were closed till next year so we found a camping spot next to the ymca. we then found a chinese buffet and refueled. it was dark when we got to the campsite so we setup the tent and i took some pics while evan called some friends. we then tried to get some sleep.

day 65

2010-07-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

today we went from radford to troutsville, not troutdale where we stayed a couple nights ago. we kept confusing the names. we "woke" up in radford to some light sprinkles; we were feeling terrible since we didn't get much sleep. we grabbed some breakfast at the river city grill then made our way out of town. once out of town it was just a lot of pretty rolling hill farmlands. we got to troutsville at like 2pm, which is crazy for us since we usually roll in around 5 or so; we were up earlier than normal today, that's why. when we got into town the actual town didn't have much and it was super hot out so we didn't want to chill at their park so we went to a mcdonalds and hungout in the a/c and used their wifi for a couple of hours. we then grabbed dinner next door which was a buffet! they were having breakfast for dinner, which is my favorite, since breakfast is my favorite meal. we then rode over to the park and got settled in, there was already another cyclist asleep when we got there. we set up our tent and slept underneath the pavilion.

day 64

2010-07-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

we awoke super early cause the hikers next door, who were being picked up to leave, were up stomping around and being very loud. we got up before our alarm and headed down to get some breakfast. we had a long day of biking ahead of us but luckily it was mostly downhill! after much biking we made it to radford, which is a town situated on a river/lake but the town sits on these crazy steep hills like san francisco but its split up east and west and they are only connected it seems at the front. we wandered around before finding main street and eating at sharkey's, a rib place, then roaming around trying to find anyplace to throw our tent up. up and down we went on these hills trying to find a church or something and as we reached the top of the hill and noticed you couldn't drop down into the other part of the town we went back down, as we were going down at break neck speeds, a guy yelled at us about bike the transam. i turned around and chatted with him and him and his wife let us stay in their backyard. i booked my amtrak ticket that night and caught up with my good pal craig while there was a lightning storm in the distance. evan and i then laid in the tent sweating like crazy and wishing we were asleep......

day 63

2010-07-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

today we awoke on the floor of the church and made some oatmeal for breakfast and packed up getting ready to take on hayters gap which was supposed to be our 2nd hardest hill to climb for the remainder of our trip. it looked like it was going to storm outside so i was already packed up and decided to head out a few minutes earlier than evan (he's better at climbing hills than i am so i knew he'd catch up). it was a twisty hilly road that led to the base of hayters gap and i stopped myself before i started and a group of 3 cyclists came down and chatted with me for a bit since they came from massachusetts. we went our separate ways and i started the gruesome climb that everyone has been talking about. it really wasn't as bad as everyone had told us, mainly because coming from the east is about twice the climb as the way evan and i were going so that helped and it was just a gradual slope with some switchbacks up to the top then a scary winding downhill which i had to stop a couple of times to let my brakes cool off. once at the bottom we hauled it all the way to damascas where the appalachian trail meets up with the transamerican route so we stopped off at dairy king to get some lunch and cool off since it was super hot out. we then roamed around the small town and visited their rei-esque camping supply shop then headed on our way to troutdale. on our maps there was supposed to be a long drawn out climb to troutdale but it was only a 1 or 2% grade the whole way, i was surprised when i pulled into town cause i was expecting the climb to be around the next bend! so we grabbed some dinner at a local and only diner. there is a biker/hiker hostel at a church in town with 2 rooms with bunkbeds, power, a toilet, and showers so we stayed the evening there with two hikers who were only out on a 3 day trek, not the full AT hike. we kept to ourselves and showered, read, and just relaxed. we then had a rough night of sleep.

day 62

2010-07-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

Woke up at 8:30 to be packed up and out of the way for church that morning and luckily it was not storming anymore. The water was shutdown all over the city because their water treatment center was flooded because of the storm; so we packed up and headed back to the rusty fork to get some bland breakfast, they even watered down the syrup. If you ever eat there, ha, order the biscuits, not the cornbread, biscuits are the only good things there and they're big. Elkhorn city had some cleanup and fixing to do after the storm but we had to leave that safe haven to head into virginia. After 5 miles of riding we got to breaks interstate park where a river runs through the hills; its very scenic and thats where the kentucky/virginia border lies. We finally got to take a picture with the “welcome” to kentucky sign (very disappointed with their sign) and then with virginia's sign. Hard to think of stuff to do when you bike up a hill and are dripping sweat knowing you have a full day of ups and downs to do. So nothing too exciting, sorry. We had some slow uphills and some fast downhills, which I don't like at all especially since the road is super windy. Nothing really to write home about in virginia yet, except you don't really need to use the map since every turn has a '76 biking sign showing you which way to go. We had a couple brutal climbs at council then a slow/tired climb into rosedale where we ended the day but were lied to when we asked where the downtown was and it was actually the opposite direction. There is a church that opens up to cyclists but its 5 miles down from rosedale so we didn't want to bike back up to town then back down to rosedale, luckily this church has pantries full of food for cyclists so I made some mac & cheese and evan made rice and soup for our afternoon snacks. We are out of the elements and our bikes our under a roof too so even if it wants to storm, we will be alright. Evan read and journaled while I psuedo-updated the blog, basically picking pictures to upload and writing everything out since we have no internet or phone service. We hit up a couple bars of wifi down the street just to check the route and couchsurfing, then we went back to the church and made a big batch of spaghetti o’s for dinner then read some more and went to bed.

day 61

2010-07-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

We got up at 9, as usual, and went up to the table and it was full of cereals, oranges, bananas, apples, orange juice, and coffee cake and NPR was gently ushering in the developing stories of the day already. It was a wonderful breakfast and we enjoyed talking with dave then signed his guestbook and he snapped a pic of us to put in his book for next year. We packed up and bid dave and his historical society goodbye and we walked down the very steep driveway. We set off to elkhorn city, which sits at the border of kentucky and virginia. Another hot day. Another day full of some brutal steep hills. Lookout in particular was the hardest climb of the day and our knees could feel it later that night. Got chased by 9 dogs total today too. Dave gave us a good shortcut to cut out a hill at pippa passes so we went through the college campus there and bypassed a hill. Thanks dave! After much sweating, pedaling, and huffing and puffing we finally made it into elkhorn city. We hit up the rusty fork for dinner which had the most bland food on this entire trip but super nice people there and they were having karaoke later that night. They told us we could camp across the street by the caboose which is parked next to the bridge/park. As we were sitting in the shade next to the caboose, a gentleman, whom we met earlier, gave us some bananas, cherries, waters, and powerades. How amazing and awesome, thank you unnamed man of elkhorn city. He also told us we should go to the church down the road to try and stay there because it was supposed to storm that night so we walked over there and the pastor wasn't home so we sat under an overhang and, as my mom would say, “a storm was brewing!” the black clouds and the thunder started rolling towards us over some hills. About a half hour of lightning and thunder in the distance, the pastor rolled up and asked us if we wanted to stay in the basement of the church and we took him up on it. We charged stuff, dried stuff, read stuff, and was checking stuff on the internet when the storm hit. It started to rain some and shoot some lightning but we were safe inside. I was trying to teach myself the piano there by trying to play in a sweater poorly knit by mewithoutyou (I think I had the basics of the song down, but evan is a hard sell). We decided to head back down to the rusty fork to get some milkshakes, we got down there and karaoke was starting up and so was the downpour. We were so thankful to not be camping because it was flooding the river where we were going to camp, the streets were flooded, trees were falling, and damage was being done around town. We finished our milkshakes and just sat watching the storm manhandle the town then decided to make the walk back to the church. Luckily the rain let up for a bit so we just hungout inside where we read some before we went to bed in the church basement where it was dry, safe, and not outside in the storm. Much thanks to the church of christ of elkhorn city.

day 60

2010-07-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

Today was the day we've been waiting for since the end of kansas, the day we head to hindman, where we would stay at the knott county historical society. We got up, packed up, and said goodbye to jon and wished him well on the rest of his journey then we headed up to a greasy little diner, I think the only diner in booneville where we got some breakfast and chatted with some locals. There was one guy there that couldn't understand that I was from alaska but didn't bike from there, he kept telling everyone who came in that I biked from alaska and we would all correct him but it just didn't click. It was a hot hot day out, 90's+ with whatever humidity was. Another day of just dripping with sweat and downing water like there's no tomorrow. We noticed that vines have taken over everything on the side of the road; like trees, shrubs, telephone poles, barns, and even cars that have been left parked for some time. We'd both never seen anything like this so it was pretty crazy; someone we talked with said they are from japan but I haven't confirmed it with wikipedia yet. East of berea is dog country and literally like a third world country in some parts and its really sad. Yesterday we got chased by 11 dogs, today we got lucky and only got chased by 2 or 3. there are a lot of streams on the sides of the road and people build bridges over to their houses but dump their trash into the rivers or just into their front lawns. Saw a little horse that was unhealthily skinny and looked like it had been beaten, just some super sketchy trailer homes. Its really sad to see that here in america and it doesn't seem to be a big priority. Perhaps a documentary I should pursue...so later that day we stopped off at a gas station to refill up our water bottles and met up with a cyclist who was part of the first cross america tour in 1976 and he has gone coast to coast 3 times and this time he was riding his original bike from '76 with all the same panniers and all the same gear. Super amazing so we had to sit and chat with him for a long time about how touring in '76 was and what it was like. We then parted ways and finally made it into hindman where we called dave to let him know we wanted to stay at his cyclist b&b. So dave has a ridiculously steep driveway and if you ride up it, then enter the gate and ride the rest of the way up, you get to sign his guestbook in a special spot; sadly I did not make it all the way up but evan did on his second try. It was brutal and it rained there right before we arrived so the driveway was super slippery and I fell off my bike and deemed it not worth it to get hurt to sign my name in a special spot. Evan didn't get a good start so he went back down and dominated it. We both rode up the second part of the driveway and at the top dave was waiting with ice cold sweet tea, it was awesome! Dave is a super nice guy who loves history, theater, cats, and cyclists and he is working on the historical society there in hindman. He has a big family style tent with blow up mattresses and sleeping bags. We settled in, got showered, and handed over our clothes to be washed, as we sat outside listening to NPR (I miss it so much!), watching the weather channel, sucking down sweet tea, and having a dozen cats playing with each other around us. It was so relaxing and dave made us a baked potato for dinner which was devoured shortly after he placed it in front of us then he came out with the best banana sundae that i've had in awhile. It was truly everything that was told to us by other cyclists. That night we just hungout reading, interneting, figuring out amtrak schedules, watching baseball games on tv, and just relaxing. We chatted with dave for a bit before we all decided to call it a night.

day 59

2010-07-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

Today we ventured from berea, saying goodbye to francis and her wonderful hospitality, and went to booneville. We spent most of the morning, evan, mailing stuff off, and myself, looking for an airhorn to scare away the dogs we were going to be encountering for the remainder of kentucky but airhorns are hard to come by I found out but eventually got a huge one at a auto parts store. East of berea is also the start of the appalachians so the hills or mountains as they call them down here were starting to make riding a little more difficult but was a great change of scenery seeing this steep forested mounds in the distance. It was just a hot and sweaty day where we literally felt like a faucet was on in our bodies where sweat was literally pouring off my arms and legs. I've never experienced this before and I don't like it. We finally rolled into booneville where we hit up a dollar general and got huge gatorades and snacks then went in search of booneville presbyterian church where they let cyclists camp out in their backyard. Out back was a shaded picnic table with a shower and faucet and a port-o-potty and a nice grassy area to throw up our tents. Blah, couldn't resist. We were super excited to get into town earlier than usual so we went up to the library but as we walked in, they were shutting everything down so we made our way back down to the church. We were just reading/listening to music/journaling when another cyclist came up, jon, so we hungout and swapped stories. Really nice guy, looked like an older or future version of tom. He was riding a sweet all black surly with a bob trailer, he builds satellites for nasa and telecommunication companies, pretty rad. As we were chatting, vbs was finishing its last day at the church and they invited us to their bbq so we gorged on hot dogs, chips, cookies, cupcakes, fruits, chocolate milk, lemonade, fruit by the foot, and iced fruit things. We watched kids play on this huge inflatable bouncy thing with a slide, looked intense. There was a kid running around with the sickest mullet but I didn't have my camera sadly...i chatted with an elderly lady for a long time about the church and the town, as I was leaving to head back to the cyclers area, they filled my arms with extra chips, cupcakes, oranges, and chocolate milks for later tonight. So we just ate like kings a bunch of junk food as we just chatted all night.

day 58

2010-07-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

today we took a rest day here in berea and we had a map of all the cool stuff to hit up but that is not how the day went. (cue the music!) dun dun dun! So remember evan broke a spoke the day before so we first headed down to the appalachian bike shop which recently opened in the past handful of months by some young guys (kudos for starting a business) but they lacked skill and tools to adequately true evan's tire. The bike mechanic said he could do it but would need to consult his repair book so after some figuring out, to make a long story shorter, evan caught a ride up to richmond where there was a more adequate bike shop. While evan was gone, I updated the blog, hit up a cool used book store, rode around old town, cruised the internet at berea coffee and tea which is a cool place in the heart of town, chatted with francis' friend for a bit, and then evan met back up with me with a fixed tire and a new front tire to replace his old tire that seemed to be getting punctured from every angle. The bus situation that evan had to use to get to richmond and back was much more of a fiasco than I am making it out to be; the bus system there runs on 24 hr in advance appointments and this was like an hour before the bus headed up to richmond and you also needed a 24hr appointment to get back so all this getting him up there and getting his bike fixed then heading back down worked out really well. We were supposed to hit up a sweet pie party (excuse the pun), but we got caught up calling friends and family as well as trying to talk with amtrak about getting our return train tickets. We were both starving so we were going to hit up an italian place down the street so we hop on our bikes and it was literally around the corner, we had a good laugh as we took off our helmets and gloves then relocked our bikes up. People warned us to not eat the breadsticks so we ordered some pasta and sweet tea (I love sweet tea) and it came with a breadstick. We ate all of it, including the breadstick, risking it all especially since francis' toilet doesn't work well with #2...have to run over to the university bathroom which is not exactly a hop skip and a jump away because both evan and I regretted eating those breadsticks later. Enough said. It was a rough night, hot and with the combo of my stomach not feeling the best, sleep was hard to come by but eventually the counting sheep eased me into slumber. End of day.

day 57

2010-07-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

today was a rough day for us. we awoke in the luxury of the hotel to look out the window and see it raining very hard. we've biked in the rain before so we started packing things up. we hoped it would just pass by while we went down to enjoy our continental breakfast. we ate a ton cause there was so much good stuff to choose from: waffles, eggs, sausage, cereal, toast, bagels, pastries, biscuits, fruit, yogurt. we checked out of the room and it was still raining so evan got a free shower cap at the front desk since he doesn't have a hood on his jacket and we were on our way. we got soaked and i don't think my rain jacket did anything cause i was drenched inside and out. evan had a tough time cause he went through 3 tubes today due to little pieces of glass. he had one tube left so we decided to hitchhike to the danville where there is a bike shop and eventually we got picked up and got taken to perryville which was closer to danville but still a ways away. we waited for almost an hour to get picked up again by a dad and his kid; we got to the bike shop and they were too small and they didn't have anything that would work for evan. we decided to just ride from danville to berea which was 30 miles away. as we were riding some kids in a car threw the biggest carl's jr cup full of soda at us but luckily missed evan. dogs chased us during the day as well. when we were 10 miles away from berea, evan broke a spoke so we were back on the side of the rode hitching a ride. we finally got a ride in the back of some guys truck and he took us into berea at the college where we walked down to the garden area where we were going to stay with francis, our couchsurfing host. the sun came out and thats when the day started to get better; francis made us a good dinner with vegetables all from the garden, we then got some ice cream from blondies (not the same one as utah) and evan and i shared a deep-fried twinkie. we then got a tour of berea college which is very similar in size and community as nnu. its a cool little place. we then hungout with francis' friends and just chatted; they were super cool too. just a chill night to a crazy day; we were glad to make it a memory now. francis went to go house sit that night and we crashed at her place.

day 56

2010-07-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

we hardly got any sleep since it was such a hot night, basically just tossing and turning trying to get cool. we got up an hour earlier since we were right next to our last time zone (eastern time). we packed up our things and headed to the gas station to grab some breakfast, double biscuit and gravy. today we were taking an alternative route to save us an extra day so we were going to bike 70 miles from falls of rough to bardstown. for the most part riding was really nice and good terrain then we got into a little bit of rolling hills/farmlands. it was overcast for the whole day and we could see patches of dark clouds just dumping rain on places away from us, so that was good. we had some dogs chase us today but nothing serious; there was one old dog that still thought he had it in him to chase us but he was so slow it was sad to see. we did have our water pistols fully loaded incase we needed to use them on any dogs that got dangerously close (just filled with water though). we rode into elizabethtown and i was coming down the hill and it was a red light so i had to stop but out came a dog chasing after me and i had to stop; i yelled at him and he finally backed away going. we then hit up a kroger where we got some lunch: fruits/yogurts. evan helped out a guy who needed to use a phone then we made our way to bardstown. our good pal, nate berrian, who is from kentucky gave us his brother matt's number to hook up with him when we get to bardstown, but matt lives on bardstown road in louisville which is 45min to an hour away so there was some confusion there but matt was so rad he hooked us up with a hotel when we got into bardstown. so we found the hampton inn and got to swim in the pool, got a shower and cleaned up. matt then took us out to dinner at el jimador where we enjoyed some great food and chatted. its always so great to meet up with a friend, especially since we've been on the road for so long. we then headed back to the hotel where we all just sat around and chatted till late. we then said goodbye to matt and thanked him once again and he took off while we went to bed.

day 55

2010-07-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

evan and i got up to an empty youth room but knew that it was sunday and church was going to be starting soon so we packed up our things and made our way out. we hit up a dairy shop which served breakfast and we got some food there. we were heading to falls of rough today and it was a hot day out. the only thing that really stood out was a massive factory of some sort out in the distance of all this agriculture but the whole day was pretty hilly and through corn fields. the billows of smoke reminded me of all the eco and food documentaries. it was a pretty typical day and nothing really happened. we got to falls of rough but didn't want to go to the state park area to pay to camp so we stopped off at a church. i tried the pastor's house but no one was home and there wasn't any numbers to call so we just chilled out and hit up the gas station next door to get out of the mugginess. i got a tuna sandwich and a chocolate milk to pass the time and i chatted with a scraggly crazy guy. someone came inside and said that it was starting to rain so we hurried back and setup our tent on the backside of the church with our rainfly then tucked our bikes under a staircase and wrapped it up in our tarp. the pastor was still not home so we decided to just try and go to bed. the humidity that night was bad since it was close to raining, it actually never did rain, but with the addition of the rainfly the tent was super hot and had not airflow. it was a rough night. at the gas station that night we came across a poster of all the fish in kentucky so study up, there might be a test later :)

day 54

2010-07-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

today we woke up and started getting our things together to leave the comforts of logan's place; it was great to hangout with him and take a break from biking. today we were going to take a shortcut from carbondale, illinois to sebree, kentucky which would be a 100 mile ride along the highway which was mainly flat. it was a nice ride where we rode past a lake reserve then just through some cities as we got closer to the ohio river. it was a nice day out and the riding was good. we were cruising! we finally made it to the ohio river bridge where there wasn't much traffic so we stopped and enjoyed the view. huge barges carrying coal were passing right underneath us and evan had to get his classic feet over bridge shot. it is pretty crazy how massive these rivers are. once into kentucky one would normally expect to see a welcome to kentucky sign, but there was not one. sad i know but hopefully when we leave kentucky into virginia we can make up for it. the roads changed from illinois to kentucky having no shoulder and a conveniently placed rumble strips on the side of the road. it started to get more rolling hills and just all agriculture. we stopped in a small town and got a blizzard cause we needed a boost before rolling into sebree. we got into sebree at 8pm and found the first baptist church where they take in bikers. as we pulled in the driveway, the pastor came out and told us to park our bikes and hurry inside for dinner. inside was lu, su, adam (riding east to west), and violet (pastor bob's wife) and a full table of fresh corn, chicken, cornbread, vegetables, and ice cream. it was so awesome and the company was great too. we all sat around talking for a couple hours until we headed to the youth room where they let us sleep. they have mattresses, a shower, full kitchen, and a biker's room that has maps and a give/take section. we were going to go downtown to see the festival that was going on but there was only an hour or so left so we decided to just relax inside and chat with lu, su, and adam some more. as we were looking at the maps, i felt something on my leg and there was a tick trying to burrow into me, so i gently removed him and then found another one under my sock! i removed the other one as well and checked the rest of my body, luckily there weren't any more. we put them in a tissue and went outside to burn them. now we have to be ever mindful of ticks now. soon after we all hit the tired wall and headed to bed.

day 53

2010-07-09T08:21:00.000-07:00

smack! i rolled over and headbutted the wall. nice. after such a good sleep i got a little goose egg on my forehead but it'll be fine in a day or so. lu and su who normally get up super early, slept in and we all packed up and got ready for the day. we finished off some cookies for them and parted ways to find breakfast. we couldn't find anything the way we were heading out of town so we hit up a hardy's basically a carl's jr. we enjoyed biscuits and gravy as we chatted with some local older folk. we then followed the mississippi river through a windy, odd route up along levees through random corn fields, and backroads. we finally got back on the highway and when we turned i looked in my mirror and could see evan then a huge black cloud behind us so we booked it. we only had like 11 miles from a bigger town where we were only 7 miles away from carbondale where we were ending our day. a couple miles out of town it started to dump on us but we just had to keep riding; it was actually really refreshing and made things cooler but still getting dumped on and having to trudge around in soggy clothes is a bit of a hassle sometimes. we stopped at a gas station to rest and wait out some of the rain and lu and su were there doing the same. i got a slurpee cause it was so refreshing! we chilled out front and chatted with a couple of guys about our trip. evan and i pressed on to carbondale heading off route then lu and su were heading further down the path. we plan on taking a rest day here and hitting up the bike shop to get our bikes checked out since we've put so many miles on them. it was a good ride on the highway that was just widened and has a great shoulder and it seemed more direct and quicker so that was good. once again we were trying to stay ahead of the looming black cloud. we pulled into town and ducked into a used bookstore to wait out the rain. it rained so hard for awhile but we sat underneath an awning. we cruised around town some more looking for food and went by the college and finally hit up an indian buffet called jewel of india, the place was vacant and only half the room had tables and chairs. we stayed and enjoyed some food hoping it doesn't seek revenge on us later...we quickly darted to the library to wait out some more rain and wait for our friend logan (who we met in emminence and took us out to dinner) to get back into town and we're gonna crash at his place for the next 2 nights. luckily there's a dairy queen next to the library so we got ourselves a blizzard and got a call from logan. we biked on over to logan's apartment and chatted with him. we sat around catching up and then we headed to the grocery store to pickup some snacks. we just hung out reading, interneting, and talking the rest of the night.

day 52

2010-07-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

after a much needed sleep indoors we woke up realizing we had to leave the comforts of this getaway but we made sure to take advantage of it while we still had time. i enjoyed a hot shower since you never know when you'll get another one. the world traveler from dublin was literally heading out the door and the girl from ohio, amanda, was getting things together to leave. we cleaned and packed our things up then said our goodbyes and safe travels. we were then on the hunt for breakfast (my personal favorite meal). we went down the road and out of historic downtown but found nothing, so we decided to headed out a different way hoping to find something and we did. lo and behold we stumbled across huddle house, we both never heard of it but it advertised cheap food and that sounded good to us. we got in and they have smoking and non-smoking sections but there is no divider or air ventallation to delineate the smoking from the non; odd we thought. nonetheless we both ordered a heartattack on a plate of goodness though: eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, and a waffle for me. it was great and helped fuel us that morning. so we took off down the road and it started to rain on us but we were out in the country and only houses were around so we kept riding but up around a corner there was a huge building and it was a brewery/distillery (super random for out in the country) but we ducked in there to get out of the torrential downpour. we decided to let the rain blow over and we chatted with the bartender for awhile and apparently the guy who owns this brewery owns a ton of other stuff like a vineyard, car dealerships, antique shops, etc. but he also owns a tiger/lion sanctuary/restaurant just a couple miles down the road. so random! the rain stopped so we got back on the road after a short tour of the brewery and met up with our friend lu. lu and su were heading to st mary to pickup one of their maildrops that was waiting for them at the post office in the nearby town so we split ways knowing we'd see them in chester. after some riding we finally got to the border where we waited to cross the mississippi river! i've been looking forward to this for awhile. crossing the mississippi is a huge deal in history and it marked a great marker for us as well. the bridge was down to one lane letting one side go then the other but when we got up there they were opening up the bridge to 2 lanes again but the construction workers let us go across so we had the whole bridge to ourselves as we hurridly crossed. we arrived in illinois and said farewell to missouri. the land of lincoln and popeye i guess or atleast chester is home to popeye. the home of popeye sign was bigger than the little writeup about lewis and clark, funny and sad how that happens. guess the creator of popeye came from chester and they are exploiting it like crazy with statues of all the characters all over town. we rode into town trying to find the eagles lodge which has a bunk shack for cyclists; after some time and i would say bad directions, we finally made it and it was good but different from where we stayed the previous night, we got spoiled before. a 6 bunk shack with a/c and a fan then a shower and bathrooms at the main building so that was nice. we pumped the a/c and went to find some dinner at reid's harvest house, a buffet! it was wonderful to say the least so we filled up and headed back to the eagles. lu and su arrived and we chatted with them for a bit then we all kind of did our own thing: evan checked some internet and made some calls then went and hung out with lu and su in the lodge while i called family, took some pics, and caught up on my book. it was a relaxing evening. we all then crashed after a full day.

day 51

2010-07-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

the sun woke us up this morning at around 8 so i got up and started packing some things up and evan followed suit. we grabbed some pancakes and egg biscuit sandwiches at the 21 diner which was pretty good. while we were there, someone was spraying pesticide all on the outside and even on the inside of the restaurant so we got out of there. we headed down the road making our way to farmington. i got a bit ahead of evan and at a turn i was a little up the hill and he had his headphones in and when he looked over didn't see me so he kept cycling past. i was yelling at him but he couldn't hear me, so i chased down after him. luckily i caught him maybe 5 miles down the road but i made a rookie move. we headed down the right way down highway "n" (kansas and missouri name some of their highways with letters and even with double letters, odd.). we had hills but nothing too terrible, but it was just super hot in the mid 90's then add humidity, we were just dripping sweat. it was nasty. we got to this state park and there was this newly constructed ranger information station where we met 2 other cyclists, one was having dehydration issues, and we swapped stories and they told us of a short cut to get to farmington to avoid some of the intense hills. we enjoyed each other's company and the shade for a bit before parting ways. we then headed down the road and made a turn towards pilot knob where we stopped at a mcdonalds where i needed to refuel (i am a sucker for mcdonalds and evan is definitely not). it was then a pretty short ride into farmington where we've heard about this sweet hostel called al's (not owls) in downtown. we heard about it probably in kansas and have been super excited to get here, we finally found it after following a spray painted arrows and signs on the road. we go up the stairs and call the police station where we got the code to get into the hostel. we open the door and air conditioning immediately hits us and we see leather couches with a flat screen tv, a full kitchen, a fridge full of soda and water, cupboards with some food, bunk beds for maybe 15, 2 bathrooms, and a computer with internet and only for cyclers. we were blown away. second coolest thing in missouri. we marched around just amazed at the place and unpacked our gear and settled in for a bit cleaning ourselves up with a much needed shower and then put our clothes in the wash, it had been a nasty week for us sine we'd last got a shower and washed our clothes. we put pins on the map of where we are from. a female cycler arrived and we chatted for a bit and then eventually went out to dinner at the firehouse grill. some good food and company we shared. we also found $10 on the road on our way back! we came back to the hostel and i updated the blog all night, literally since it'd been so long. another cycler came in and he's been traveling the world for over 2 years now so he had so many great stories to listen to. we all just chilled in the hostel taking advantage of the coolness and comfort. tomorrow we head out of missouri, cross the mississippi river, and into illinois. goodnight.

day 50

2010-07-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

we woke up and all packed up our things and headed down to the grocery store to get some breakfast. evan and i got yogurt and cereal, seems to be our staple lately. we got lucky charms and they were so good. we finally had to part ways so we said our goodbyes and we certainly enjoyed dave's company, a real cool guy. we took off for some intense hills, not just a couple but a good amount plus it was super hot and humid. we finally got out of the ozarks and we were glad at that but there were still some hills into centerville. there wasn't much in town; we camped in the lawn of the town hall and police department. we read for a bit there since we got in kind of early which was nice. we grabbed dinner at the 21 dinner which was a small local diner but i swear everyplace has great milkshakes. we mainly made some phone calls and charged some stuff that evening. i wandered around town and took some photos but i was pretty dang tired at 10 so i just went to bed.

day 49

2010-07-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

we got up to a light drizzle on us so we got up and moved our tent under the covered area. we cooked up some oatmeal and read until we headed out. i will say that we got up an hour early since it was the 4th of july and we wanted to ride 40 miles to emmince which is a river touristy town. it was a quick-ish ride to alley spring where we got off and hiked around a bright blue clear spring/stream area. probably the best part of missouri i would say. when we were pretty close to our bikes, it just started to dump rain on us. hawaii is the only other place i remember it dumping that quickly and that much on me. i ran and covered my sleeping bag, pad, tent rainfly, and bags with trash bags but everything was pretty soaked already. we huddled under some trees but the rain was so hard that we then ducked underneath an overhang sine there was a family reunion using the covered area. we eventually headed under the covered area and then covered up lu and su's bike with our tarp. they were off swimming in the river. we were waiting out the rain and then once it stopped we tried to just dry off when the family reunion invited us to partake of their feast. it was so wonderful of them to take us in. we piled our plates with chicken, meatloaf, watermelon, potato salad, rolls, tons of food. we got a couple plate fulls each then went up for a plate full of pies, cakes, banana breads, and anything else that is sweet. we bid our farewells to the dewitts and saw lu and su walking up to their bikes, we took off down the road and passed over the river where we looked over to the left and saw a sweet swimming area that we wished we would've stopped at but we were already on the go. it was only 5 miles to emminence but there were a couple rough hills to get into town and on a full belly with the heat it was a struggle but we made it into town. as i rode down the hill i turned and saw a cyclist with a backpack and i knew it was dave. he was talking to the fireworks stand lady and we just started chatting. we've heard lots of stories about him especially since he's riding a mountain bike and carrying an 80lb backpack on his back while he rides, pretty intense. it started to rain so we huddled underneath until it stopped and we literally stayed there and talked for a lot of the day until logan, a guy stopping by the fireworks stand who is mapping out the ozark river system, invited us all out to dinner. it was so amazing, he took us to a local joint that had a buffet so most of us got that and we all just stuffed ourselves and swapped stories and listened to logan tell about his adventures hiking the appalachian trail for 5 months! sounds intense. we went back and chatted at the fireworks stand then the owner of the stand let us go to his house and tour it since he collects antiques, it was filled with mainly chandeliers, old photographs, and other knickknacks. then we got back to the fireworks stand and the two older guys were telling story after story of their crazy life, it was so great. everyone left to go to bed and dave, evan, and i stayed up talking more and then laid out our sleeping bags on the floor of the fireworks stand and called it a day.

day 48

2010-07-06T18:21:00.000-07:00

we awoke in hartville to a once vagabond tent town to now a vacant lawn, it was just us again. we finally got up cause we had a great spot that shaded us from the sun so we slept in a bit. we decided to hit up the library to update the blog but they don't allow people to plug in outside devices so i could only write up a couple days and try and use evan's computer to upload the pics but they only allow you to be on the wifi and internet for an hour at a time. after 2 hours the library was about to close so we headed out to grab some breakfast at the restaurant. we met lu and su there who camped at the town before so we shared a table and consumed our morning share of food, which was a lot. we were both headed to houston so we said we'd meet each other there and we lead the pack while they went up to the store to get american flags.it wasn't a super long day and it was full of hills but nothing too crazy. evan was ahead of me and i saw this tower off to the side of the road so i decided to climb up it since it had not gate or anything. after a bunch of stair levels, i made it to the top. it was pretty cool to see where we biked from and where we were going. there were little pockets of houses and towns tucked in the lush green forests. i stood there in awe for a bit and enjoyed the site of hawks soaring way above the trees looking for food below. i felt so small and could see my bike leaning against a tree and just amazed how big and crazy this world is. sometimes you need to just step back or see everything from a different perspective. about 5 miles out of houston there was a sign saying houston was to the right and success was to the left, so what did we do? we made the bad decision and went to houston. hopefully there will be success there we thought to celebrate the 4th of july but when we arrived into town we found out that they celebrated the 4th a week early! we were baffled since that was june. how can you celebrate something that isn't even in the same month? we really wanted to see what the posters said to advertise the celebrating of the 4th of july in june. did they claim freedom from the british early? i don't remember reading that in the history books. we rode downtown houston and the whole place was vacant, so we headed down to the grocery store to get some snacks. we heard about a good grill down the road so we went and got some dinner. after dinner evan sat outside getting their internet and i roamed around taking pictures of cows. gonna try to take series of pictures of animals, buildings, night time landscapes, and people (its always hard for me to just ask someone if i can take a picture of them, i need to get better). we then headed to the city park and we met up with lu and su who thought we ditched them. we shared a covered patio area where they made dinner and we just chatted until we went to bed.

day 47

2010-07-06T17:32:00.000-07:00

we awoke and everyone was actually still there! we each packed up our gear and chatted for a bit until we headed off to the grocery store and they headed off to the wonderful west. at the grocery store, we bought some fruits, yogurts, and then some cereal. we ate the most horrible knock-off/knock-off cocoa puffs, they said they were from argentintia or something, we'd rather just eat the cardboard that they came in. we honestly, as hungry as we were, couldn't even finish the bowl we poured. we took off towards hartville to fight some more hills. it was a beautiful scenery change from kansas with more lush green and wild flowers, but there was lots of steep inclines but luckily our knees and legs were adjusting to the new riding conditions. i guess some of the mennonite population has migrated over to missouri too since there were several signs showing horse and buggys on the roads, sadly we didn't see one. we got to marshfield which was a huge town of 20,000 or more probably and it was super hot out so we stopped at dairy queen and got a blizzard, so refreshing. we decided to keep going to hartville. we got into town and had one brutal climb that was right before entering town, luckily we could coast down the other side. their only grocery store now, the other one got burned down a couple months ago, was at the top of the hill so we checked it out but sped down to the downtown where we stopped and ate at a family restaurant. we got a huge burger each and 2 egg biscuits (evan got them on toast). ha. we were stuffed. paid and headed out to our bikes; i put my helmet on and went to get on my bike and my shorts got caught on my saddle and i just tipped over and i hit my head on the ground and something in my ankle popped. a stupid mistake and after a minute or two on the ground, i got up and luckily my ankle didn't break or fracture or anything. i got lucky. i walked my bike up to the city park which was literally 30 feet away and was filled with tons of other cyclists. there were a couple groups there of older and younger people. we walked right in and the younger people came up and just chatted our ears off, it was wonderful that they were so friendly. we talked with them all night telling stories and telling of cool stuff up ahead. the city park was out front of the courthouse/library/police station and you could use the bathrooms inside. we hungout then went to bed.

day 46

2010-07-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

today we went from pittsburg, kansas to ash grove, missouri; yes we crossed over another state today making it our 5th state accomplished! wahoo. we got up and headed to the grocery store to enjoy fruits, yogurt, and some cereal then we hit the road. it was literally like 5 or 10 miles out of town when we hit the missouri border and we almost missed it cause the sign was so small! it was at windfall charlie's, whatever that exactly is, and there was a fireworks stand there so we had the lady take a picture of us. missouri is the show me state, what does that exactly mean? not sure on that. leaving kansas and hitting missouri, we left the headwinds and the flat straight roads and started hitting the hills. it was a bit of a brutal shock at first cause there was some intense hills where you got to the top and then it levels out, it didn't just drop down the other side, then you had to climb to the top of another one, and then another one. very tiresome for our legs that were used to flatness. so we did a lot of up and down riding wondering if it would change, it doesn't (that's from the future me). it's hot and more humid here so that makes riding even more awesome :) ha (i think that might be the first smiley used in these blogs). we came out of this random small road and hit the freeway to kansas city so evan took his classic legs over the edge pic and could've spit on the semi that passed under him. we finally rolled into ash grove and chatted with the gas station attended who was answering my questions before i could get them out (he did not answer them in the order i asked them). we tried to hit up the library but it just closed but we met up with a cyclist from scotland and we chatted with him for a bit then went to the grocery store to find some food for dinner. we hadn't cooked in awhile so we decided to cook up a stew with hot dogs, beans, and beef stew. we found the city park and plopped down at a covered picnic table and started making our crazy concoction. sadly i don't remember the scottish guy's name, but he shortly arrived and we started swapping stories and telling of upcoming awesomeness! then up rolled two more cyclists, a guy from oklahoma and his girlfriend (sadly i can't remember their names either) she was from delaware. so all of us sat around and just talked till super late, it was so much fun. we then called it a night and retired into our tents.

day 45

2010-07-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

we always tend to get up at 9am and whenever we stay with other cyclists they are always gone at like 6am. we were shocked to see that sebastian and stephanie were still around when we got up. i had a rough night of sleep since i decided not to use my sleeping bag and just use my sheet, it got too cold and i couldn't sleep. a real rookie move, i know. we started packing things up when we said our goodbyes to sebastian and stephanie, they were on their way westward and we were getting ready for the day to head east to pittsburg, kansas which is right on the border. we headed to the local grocery store where we got yogurt, fruits, milk, and cereal. we just enjoyed the a/c while we ate but luckily the weather has been cooling off. we had to take a detour off our cycling maps since one of the roads was ripped up so we went up and around and the terrain has changed from flat fields to more rolling hills. just getting your body adjusted to the new riding style takes about a day or so. we finally arrived to pittsburg which is on the border of kansas and missouri. we went and ate at an all you can eat chinese buffet called yummies. we ate plateful after plateful; we were super full. when we were eating a lady came up to us and bought our dinner since she saw our american cancer jersey's. we talked with her for a bit and took a picture with her and went back to eating. we headed to the city park which was huge and we weren't really sure where to camp since there are signs saying the park is only open from 7am to 11pm but after calling the parks service and the police department (the first number was disconnected) they said we can camp anywhere there. they have a train that goes around the whole park, a roller coaster, and some other rides for kids as well as a concertorium and a fountain area. the park was hopping with lots of people and kids, its nice to see so many people outside. we sat and read for a bit then when it got dark out i decided to take some night time pictures. it was a lot of fun to have some time to just relax and do whatever. we finally crashed around midnight with our tent strategically placed to avoid the sun for the morning.

day 44

2010-07-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

we got up to the sun blarring on us so we got up a little early. we road around town to find a gas station, grocery store, or even a restaurant but there wasn't anything. the nearest town was eureka about 20 miles away so we filled up our water bottles at the baseball field where a lady was teaching kids how to bat, she was very intense. the terrain started to change a bit today with some hills that were spaced out a bit. we got to eureka where we grabbed some food and kept heading eastwards. as we passed through toronto there is a big lake/reservoir as well as a wildlife preserve and the hills started to roll. the reserve seemed to be a flooded treed area so it did not look like kansas but maybe somewhere in africa. it was pretty cool to see. it was a hot day with humidity so whenever you'd stop you'd just be drenched but then when you started biking again that headwind would make it a lot cooler. after a lot of riding and a false "welcome to chanute" sign, we finally made it to the actual town of chanute. for some reason they decided to have their welcome sign like 5 miles out of town. we hit up a gas station to find out where everything was and met with some local cyclers there who told us we should go eat at opies, a pizza buffet, which was downtown. we headed downtown and found opies and we just ate a ton and it was awesome: pizza, mashed potatoes, desert pizza, salad, rolls, they even had an ice cream dispensor! it was a great find and we just enjoyed the cushioned seats for our tired bodies. we found out that the city park was way on the south side of town so we made our way down there and saw that the bigger box stores were down in that area. the park was a big one and hard to figure otu where in the world we could camp but we eventually found 2 other cyclers and we threw down next to them. stephanie and sebastian were both super nice and helpful with giving us suggestions of places to stop and see on our way east. we stayed up late chatting about our travels and everyone we've met and everything we've seen. even though we've met other cyclers coming from the east, their stories are all different. its great! they shared some of their chicken pasta with us and it was great. we pitched our tents next to the golf course and hoped no one would give us any problems. we then just called it a day.

day 43

2010-07-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

we left jason and kalene's house and headed to the bike shop to get evan's bottom bracket checked out. we both decided it was time to replace our back tires since they were almost smooth; so we each bought new schwalbe tires. it took awhile to put them on the bikes since they are new. we finally took off, so kind of a late start for us. we headed towards newton, where we grabbed some sonic half priced drinks and some lunch. riding has been pretty much the same still with headwinds. we took off from there and rode a ways till we got to cassoday. i arrived there first and evan was shortly behind and it was around 8ish. i looked over to my left and there was a park and it looked like a tent city! bikers were everywhere and a swarm of them started walking over and then a handful were riding my way. evan then pulled up and we were both shocked at how many there were. we started talking to some of them and there was a group of 25 supported (followed by a van) and they are raising money for MS. most of them are from illinois and were really nice guys and then there was another group there then some unsupported guys tagging along with the giant MS group. one black guy came up to us and was just going nuts over our bikes and anything we'd say, it was super funny. they were all going west bound and we seem to be one of the few going east bound. the group on bikes headed to the only store/gas station to grab some food so we joined them. we enjoyed roast beef sandwiches, chips, and cookies for dinner. we chatted with the guys there for a bit then decided we still needed to try and get to rosalia to help us with our next days' mileage. so it was about 10pm and was dark but we still had 17 miles to go. i am not a huge fan of biking at night because it is very dangerous even though we have front and rear lights but they aren't that powerful. luckily the road was vacant, i think we saw 1 car the whole time we were on it. it was a pretty amazing ride for several reasons, mainly since it was pitch black out we couldn't see anything except some sillhoutes but there were tons and tons of fireflies guiding us to rosalia. it was quite the spectacle; we were flying down the road and we were so tired that i didn't even think of taking a picture of this experience. sorry. we finally arrived in rosalia where we heard there was a church that was open where bikers could take showers but the only church in town was already locked up since it was past 11pm. we looked around for a city park but there wasn't one since it was such a small town so we decided to stealth camp behind the church. we awoke the next morning noticing our stealth camping wasn't so stealthy. we also read the map and saw that the road we took at night to rosalia was in poor conidition needing work so be careful; we had no problems. amazing.

day 42

2010-06-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

we were up at 7am and packing up to get a head start on the day since it was going to be another 100 mile day in 100 degree heat! we left rush center and fought a headwind the whole way until we turned east again towards larned. it was definitely cooler out and not much traffic so that was a plus. we made it through the headwind and rolled into larned where we stopped off at a subway where we scarffed down subs and drank tons of powerade and water from the fountain. from larned to nickerson was a 58 mile stretch of no towns through a wildlife preserve so we prepared for that long hot stretch. after some rest at subway we headed out of larned and made our way through a grassy marsh land which was a nice change of scenery. we saw a deer and its baby in a patch of water just hanging out then bolting away when we got closer. before we got to the wildlife reserve i drank all my water and stopped off at a house to try and refill but no one was home so i used their hose to fill up my water bottles and it was the hottest water; i got soaked and it felt like it was burning my skin then when i was drinking it, it felt like i was drinking hot tea. we gruelingly pushed through the wildlife preserve and made it to nickerson (sounds a lot faster than it actually was). in nickerson we stopped off at the gas station where we purchased $.50 cups and i drank at least 7 full cups of gatorade, we were super thirsty. we just sat there awhile and rested. it was 9 more miles to hutchinson where we were going to couchsurf at so we headed off that way. luckily there were trees on the side of the road so it blocked a lot of the wind. we rolled into town and found jason and kalene's house. we put our bikes in their garage and chatted for a bit; a super nice, young couple who are mewithoutyou fans! we have a lot of the same interests and their home is a fixer upper so part of the downstairs is completely redone and it is great, reminds us of the brick house a couple years back with quotes on the wall and tree silhouettes. we then went out to eat at a great bbq place where we got a ton of food and homemade rootbeer! we then came back to the house and just sat around and chatted till late; everything from traveling, books, food industry, and church. we crashed on their couches and called it a day.

day 41

2010-06-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

we awoke once again being the only ones still at the park; jeff must've peaced out early morning on his last tube. i was up at 8 for some reason and went in search of breakfast foods; i hit up the only grocery store where i picked up milk, cereal, and a pear. i came back and ate half the bag of cap n crunch but saved the pear for later that day. evan arose and we started packing up. of course it was going to be another hot day out and had the potential of being a really long day depending on the wind. we were trying for larned but if the wind was bad then we'd stop in rush center. yes the wind was still blowing from the south creating a side wind. as we biked we went through empty towns that looked like they'd been destroyed by tornadoes or something. more fields and flat terrain but we got to watch the farmers start harvesting which was really cool; you'd see the big combines out there cutting the wheat then the little tractors picking up the wheat. a neat process. we reached ness city, which was a bigger city and we hit up a gas station for cold powerade. as we rode we decided that larned was out of the question since we had to head south for 20 miles and that would be a straight headwind and we were already tired and hot for one day of riding. we stopped in rush center which had a tiny park, one open restaurant, and 2 gas stations that seemed to be closed. we hungout in the shade reading and napping since it was only 64 miles then went and got dinner at the local sports bar and grill where the owner is the brother to TCU's head football coach. kind of random out in kansas but cool. we ordered huge chicken fried steaks and watched college baseball enjoying the cold water and the air conditioning. we chatted with a local and headed back to the park where we read some more in the shade. we saw a bird sitting on the swing set and bunnies seemed to roam the grass; nice to see some wildlife that was alive. lately we've seen a lot of road kill including: snakes, toads, owls, lots of little birds, a hawk, deer, cats, and raccoons. once the sun set the mosquitoes came out in force and started really attacking us since we have such sweet blood! we setup the tent and seeked refuge from them. we decided to go to bed early tonight and get up early to try and tackle that 20 miles south and hope for no headwind since everyone tells us that biking earlier is not as hot and there is no wind. they are only half right. we laid in the tent just sweating due to the start of humidity. we tossed and turned all night until about 3 am when we just started to fall asleep when a pack of roaming pugs came and started barking at us for what seemed like an eternity. darn pugs! they eventually let us be and we got a little bit of sleep before getting up at 7. the highlight that night though was seeing the fireflies; it was our first glimpse of them on this trip so that was super exciting!

day 40

2010-06-27T14:05:00.002-07:00

apparently everyone gets up super early cause when we work up at 9am everyone was packed up and on the road. ha. we love our sleep. we packed things up and hit up gooch's grocery for some breakfast then hit the road. today we went from tribune to dighton about 70 miles of severe side winds and heat. kansas is all pretty much the same being flat and having fields on both sides of you then off in the distance you see something silvery and its a grain silo that is small then slowly it becomes bigger then you pass it and you repeat this cycle over and over again. don't get me wrong it is truly beautiful out here and i am enjoying the change but it is the wind that is frustrating. even a sidewind is a bad wind, it still slows you down. we were biking and i noticed something different on our left, wind turbines! i thought that is super cool that they are harnessing power from the wind out here then i realized that they were all pointed towards the south and we were biking east. it was a very windy section since they erected wind turbines. so that was a nice change of scenery but sucked biking in it but we made it to the booming town of dighton. there are two restaurants in town, a bar and grill and a tasty freeze, so we opted for the tasty freeze where we devoured burgers, fries, and tasty milk shakes. it was just a plain hot day even in the shade as we ate. we then headed in search of the town park. when we got there we met up with jeff who was repairing a tube; he had tube issues all day and separated from lu and sue who went further that day. he was having a rough time and his tube popped while we were chatting so he left to grab dinner and work on it later. evan and i read and relaxed till 8 when the pool reopened and we went swimming for free for maybe 10 minutes. the water was coldish and the sun was already hiding from us so we took advantage of their warm showers! i was still hungry so we went to the gas station and got some food and wandered around town looking for the library to see if they had free wifi. we got to the town hall building/library and it was obviously closed since it was 9pm but i hit the electronic door button and it opened so we went inside and a voice came through a speaker, "the libraries closed!"; scared, we bolted out the door and said sorry to the voice from the speaker. we headed back to the pavilion where we were seeking shelter and light from; i read while evan journaled and jeff was talking to his fiance. all of a sudden these weird beetle like bugs came flipping into the pavilion; these are pretty stupid bugs that would fly around too so we all instantly stopped what we were doing and jumped to our feet with books in hand and started swatting them out of the air. we were a bunch of little kids laughing and doing our best karate moves to try and slice these bugs out of the air. after much death and carnage we decided it was bedtime. evan and i set up the tent and went to bed while jeff just slept outside under the pavilion.

day 39

2010-06-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

we awoke hoping all of our stuff didn't get blown away by the wind. we checked our gear and nothing was gone so that was good. we packed up our gear and made a backpacker's pantry granola & milk with bananas for breakfast; it was ok, it is hard to get milk right if its not actual milk. i digress. today we go from kit carson to tribune about 80 miles and we will be leaving the colorful colorado and entering the flat, windy, bread basket of kansas. we passed through a bunch of wheat fields and it was hot. we eventually hit the border of kansas and colorado and we have to say that we are a bit disappointed with the lack of signage kansas; you could've tried a little harder. we took some pictures then kept going into the new state. not a lot happened on our ride to tribune but when we rolled into town we ate at a nice little diner with a colorful elderly waitress who chatted with us a bit. we met with another biker at the gas station who told us about the park that we could camp at so we headed down that way. there were 4 bikers already camped out (3 heading east, 1 heading west) and then there were some other bikers camped across the way at another park. there was a community pool next door that had bathrooms and showers for free and open all night; guess this is a common thing for kansas parks. we met lu and sue and jeff who were traveling together (jeff was solo and met up with lu and sue) then our gas station friend who has biked cross country several times. we chatted with everyone and swapped stories and tips. i took a chilly shower and got cleaned up before exploring the area; there was an abandoned amusement park with a ferris wheel and rollercoaster that i had to check out. i grabbed evan and we took some fun photos. we then wrapped up the day and went to bed.

day 38

2010-06-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

today we got back on the road after a couple of wonderful rest days. once we were all packed up we started biking out of town to hopefully get some breakfast, which we stopped off at a perkins (a hackett/sander favorite in montana). it was a good hearty breakfast to fuel us on a long day to kit carson about 113 miles. we followed the highway for a bit until it turned into a 2 lane road that seemed a bit up and down hilly until we started getting into more farm land. it was warm out and we were just getting introduced to what was to come through kansas. on the way my back tire seemed to have deflated so i did some roadside maintenance in patching my tube. since we rode from co springs to kit carson we were going off our route since our route has us to go from pueblo to eads so this route was what we figured out. there was a long hot stretch where evan and i were spread apart a good amount and i ran out of water but figured there would be a town with a gas station or something just down the road but there was nothing. after 2 hrs of biking and my lips were sticking together and i could hardly swallow because i was so thirsty i was in desperation mode looking for any bottle with liquid in it on the side of the road. after some failed attempts of checking bottles and almost drinking one full of what was probably urine; i saw that there was a small town up ahead and i went and knocked on a trailer and had my water bottles filled up by an guardian angel (she even put ice in it). i wish i could remember her name and took a picture of her but my state of mind was not there due to the heat. i downed one of the bottles and kept riding since we were only about 10 miles outside of kit carson. evan rolled into town before me and as i pass the city limit sign i see a cop flip a u-turn and switch on his lights and flag me down. i was so confused; i think i was going like 9mph and i had my helmet on and it wasn't dark so i didn't need my lights. he asked me for my license and then went back to his car to run it. when he returned he told us that there was only one restaurant open at the time and then gave me his card. met up with evan and he got pulled over and ran too; guess they had an incident with bikers riding into town and stealing things. kind of ridiculous since it was literally 50+ miles out of town one way and another 20 miles the other way until you'd reach the nearest town so i guess the bikers out pedaled the cops in their cars. o-well, we took a load off at the restaurant where we gorged ourselves with chicken fried steak (me) and evan had a super good burger. we then set off in search of someplace to camp. we biked to the outskirts of town and its all fields where we were so trying to hide a tent is a hard thing to do; there was a church that had a field in the back with a handful of trees so we scoped it out and walked back to get our gear when another cop pulled up with his lights on. this cop was more friendly and told us about the city park where they allow bikers to camp for free and there is water and bathrooms there. super thankful he met up with us; we hit the park up and we even charged up our ipods too. we got situated and evan started running the baselines of the baseball fields then climbed to the top of one of the light poles; not sure where he got all that energy but i was spent. we then crammed into our tent that was situated behind a group of trees to block the sun, so we were set for a good night sleep. then the wind picked up; it was super windy and we had some moments where we thought the tent was going to get picked up with us in it! the wind did help keep us cooler since it was super warm out and with our sleeping bags. we eventually got some sleep but the wind was pretty constant.

day 37

2010-06-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

our last rest day, we headed out from pat's house and we hit up safeway for breakfast. we then went to go catch the bus from denver to colorado springs; it was a couple blocks away from where we were so we waited for about 10 minutes until it showed up. there weren't many people on it so evan and i each had our own seats and we read/listened to music/napped for the hour or so drive back to co springs. we got dropped off downtown co springs and we decided to hit up the library and catch up on our blog; sadly there is a one internet usage limit per person on their computers and evan already started headed back to eric's house. i started walking back as well and came across their farmer's market, which was cool; not as great as nampa's though! we both got back to the house and went through our panniers to see what we could mail home to try and lighten our weight since it was hotter and going to be more civilized from here on out. we each had a pannier full of clothes, books, maps, and other goodies so we biked over to the post office and got one of those boxes where it has a flat rate fee if you can cram it full of stuff. we just hung out at eric's place reading and napping until eric came home and we just chatted. evan and i decided to treat ourselves to dinner and then catch a movie; we started biking towards the theater hoping to grab something to eat along the way. we ran into a commuter biker who told us about a good chinese restaurant right down the road so we hit that up. it was good food, thank you mr commuter biker! we then watched toy story 3 in 3D since the other regular showing was in 2 hours and we didn't want to try and entertain ourselves for that long. it was nice to see a movie and just relax a bit before hopping back on the bike tomorrow. it was darker after the movie and we had to bike back to eric's house on the freeway so that interesting since their road has lots of potholes and cracks and our lights aren't real powerful, but we made it back in one piece. we just crashed that night to end a great time of rest and relaxation.

day 36

2010-06-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

this morning we went to marte's church, atlas, which is a very small but cool church. it meets in downtown greely in a cement building that is a church/art gallery/soon-to-be coffee shop. small tables and chairs make up the congregation seating and the pastor is a young exciting man. we talked with some people and grabbed some breakfast before service got started; kody, mallory, and mallory's brother met us at church and we sat together. he talked about paul and about ephesians, it was a cool discussion group than just a sermon. he'd ask questions or have people read sections so that made it feel more personal to me. church ended and we headed into denver to hit up the famous casa bonita! we jammed out to some mewithoutyou to get pumped up! i think evan slept mostly on the way. ha. we got a little lost but found our way to the bright pink building that would forever change our lives! we took some photos outside then entered in the pretty house. we ordered our "food" and got seated. so basically its like a mexican tourist restaurant/theater; its like a 2 story complex that is decked out like you are in a small mexican town with a waterfall where they perform skits and have people juggling fire (or dropping them on the ground) and cliff divers. its a fun atmosphere and just plain ridiculous; you don't go there for the food no matter what your father tells you (we heard a dad tell a little girl that they were their for the food not for a glow in the dark sword). evan and i for some reason got the all you can eat meal while marte somehow got a vegetarian meal. you couldn't tell when your burrito started and your rice and beans ended. it was one sloppy mess. we enjoyed a person in a gorilla suit run around the restaurant being chased by a zookeeper. it was wild. it was crazy. we enjoyed it. the sopapias were great but the rest of the food wreaked havoc on evan and i just like everyone says, even comments on google. we walked behind the waterfall, went through black barts cave, enjoyed little kid rides, and even evan enjoyed the arcade for a bit (i did almost have a picture of marte holding a shotgun but my camera died, would've been epic). we then posed for a pic at the bottom of the waterfall then left one of the happiest places in colorado. marte then took us and dropped us off at tattered covers, a sweet book store similar to powell's in portland. we said our goodbye's to marte and we can't thank her enough for all she did for us, hopefully all the laughing would be some sort of payment. i sat and read then fell asleep in the store while evan was hunting for cheap books. we both called and wished our padre's a happy fathers day and started walking downtown. this weekend was pride week so we thought we'd stop by and see how it was going; it looked like a wild and crazy time. it was shutting down when we got there so we meandered for a bit then made our way to my friend's, pat, apartment. we met up with pat and took refuge in his apartment where both his girlfriend and him cooked us up some wonderful spaghetti and we watched "blades of glory" (i think its one of my dad's more favorite movies for some reason. happy fathers day dad.). we sat around and talked for most the night just hanging out and taking it easy until we all decided to call it a night. always great to see old friends, pat and his family are wonderful family friends of ours and we used to all live in alaska together until they moved to idaho; luckily we got to stay in denver for the night so i could meet up with him. evo slept on the couch and i was out on the air mattress, these rest days seem to keep getting better.

day 35

2010-06-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

awoke. shower. clean. breakfast. yum. out. new belgium. old town. walk. bookstores. bums. reading. joe blows pizza. new friends. nate sleepwalking stories. back. bed. done day.

there ya go. that was our day 35, hope you enjoyed it. so the longer version is...got up and met marte's parents who are super nice and we all enjoyed a great breakfast of eggs, blueberry muffins (my fav), toast, and juice. we then hurried out the door to head to new belgium brewery to try and get in on a tour of their facility. they are a cool super bike friendly and eco-minded company and their tour is pretty sweet so we heard. all of their tours are full till the end of the month but we thought what the heck lets give it a try anyway. so we got there and put our names on the waiting list and perused around checking out their seating area and they have all these cool art pieces that really express who they are as a company and we looked at some of their merchandise. they have post cards that you can write to people and they will mail them off for free! after a couple tours went by we finally got on the list! they take you through the whole production of how they make the beer and the history of the company and how they are helping the community and the earth. super cool stuff! they were just loving that we were on a bike tour across the country and got to chat a lot with the employee guide. after the 90 minute tour we ended by sliding down a slide that is on their second floor to get back to the main floor (much fun). we took off from their and headed to old town ft. collins where we checked out cool bookstores, their indie theater, a burger joint, and just enjoyed a new town. we were both tired of walking and just tired in general since we got up earlier than normal so we found a park bench where i read and evan slept. people were passing by pointing and looking at us like we were homeless or something (a lot of people think we are homeless actually). i dozed off at one point and i'm sure we were a sight to be seen; i know i snapped a pic of evan just when he was waking up and he looked real rough. we then went in search of a restroom and crashed at another park area where we each had our own bench this time and evan sprawled out on his while i read some more. a mom told her two kids to walk way around us and she walked between us as a barrier or something since she thought we were super harmful (evan was comatose and i was reading "stones into schools" the follow up to "3 cups of tea") marte and her two friends met up with us and we hit up another cool bookstore/coffee shop/bike repair place then went and grabbed a table at beau jo's pizza. we enjoyed a tofu pizza, telling stories, and 2 guys in a cap n crunch and trix rabbit costumes. ha! we dropped off one of marte's friends then made our way over to her other friend's house, kody and calvin. we sat and enjoyed some snl and we told them about our bike trip and then started telling lots of sleepwalking stories about our good friend nate. we always seem to tell sleepwalking stories to people we meet. kody, went on a bike tour of south america from panama to colombia so he shared some pictures and stories from his trip. such a great guy and he's the one that gave marte the "stones into schools" book that i was reading. such a small and great world we live in. we stayed up late and talked but decided to head to back to head to bed.

day 34

2010-06-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

today we head up to denver from co springs. my step-mom, brigid, and my step-brother, brad, flew into denver early morning and picked us up from co springs and brought us up to denver. timing worked out well. we got to enjoy a nice brunch at cracker barrel where we all feasted on breakfast goodies. i drove up to denver so brigid could sleep since her and brad were going to be driving towards new mexico later that day. riding in a car is a luxury for evan and i and we enjoyed the speed, comfort, and ease of use compared to our bikes. we got dropped off on colfax and we said our goodbyes and snapped a quick group pic! so great that we got to spend some time with brigid and brad. we then setoff to try and meet up with our friends from Witness who were just traveling through denver for a quick couple of hours. at first we were all turned around and perplexed at the way they have their city laid out but after a handful of minutes we started walking down colfax (the right way this time). i was whistling the infamous five iron frenzy song mentioning colfax & broadway as i went. after some blocks we could see our group of friends coming towards us and our friend, phil running to us. so great to see familiar faces when you are somewhere where you don't know anyone. we gave hugs and hellos like it was nobodies business and chatted with them about our trip and about their camp. they were on a fixed schedule needing to leave real soon to drive back to idaho that evening so we started heading back towards their van at burger king. once we got there, we noticed that their van had been towed; so after numerous "oh my gosh's" and "what do we do's" a call was made to the towing company and the long walk to the containing area was underway. we came across a church where we convinced the pastor to drive us to the tow prison which was still a long ways away. so witness was literally only 10 minutes away from their van when it got towed. ouch! they finally retrieved their van after a hefty fee and we all piled in; they took us back downtown and we said our farewells to once again another set of familiar faces. just the two of us now and we were just meandering through city streets, soaking up the city life since we've been out in the country/mountain/desert life. we walked to their gigantic library where we filled up on water and grabbed a seat where evan read "the voice" (a publication about homelessness) and i took a quick nap (since when i was driving up to denver, everyone in the car was sleeping except me!). we decided to head towards coors field since we were going to hit up a baseball game that night; we went and checked out a cool brewery called the great divide where we hungout for a bit before trekking to the game. our friend, marte, was coming down from ft. collins to join us for the rockies game then take us up to her parents' place for a day. so we met up with her and got our tickets. we had pretty good seats for short notice and for a cheaper price just on the middle upper deck on the first base line facing the rocky mountains. we got to see the most beautiful sunset so far on our trip! we all caught up on eachothers' lives and enjoying the game. yes we did partake in the wave! the game was pretty good and the rockies won 2-0 versus the brewers. we hopped in marte's car and we made our way out to greely but along the way we got to watch a crazy lightning storm just go on and on. it was marvelous! i hope we get to see a few more along our journey but not close enough for us to get zapped. after a little bit of a drive north from denver we settled in to marte's home and we each retired to our own bedrooms.

day 33

2010-06-21T10:57:00.000-07:00

today would be our first rest day in awhile, so what did we do? we walked 16+ miles around colorado springs. we went to the coffee shop that eric works at and tried some mai tai (some sort of tea) which was really good and tried some espresso, but both evan and i don't drink coffee so we didn't like it so much. it is a cool coffee shop where they get bags of raw beans and they turn it into their own coffee and ship it out to places all over. we then decided to walk to the garden of the gods which has come highly recommended from other people. so we headed that way and stopped at a safeway to pickup some food while we walked since it was going to be a lot of walking. we finally arrived at the garden of the gods and it was free which was a plus and it was pretty cool seeing these large rocks jutting out of the earth just in this one spot. there were some guys rock climbing up some of them which was neat to watch but for the most part we just wandered around soaking it in. after a good amount of time there we went up to the visitor center then started making our way back to downtown co springs. we walked through a lot of residential and into a older little downtown that was business taking over nice houses. we reached downtown and caught a great sunset while we went in search of food. finding a cheap place to eat is very hard in colorado springs if you don't have a car, we still haven't even found another grocery store other than that safeway that was like 6 or 7 miles away! we went passed downtown and headed back to eric's house hoping there might be a cheap restaurant passed his house but no luck. we went back to eric's house and grabbed our bikes to go a little faster in our search; we finally came across a great burger and shake place open later (everything seems to close at 9 around here). we enjoyed a big burger, fries, and a shake then headed back home. we should be keeping a burger count since we eat so many! got back to eric's and just chatted with him for a long time till we all crashed about 2am.

day 32

2010-06-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

we got off to a later start today but had a feast for breakfast: tea, granola, yogurt, toast, grapefruit juice, and we boiled up some hardboiled eggs for later that day. we packed up and headed off from harry and mira's house; we went zooming down there hill and i almost, seriously, crashed because it was such a steep hill and the turn at the bottom was so sharp, i was contemplating bailing off my bike but luckily i narrowly averted death and disaster. we are heading up to colorado springs today which is 104 miles away; a long day ahead of us. we met up with the mighty arkansas river where we followed it snaking its way through a canyon where we faced some headwinds. after awhile we got out of some of the winds and it was a beautiful ride. a good amount of traffic but nothing too bad for us to handle. we had perfect weather and we just rode, rode, rode. there was one intense climb then it plateaued then we went down into canon city. it started to heat up by then. when i rolled into town there was a huge prison off on the left where they added on to the old prison that they had since 1871! then on the way out of town there was another prison, not sure what the deal is, maybe cheap land. i waited for evan to catch up so i got some shade and water at a park. we then went to subway to get a footlong and take a seat for a bit. we met up with a ton of guys from oklahoma or something; they are doing a geological summer course in the nearby mountains so they were talking to us about their mapping of rocks and stuff and we were telling them about our trip. they loved it but sadly had to break paths. after some up and down hills, we made the cutoff to head up towards colorado springs. this road was also up and down but the road was pretty crappy too; we were tired of riding and sore but we had to keep pressing on since there was nothing in between. after some riding we got into city limits and most of the city is an air force base so we took a major road into downtown where eric lives. our friend jeff's older brother lives here in co springs so we crashed with him that night. we met up and chatted for a bit before heading to a good mexican restaurant. after enjoying baskets of chips and salsa and our meals we headed back to just relax. i took a shower and crashed on the floor while evan and eric talked for a bit. our bodies are tired and ready for a couple days worth of rest.

(world's largest rocking chair. no bid deal.)

day 31

2010-06-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

today is the day. today is the day we setoff to conquer our last rocky mountain: monarch pass. the summit is at 11,312ft. we are 30 miles away from the base of the mountain. it is a 9 mile climb from base to summit. when we got up that morning, we were greeted by some wonderful muffins, cookies, and coffee that eddie picked up for us. thanks so much for eddie and rebecca's hospitality! we scarfed them down and started packing up and stretching to get ready for the day. the 30 miles out to sargents was long for me, i knew we had to climb the mountain but i wanted to hurry up and get it over with, not wait a couple of hours to get to the base. i tried to reserve my strength and speed so i took my time but i just felt this looming presence or something. we finally reached sargents, where there is a little gas station, and we got some drinks to rehydrate us. evan got some weird sports drink that came with vitamins, looked like a bad idea before cycling up the mountain. we stretched some more, sun screened up, and made our way up the road. we were real surprised; the grade was so gradual we kept a consistent 6mph! i think we were psyching ourselves out and the west to east side is easier than the east to west side. this was one of our easiest mountains to cross over. we stopped and took some pictures off the side of the road at an overlook then a few miles up we stopped at another one trying to synchronize a picture of us jumping but we failed miserably. ha! we spent a lot of time trying to get the right camera angle, then run back in time before our self-timer went off, but we didn't get a good one, just some funny ones. we then kept climbing up and up. the last 2 miles i would say were the hardest of the climb, just a steeper grade and your mind knew you were almost at the top so you were just ready to be done with it. evan made it up to the top first then i shortly followed; waiting for us at the summit was a touristy shop with a "restaurant" and a gondola to take you up to the top of the mountain. we slapped hands and went inside to enjoy a nice fresh sub sandwich (which later gave me stomach issues). we called our dads and told them of our success; we crossed the continental divide and our last rocky mountain. we were super excited to be done momentarily with mountains. we then raced down the other side of the mountain. it took awhile to get into salida, but we didn't have a place to stay yet so we hit up a mcdonalds to use their wifi then we went out in search of a place to eat. we cycled down to a great pizzaria but on our way down there we saw a pretty cool sunset with the mountains, sadly there wasn't a good place to take a picture. we enjoyed 2 large pizzas and talked to the workers there. finally once they were about to close up shop, i checked my email and saw that i forgot to put my phone number but luckily harry e-mailed me and we had a place to stay that night. he came and picked us up since he lives at the side of a mountain and its a 12% grade to get up to his place. when he pulled up, i looked at evan and said, "it's larry david!". i swear, he looks very similar to larry and has the same personality. he's super into cycling and that day rode 100 miles and up the tallest bikeable peak in colorado. so him and mira made us feel at home; they set out pasta, chicken, and cake for us which we quickly consumed. they went to bed and we crashed on their pullout sofa. just another great ending to a good day. harry had all sorts of bike art, i'd call it; he has an autographed picture of greg lemond! so he showed those off to us and i just really liked this little art piece of the cyclists so here they are.

day 30 (1 month)

2010-06-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

we've officially been on the road for a month! and we're still alive and well. we started off our morning by enjoying some grapefruit juice and raisin bran while rod and judy were out riding there tandem. we decided to hit up the library that is across the street to send off some requests and check out the route better then we packed up and said goodbye and headed to the bike shop downtown. evan had his wheel looked at by a master wheelman and he retensioned it. hope that works! i bought new brake pads for my back set, a new tube (since i keep bursting them), and bought two butt balm thingys just to try them out. ha! while they were working on his rim, we finished off the ice cream, yes at 10:30am we were finishing off a carton of ice cream. good stuff. they finished up his wheel and we headed down the road towards gunnison which is 64 miles away. we had nice weather the whole way which was great! we encountered two decent sized hills that got us sweating and had a good downhill on the other side but the best part of the day was riding along side the blue mesa reservoir, it was just nice to have the water on one side and rocky mountains on the other. but we were in high gear just trying to get to gunnison as fast as possible. we rolled into town and caught the end of a world cup game and enjoyed some burgers; talked with some locals about the upcoming monarch pass, then we headed to eddie and rebecca's place for the night. we enjoyed a great evening just talking about traveling and our bike trip with eddie and rebecca! both very nice and cool people; they are getting ready to go to spain for basically a month and eddie told us about when he ran with the bulls and his iron man competitions. as we always say, we are always amazed at who we meet and stay with, some of the best people. they spoiled us with oatmeal, ramen, fruits, and tea. after much conversation we all headed to bed.

day 29 1/2

2010-06-14T22:58:00.000-07:00

i somehow have gotten off a day so i'm trying to correct it. we awoke to sunshine in telluride and headed to the bike shop to have evan's spokes fixed, again. we wandered around town to check out the sweet waterfall on the side of the mountain at the end of town, hit up the grocery store, and just perused since it was dumping rain on us. there is an area called, free box, and it is a give and take area where people drop off clothes, books, shoes, anything! and you can search through it and find some neat stuff. we sadly didn't find anything that cool enough to add the extra weight to our bikes. we snagged a couple shirts to clean our chains. thanks free box. got his bike "fixed" and we headed out of town, only a few miles until my back tube bulged out of my tire and seized up my back brake! the bike path was the crappiest i've ever seen so i think it may have been the problem, constant smashing of the back tire. fixed it and kept heading out. it was a nice long downhill from there and the weather seemed to be cooperating with us. woohoo! we went through another placerville! (not as cool as the one in california, hence no picture of it). soared through some canyon areas which were nice but hard to stop and take pictures when you're going 30-40 mph. we thought we were supposed to hit a city before climbing a couple thousand more feet to dallas divide but guess we got to the top of dallas divide, with little effort! thats when we started seeing some cool mountains! we were actually fighting to stay ahead of the storm so we got some pics of them. reminded me of alaska, but so far i still think alaska is better! evan broke the speed limit in ridgby, going 30 through a 25 and a cop was down at the bottom clocking people but once evan got close enough he was already to the speed limit! we then had to duck under a tree to seek refuge from some rain at the entrance to a state park. we chatted it up with a ranger there who actually rode his mountain bike from alaska through canada when he was younger! small world. the rain died down for a couple minutes so we ventured back out and rode the rest of the way to montrose (mostly in the rain). we pulled into a rib shack and gorged ourselves. i love to eat! we called our warmshowers hosts and made our way to their casa where they greeted us with a fire pit, smores, and tea/cocoa! they showed off their brand spankin new tandem bike and it was so freaking awesome! evan and i considered buying their other one but decided against it. ha. we just sat around the rest of the evening talking with rod and judy about cycling and traveling. a pleasant evening. they went to bed then we went out to try and get some dairy queen, but they were closed so we hit up safeway and got a thing of ice cream moose tracks and chips and salsa! we proceeded to eat until we fell asleep.

day 28/29

2010-06-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

day 28- after a good night of hard sleeping, we got up and ate some breakfast then headed down to the library to hit up some internet. dolores has a beautiful library that sits right next to the river and has big windows to gaze outside. we spent a handful of hours there updating the blog, sending out requests to stay with people, and catching up with the world of the internet. we then headed to the grocery store where we bought spaghetti and chips & salsa (our favorite these days). we had a feast (1 lb of noodles!). as we were waiting for the noodles to cook, we read national geo magazines and other backpacking mags that mollie had around the house. i finished my book, wild at heart, and started reading dharma bums so that was nice. two other cyclists were supposed to get in today so we waited for their arrival. mollie was off working a 24 hr shift helping disabled people so we had the house to ourselves, which is so nice of her! jeff and geoff (joff?) arrived around 7ish and we sat around chatting about our trips. they are traveling from east to west but jeff is only going from colorado to utah area while geoff (joff) is going cross country. they were great guys and they made a feast as well and we shared some spaghetti with them. that night we just hungout and told stories of travels and our bike trip then retired to bed.

day 29- awoke to hail soaring down from the skies and rain following it; luckily we were inside! we begrudgingly got dressed and packed our things. ate some breakfast and kind of waited for the storm to pass. we were planning on biking up to rico from dolores which wasn't too far away but up some elevation but this storm wasn't very inviting. mollie got back home from a 24 hr assisted living watch and it was nice to chat with her for a bit, but she's super busy! we hungout with jeff and geoff (joff) for a bit then we all went down and started packing up our bikes and talking about bike gear. they were heading to utah (moab) where the weather seemed to be a lot better than the dark black clouds looming over the mountains where we were headed. we said our goodbyes to mollie (as she was cutting a dogs hair) and to jeff and geoff and headed to the grocery store to get some last minute foods for the day. bagels, hard boiled eggs, banana chips, and dried papaya for us. it didn't rain on us for a while until we went around a bend and it started to dump, so we ducked under some trees and covered our bikes with our tarp and just waited. a guy in a van waiting for his friend to go canoeing showed up and harassed us for a bit, so that was nice. the weather cleared and we kept heading up the canyon to the mountain. off and on rain would hit us and we were wet but we made it to rico in no time and the elevation gain wasn't bad at all. sadly not many pics since the weather was so crappy and clouds covered everything! we got to rico and were trying to find a place to pitch our tent when we came across a hot spring that people were telling us about; when we wandered over to it there was a couple, "doing stuff" so we ducked into a shack to get out of the rain. thats when evan found another broken spoke, not more than 400 miles and a new rim and he broke another spoke. the rain died down and we headed to the road to hitchhike to telluride; after a couple of cars, a great guy, eddie, picked us up in his truck and took us to mountain village. he dropped us off with our gear and it was pouring rain on us but we ducked into a little overhang to figure out our next move. we were cold and near frozen since we were up about 9,000 ft or so. the bike shops there were closed for the day so we caught the free gondola down to telluride. they crammed us both with our bikes into the gondola and slammed the door, not telling us when to get out for the town. after a couple stops we arrived at telluride and we struggled to get our bikes out of the never stopping gondola and evan's bike got stuck in the door and was getting manhandled. they shut it down and they got his bike free and we wandered around main street looking for food and warmth. telluride is like the next aspen, super ritzy (not as much as mountain village, sheesh) but it is not a cheap place. we found a pizza place where we consumed a large pizza in no time and caught some of the world cup. that was nice. we struggled for a long time to find a place to stay but finally in the last moments, jeremy, texted us his address and we were off in search of his house. we almost broke into a historic house thinking it was his! ha. we found his place and waited for him to come back from shooting a wedding. he's a super cool guy, just got back from backpacking asia for 4 months! we talked for a bit then he had to get back to the wedding. his house is sweet, small but neat. we wandered around town looking for more food but nothing was open so we went back and went to bed.

day 27

2010-06-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

after a great night of sleep, evan and i got up and started packing up our bikes. thankful for the motel. we have a 81 mile ride to dolores, colorado. today we would say goodbye to utah and hello to colorful colorado! we are ready to get out of utah; some wonderful people and places but we need a change. luckily between blanding and dolores there would be a handful of towns along the way to fill up water and to get some food. i swear the whole day we were going up and down hills. a little annoying because you'd get into a rythm then you'd go down and catch some speed then have to go right back up what you went down. also there was some significant sidewind that slowed us down a bit but kept us cooler. some give and take i guess. after about 21 miles of riding we stopped off at a diner and enjoyed some good burgers and then some amazing pies! the pies were on the house too. we rested for a bit and filled up on water and started for the colorado/utah border. we hit the border and had to take some shots with the welcome signs! we missed utah's because we had to catch a ride to cedar city cause of evan's broken back tire so we made up for it with the one on the border with colorado. i hope you enjoy them because it took some good planning to get them. its amazing how the landscape has changed from utah to colorado; utah is red rocks and desert canyons while colorado is greener but also has hilly red dirt agriculture. more up and down hills. i was going up a hill when i felt a little bouncy and sluggish so i look at my back tire and it looks super low. i stopped and it was only 3/4s full so i took off my bags and flipped over my bag to see if i could patch the tube. i found the hole and applied a patch and evan and i started back down this hill when i start to climb the next hill and i look down and it is back to being deflated. evan was just soaring at this point and his broken mirror was looking at the ground so he couldn't see me so i pulled off again and replaced that tube with a new one. my only problems have been popping my back tire tubes, so i need to probably get a few more at the next bike shop. i was a ways behind evan and we still had 20 miles to get to dolores and it was getting later; lucky we had a place lined up to crash thanks to warmshowers but i didn't want it to get too late for us to roll into town. so we came up on the town of lewis and took a left to finish the last 11 miles to dolores. the sunset (golden hour) was gorgeous especially we i passd a reservoir; it is surely a beautiful part of colorado. more ups than downs now and took another left to cruise down a hill into dolores, but evan was nowhere to be found. the town isn't that big and normally if someone is ahead of the other they will wait at the beginning of town and then go in together. i cruised up and down main street several times and even the back streets but couldn't find him; i called him and texted him but no answer and it was getting darker out. i called our host, molly, and got directions to her place but was still in search of evan. after some more wandering around i see him pull off main street and into a parking area. i guess he kept going straight at lewis and missed the dolores sign and once he didn't see me for awhile he went back and saw the dolores sign and finally headed into town. we cruised over to molly's house and met her and her "husband" (it's complicated she said. ha) she is super nice and he's funny; she owns the only dog grooming shop in town and she has 2 ferrets. we got settled into our room and got a rundown of the house and which ferret likes to bite. ha. so we steer clear of the white nosed ferret. we then headed down to a brewery to try and grab some dinner but their kitchen just shut down, so we headed home to cook some rice up. i read and fell asleep after a bit.

day 26

2010-06-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

*side note: had a nice update and went to post it and for some reason the autosave function wasn't doing its job and lost it all. i will try my best to retype it.

we got to sleep in for a bit due to our great placement of our tent behind a nice tree that provided shade. sadly when we got out of our tent we were attacked by little annoying bugs. it made life very difficult. we tried to hurry and pack up our things, eat, and sunscreen. i think i got half the swarm stuck to my body because of the sunscreen. we finally got on the road and headed through some more desert canyons. we came to fry station/county which used to be an old motel/gas station but now is a living area for miners; this is the only place between hite and blanding where there is water. so we snuck around back and pumped out some water to refill our bottles. we had 80+ miles to do that day so that water was very beneficial. we had a lot of up and down parts but we were just wanting to get to blanding. we were a handful of miles outside of blanding and we knew we had some elevation to climb up to get into town but we encountered some lame steep graded switchbacks. frustrating and hot but we climbed to the top and we see a gas station! seeing a gas station is huge because 1. you know there is cold water 2. shade 3. possibly a place to get some food. we had been riding for over a hundred miles and there was nothing so it was a huge joy to find that gas station. we rolled in and downed some cold water; we then got a nice cold gatorade. i love water, i can't get enough of it lately, but something other than water is really enjoyable too. you know just something different. we still had 3 miles to get into the town of blanding so we headed that way. we found a restaurant, old timers or something, where we plopped down looking haggard, sweaty, and dirty but it was nice to not be pedaling and on our saddles. we both got chicken fried steak and enjoyed a wonderful salad. after savoring the a/c and coushioned seating we went outside to see that evan's bike had fallen over. sadly his mirror broke and his helmet was pretty banged up too. after some frustrating minutes we headed to the grocery store to get some goods: chips & salsa, chocolate milk, and regular milk. we then went in search of a motel to stay in since we'd been camping and riding hard for the past 5 days. we finally found one for 25 bucks for a double bed, tv, shower, fridge, and a/c. we settled in and got to watch the last game of the stanley cup finals! we devoured our chips and salsa, showered, read, then zonked out. our bodies were very tired and sore but we still had another long days ride to dolores, colorado before we were going to take a rest day.

day 25

2010-06-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

our good friends, the sun and heat woke us up nice and early. begrudgingly we started to pack things up. our other cycling friends, will and alex, headed to blondies for some breakfast and we told them we'd meet them there. we gathered all our stuff and packed it back onto our bikes. we are a bit sluggish in the mornings; we like our sleep and we don't like the heat.there were some super annoying bugs there too so we headed over to blondies to grab some pancakes, eggs, and share a giant cinnemon roll! after some chitchatting and downing bunches of water we said our goodbyes to will and alex and wished them well on the rest of their trip. if you are interested in checking out their blog, it is Will & Alex's Blog. they are riding for autism and have raised a bunch of money for them, so that is super awesome! keep up the good work guys! after running around to the grocery store to pick up cereal for the long stretch ahead we finally left the safety and "society" of hanksville and headed into the desert towards lake powell to hite recreation area. we needed to be smart about conserving water since the only place to fill us would be hite which was 50 miles away and the only gas station there was only open from 11-2 and we arrived at almost 3. we passed through some gorgeous canyon/lake areas but for the most part the view was similar to most of utah. we passed over a couple cool bridges before getting to hite and evan loves to take pictures looking down; it scares me so i held onto his backpack in case something happened but he's an adrenline junkie. ha. we were finishing up an intense climb up a hill to get to the turn off to hite when a UPS driver (we previously met at the grocery store in hanksville that morning) stopped and gave evan and i both nice cold water bottles! he is a guardian angel and i thanked God for blessing us with such a nice person to help us out. wherever you are Mr. UPS man, take care and i hope to be as cherishable as you are. we took the 1 mile turnoff to hite where we found the water spicket and downed all of our water bottles, filled them up, and drank them again. we take water for granted, especially cold water; it is nothing but luxury. we found refuge in the shade of the ranger station which had picnic tables, wifi, and shade! we decided to wait out the heat and try and meet up with our friend tricia and her mom who were coming back to idaho from philadelphia but sadly that didn't work out. nonetheless we read, tried to update the blog, and sweated. even in the shade in almost a 100 degrees the shade is cooler, but not by that much. we then decided to start riding past hite to help with the next days and plus we had to bike at least 7 miles our of national park land to get to BLM land to camp for free. we headed out and evan was having a bit of a hard time with his knees but i was just getting into the groove. we saw a wonderful sunset behind some mountains and came up on a pull off where there was a car loading up. we turned in and met up with chris and his girlfriend/wife (not sure) who were climbing the black hole; it's like a super intense canyon/river hike climbing thing. sounded nuts. they shared some water, couzcus, hard boiled eggs, and cherries with us (so so thankful) and enjoyed their company for a bit. the county rescue leader pulled up and chatted with us for a bit (crazy old guy) but he was super great. i guess navy seals, socom, and other special forces do training out at his property and run through the black hole. everyone went their sparate ways and we set out to find a good spot to setup our tent and not get too distrubed by the sun in the morning. we found a nice spot with softer dirt, not rock hard dry dirt where we set up the tent and cracked open our cans of soup and sat in the dark savoring the sun cooked soups. we were bushed and caught some zzzzzzzs.

day 24 (1,000 miles)

2010-06-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

we situated our tent so we would have some shade in the morning so we didn't have to get up so early, i think we got up around 8 or 8:30 thanks to the heat of the sun. we heard some of the older guys biking up the mountain past our campsite and then i saw a lone tourer taking a quick break. so we packed up our things and started making our way up the mountain, i think we were pretty hesitant but surprisingly the grade for the mountain was very gradual and it was much cooler up there. once we climbed up enough, there started to be birch trees and all we've seen recently was red canyons and sage brushes so this was very exciting for a change of scenery! it was a beautiful day and once we returned a couple lookouts we could see several layers of elevation that dropped down, it was super cool to see but really hard to capture with my camera. we finally ascended to the top of the 9,600 ft summit and took a quick photo op. it was then a long ways down to torrey where we rested at a subway and enjoyed some loaded sandwhiches and a nice cold powerade. down at torrey it got hot again so we were just rehydrating and charging our ipods before we made the trek to hanksville; this was going to end up being a long day. we met up with the lone tourer at subway and chatted for a bit then went our separate ways. he's going from san fran to virginia so that is exciting that we'll be running into him from time to time. from torrey to hanksville we were back in the red canyonlands. we had some hilly parts but for the most part, we had some good straight stretches where we made some good time. there really was nothing between torrey and hanksville so we just kept on pedaling. we passed a sign that was where a movie was being filmed by universal, sorry i can't remember what the name is and it was a ways down a dirt road so we kept heading to town. shortly after that sign, we hit 1,000 miles! so we were pretty jazzed about that, but we still have miles to go before we sleep as robert frost would say. we arrieved in hanksville, exhausted and hungry so we stopped off at blondies which was recommended to us by our tandem friends. so we got delcious burgers and ice cream shakes that were to die for, seriously one of the most delcious shakes i've tasted. while we were devouring our food in walked two young chaps wearing yellow jerseys. they ordered some food and sat next to us and introduced themselves as will and alex. they are biking from new york to san francisco! will is from kenya and alex is from england. we sat and talked for a good time about our trips then decided to find a place to camp for the night. we ended up at a campsite where we talked to the owner and he gave us a campsite for free with showers! this was very nice, so we got cleaned up and sat around and talked for a bit before heading to bed. it was a huge blessing to meet these two, super nice guys who told us some good tips for the next long and hot part of our trip out of utah.

day 23

2010-06-11T11:49:00.000-07:00

Today we rode from escalante to boulder and it was super hot out. we wound through some intense desert canyons and up some 14% grades. it was a bit of a rough day. we were just focused on getting out of the heat and into boulder as soon as possible. granted it was beautiful, but more bearable in a car. i met and chatted with a guy from switzerland at a viewpoint and we also met a mother/son tandem who were biking from colorado to california, so we swapped information and stories for a bit then kept on going. For the most part we just biked and consumed as much water as we could. when we arrived in boulder, we rested at a gas station for they had a nice shaded area and some wifi. let me just tell you that cold water, is magical; our water bottles get heated up so fast in this weather so getting somewhere that has cold water is a God send. while cooling off in the shade, we met three wonderful ladies who were roadtripping and they gave us a HUGE bag of GORP. it has been a lifesaver during this trip, providing us with sweets, protein, and energy. we then biked up a hill to the restaurant where we had dinner; it was a great little restaurant with organic foods and free ranging local beef! we met up and chatted with some older guys who are also touring to colorado but have a support vehicle, so we said our goodbyes and decided to start biking up the mountain to shed some miles for the next day. we biked probably about 4 or 5 miles up the mountain and it was so exhausting so we pulled off the road and found a nice shaded area next to a creek! very hard to find water anywhere in utah and we found some with shade and not on someone's property. we set up camp, read, and just relaxed, getting ready for the climb the next day.

day 22

2010-06-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

today we get back on our bikes and start riding again! after about a week of not riding, we hit the road. got up early and hoofed it back to the road where greg's car was. my bike got super muddy after rolling it through the freshly thawed snow/mud areas. said our goodbyes to greg and thanked him for his hospitality. thank you to the desimone family and to greg for meeting us in zion/taking us to bryce canyon/and for letting us enjoy their beautiful cabin! greg rolled back home to vegas while evan and i slowly loaded our bikes with our gear and changed into our cycling clothes. it was about 25+ miles of almost complete downhill from the cabin to panguitch; passed through some great forested areas where deer frequently cross; rode along the banks of panguitch lake and felt the nice cool air from it as we passed. got into panguitch in no time and waited for evan to meet me since he was having some troubles with his bike; just not his day. problem with his brake and cyclocomputer but he got it figured out but cut the top of his finger off in the process. ouch, luckily we have a first aid kit! we then passed by bryce canyon national park where we enjoyed a nice paved bike path! took in the beautiful sights and kept on going. arrived in tropic where we got some yogurts, fruit, and cold drinks and we also filled up our water bottles. we rested for a bit then kept going on towards escalante. after some long hot stretches we made it into town and went looking for a library to use their internet but no such luck. we just sat in the shade for awhile contemplating our next move. was gonna try and camp in their park but they don't allow camping for some reason so we went to the gas station/subway and filled up our water and heated up our soups and enjoyed some conversation with some locals. we then rode down the road a bit where we set up our tent in a grassy/mole infested lot; we thought we were gonna get yelled at to move but luckily no one came by. we tossed and turned for the whole night and finally zonked out to the tune of the sprinklers in the field next to us.

day 21

2010-06-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

after a long night of jumping on the trampolin, star gazing, and attempting to sleep out on the trampolin we awoke in the early afternoon to enjoy a bountiful feast of french toast and eggs! so delicious. we packed up our gear into greg's car and said our farewells to the beaulieu family. huge thank you's to the beaulieu's! they fed us like kings, cleaned us up, shuttled us around, took us swimming and hiking, as well as made us apart of their family (well i guess evan is apart of their family). ha so maybe just being super awesome! ron and michelle have huge hearts and am so glad evan connected with them and their kids are loads of fun and super nice. i was surprised to see a family of 7 cooperate so well. we then cruised on up to greg's cabin, which is awesome! his mom custom made it all and it even has a trap door! we sat around for a couple minutes and decided we'd rather go sightseeing at bryce canyon national park! took a little drive over there and got to hike around for a bit. it is so amazingly beautiful there, reminds me of star wars and the sand people. saw some major areas then headed to panguitch to get some dinner at a cowboy restaurant where we got some steak, potato salad, and i got yams. it was so good. headed towards the cabin but made a little detour at a lookout to take in the sunset. it was gorgeous and we were not even at the best vantage area but we made do. did some hiking and some picture taking. lots of fun running up and down the rocks. finished our day by relaxing on the couch and watching seven at gregs cabin. such a wonderful day and got some sleep to get ready for biking.

new article

2010-06-08T15:26:00.001-07:00

just saw that they published my write up in the boise weekly, check it out! Boise based SF to Boston trip

updates coming soon

2010-06-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

we are in hanksville, utah where we head towards blanding and it's about 160+ miles of nothing in between and its in the high 90s! have been camping for the past 4 nights and haven't had time/wifi to update. sorry everyone but updates to come. maybe in 3 days or hopefully less! take care and stay hydrated, i know we're trying.

day 20

2010-06-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

today we got up early to pack things up and head to zion for one last adventure. we hit up an orchard market where we got pears, apples, and apple cider. they were all super good. greg, evo, and i decided to hike observation point which was a 8 mile roundtrip hike where we gained a couple thousand feet of elevation. it took us about 4 hrs and it was a really pretty hike. lots of switchbacks to some cool water tunnels carved through the mountain to more mountain switchbacks to a flattened out section at the top where we were led by a bright red trail among a lush forest of trees, flowers, and cactus'. once at the top we sat at the edge and checked out angels landing and then something on top of one of the cliffs that looked like a stonehenge. there were some birds that were swooping soooo fast by us it was kind of scary. we couldn't see them but could hear them whoosh and feel the wind from them. we snapped some pics of each of us then did a group pic and headed down the trail. we ran a good portion down the trail and once at the bottom we hit up the weeping rock. it was a waterfall down the rock face that dripped down. it was a nice day of hiking. we headed back on the bus to greg's car and we headed up to cedar city where we picked up evo's new rim. we came back to ron and michelle's to do a load of laundry, wash up, and upload the blog. evan and greg took the bikes up to greg's cabin in panguitch while i stayed behind to update the blog and they will head back and pick me up.