The good:

-We made it! We completed our final day of biking and mailed home our bikes and our extra things!

-We are staying with a nice couchsurfer.



The bad:

-It cost nearly as much as one of our plane tickets home to ship Calum's and my junk.

-Greyhound is a horrible company and due to some ridiculousness we are stranded here an extra day. On Monday we may or may not be able to pay an extra 15$ each to ride out that day, assuming they have space on Monday's bus. Horrible.

again, running out of time on the computer. More later, I swear.

Hi!

I only have 3 minutes left on my computer time, but I just wanted to say that we are alive and well and slowly working our way down the coast and into California to fly home!

Its basically amazing...I'll write all about it at another library somewhere down the road.

(This was a recovered draft that I wrote at the library in Aunt Inez's town. The comupter shut off on me without warning and I wasn't allowed to get back on! We are in Portland now, but the same thing is about to happen, so I will have to pick up again later.)




Our stay in Missoula was fantastic. Nicky's house was cozy and amazing and we had a great time relaxing. We went to the grocery store and got ingredients for a fantastic dinner since we had the use of an oven for once. We also bought wine and things for breakfast. I made eggplant papoutsakia and "the pasta", and the boys all chopped for me. We stayed up late eating and drinking and listening to music and showering. Justin made us some wonderful french toast in the morning, and we lounged around until Aunt Inez came to get us around 2. Justin sadly had to depart, and we took pictures and said goodbye. He also gave me and Calum a cd he got from a man in Pueblo which is basically my new favorite music.

We've been at Aunt Inez's ever since, doing various things and relaxing and eating extremely well. Montana and Idaho are some of nicest states we've been to in terms of scenery and weather, and we've had a good time just looking at things from the car and walking around Coeur d'Alene. Yesterday we rented a Hobie Cat and went sailing around Coeur d'Alene lake and it was great. The weather was cold and windy in the morning, but it warmed up pretty quickly and the water was strangely warm the whole time. We stopped at a dock for lunch, and took turns going out in twos for the rest of the day. I had never been on a sailboat of any kind, so it was a fun new thing for me.

Tomorrow we are getting dropped off somewhere in Washington, and going to make our slow way to Portland.

Hurray!

The art teacher from Alaska turned out to be a nutty lady named Peggy who was origionally from Dillon, and had returned from Alaska for the summer to run an art camp and clean out her house to be sold.

She was totally wild. Sweet, but kind of crazy. She told great stories, but they poured out of her mouth in a constant stream. At least her stories were much better than Storyteller's. She was also much nicer.

Calum and I had beds, Trevor a couch, and Justin and Mike camped in the yard. She had a beautiful property with a river running through it, and by the time we left I felt like I knew all about the place from her stories. We spent a good night and were given coffee and cereal in the morning; a nice treat.

Trevor was having knee problems and decided to hitchike over the two mountain passes we had ahead of us. I was experiencing general leg pain and laziness, so I decided to go with him under the thin guise that people shouldn't hitchike alone. The road was underpopulated and we were worried we might have to wait awhile, but the first truck Trevor flagged down stopped for us. They were an elderly couple from Montana who were in the area for a highschool reunion (they went to the same highschool!). The guy, Bobby, seemed to be showing some early signs of alzheimers, but they were both very nice. They insisted on taking us to visit a ghost town where Trevor and I took a self-guided tour of all the buildings. That place had a crazy history. A lot of wild things happened, but the best was probably when the town vigilantes hung the sherrif because he turned out to be the leader of a band of highwaymen called "The Innocents". Very "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance".

They took us all the way to Wisdom, where we set up camp at a free park just outside of town. I went to get groceries and wait for Calum since I couldn't get him on the phone and was worried he wouldn't know where to go to camp. Mostly I just missed him.

There was no cell service in that town for any of our networks and the payphone was broken. Very inconvenient. But the park was great! Free camping is always great. A French Canadian couple touring from Canada to Yellowstone and back camped there as well. We didn't talk to them much since they didn't speak much English but evidently Trevor, Mike and Justin saw both of them completely naked when they bathed at the spigot in full view of all of them and the road. I was in my tent and missed it. Sadly?

The next day we climbed beautiful Chief Joseph Pass, and Trevor made it just fine. It was down-hill the rest of the day to Hamilton. Unfortunately, it was also against the wind which got to me after awhile.

In Hamilton we camped in the front yard of a man Justin and Mike met before we got there and whom I never actually saw. It was uneventful and NOT FREEZING for once.

Today we rode downhill all day from Hamilton to Missoula. I bought some delicious cherries at a farmer's market which was wonderful. Now we are about to head over to the house of a woman we met at the library in Dillon. She heard us talking about our trip and that we needed a place to stay in Missoula and offered us her house. She teaches a course about alternative energy and conservation that is taught while on a month-long bike trip across Montana. She wont be there, so we will have a quiet, easy night to ourselves complete with showers!

Tomorrow my Aunt Inez is picking up Calum, Trevor, Mike and I and taking us to her house in Idaho for a few days. I haven't seen her in awhile so I am excited. We are all excited for the oppourtunity to spend a few days in a house. Hopefully we will see Justin again in Oregon...

We all got great rides to the gates of Teton National Park. The guy who gave me and Calum a ride wasn't even going that way, but offered to drive us 120 miles just for kicks.

Upon being dropped off at the Tetons, we were immediately swarmed with Mosquitos. It has been a problem ever since. The Tetons themselves were beautiful, but I was not impressed with the park. It was expensive and overcrowded with dumb people. We got into Yellowstone the next day, which was also overcrowded and expensive- but it has many geo-thermal wonders, so its kind of worth it. We spent 4 days there taking in the general amazingness. We were going to take a tour of the park to be sure to see everything in a shorter time frame than we would need in order to bike it, buuuuuut they were like 70$. So we decided to hitchike around the park loop from one geothermal wonder to the next. We split up once again, and Calum and I got several great rides and hit all the sights.

Sadly, due to the fact that Mike looks like an ax murderer, Trevor and Mike never got a ride out of camp and spent all day reading and napping. It was quite tragic.

We set out to camp about 25 miles west of the town of West Yellowstone, but I was overcome by a random bout of horrible nausea, and had to spend about 20 minutes throwing up in the woods. It was a waste of a subway lunch, for sure. We turned back since we hadn't made it far, and camped 2 miles outside of town with a couple we had first met in Wyoming, and an Australian guy we met in Yellowstone.

The next day we did about 70 miles to Ennis. We all made good time, but everyone else was ahead and Calum and I got caught in a rainstorm about 10 miles outside of town and decided to try and wait it out. It became obvious that it was never going to end so we just went on, but we wasted about 2 hours that way, and spent a wet and grumpy night at a fishing access in town with the same group as the night before.

Monata is beautiful but it has freakish weather. The next day we were going to try to make it to Twin Bridges at the least and Dillon at the most, but we had storms once again. Mike, Calum and I met up with Justin, a rider from Wisconsin whom we first met in Kansas (he was part of the rival hoarde) in a town called Virginia City. Trevor was missing, and since none of us had passed him we assumed he had hitched over the mountain and past us. It was quite late by then, so we set out for Twin Bridges after eating some delicious huckleberry icecream.

It was a beautiful day, but suddenly the sky started to cloud up. Someone had told us there was a severe storm warning for later that evening, so we sped up. The sky to our left got angrier and angrier, and turned a strange icy aqua color. The wind picked up, and we rode on as the lightning started. Calum and I made it into the town of Sheriden literally just in time. As soon as we got onto main street, I had to get off my bike because I was in danger of being blown over and my eyes were full of dust. A shop owner invited us in and we watched the storm from there. It dropped golf-ball sized hail and immediately flooded the streets.

Camping was out of the question since there were massive ice floods and it was still raining, so once the hail stopped we ran to a motel up the street and I got us a room. My mom paid for it! It was a nice break, even though it meant that we had to stop for the day. It was definitely great to take a shower since I hadn't had a real one since Laramie (showers in Yellowstone cost 3.50$). Sadly, Trevor had made it to Twin Bridges so he wasn't with us that night.

This morning was kind of slow, and now we are in Dillon, which isn't far from Sheriden at all. But there are no towns between here and 49 miles away, so we thought it best to stop.

The KOA costs 26$ per tent, absurd, but luckily, Calum's winning charm and fabulous good looks landed us a place to stay. Apparently it is with an art teacher from Alaska?

Ok.

Rawlins continued:

So on our ride from Fort Collins to Eagles Nest open space, a guy pulled over to talk to me. It turned out that he was an editor for Velo News, a big deal bike racing magazine that Calum reads all the time. He invited us to stay with him when we got to Laramie. This was pretty exciting for all of us, especially Calum, because this guy Charles has Calum's dream job.

Anyway, we left Eagle's nest open space in the morning and set out for Laramie. We figured it would be no big deal since it was only 40 miles, but this was the day we would cross into Wyoming, and our first experience with Wyoming wind. It took us literally 4 and half hours to go 15 miles. It was excruciating. Beautiful terrain, but an excruciating ride. At about 1:30 we realized that at the rate we were going we wouldn't get to Laramie until about 10:30, which was not ok since we wanted to visit with this guy Charles. So we hitch hiked.

We thought it would take forever since we were in a weird place, but almost immediately a girl stopped for us. Evidently she had crossed the country in 2002 and knew our plight. She really only had room for one, so I went with her and left Trevor and Calum to wait for a scary old man or something. When we got to Laramie, I found that the guys still hadn't had any luck, so Amber (my hitch hikee) asked her husband Lindse if he owuld go get the guys in the truck. I felt bad but everyone seemed more than willing and we all ended up in Laramie. The hitch hiking turned out to be a really good idea, because just as we were loading Calum's bike into the truck, his derailer hanger snapped in half, which could have been bad news if it had happened while riding.

Laramie was really cool and completely not representative of Wyoming. We took showers and had beers at Amber and Lindse's, and headed to Charles' which turned out to only be 4 blocks away, which was lucky since Calum's bike was unridable. We camped in the back yard, ate pasta with his family (which Mike arrived just in time for), and watched The Triplets of Belleville on the couch that Greg Lemond once slept on. It was a great stay and Charles was great to talk to and his daughter Annika is probably my favorite third grader in the world. We chilled with some American Girl dolls.

In the morning we went to a free all you can eat pancake breakfast that was happening in town, which was awesome. We also went to the bike shop, which totally hooked us up. They tuned up our bikes, fixed Calums, and only charged 5 dollars in total for labor.

The ride from Laramie sucked. We were heading for a pass over the snowy range which would hook us back up with our trail and was supposed to be beautiful. But we were heading straight into the wind again, and it was painful. Even robot Mike got discouraged. We only made it like 28 miles, to the town of Centennial. It was basically a resort town, and I tried in vain to find a restaurant from which to get take out that served something other than steak. I was too tired from the ride to cook, but we ended up having to anyway.

We camped in the park, which was a little lot behind a dinner theatre. They were putting on "Greater Tuna", and actors kept running lines behind the restaurant. It was entertaining.

The next day we had the most beautiful ride ever. We lucked out with a rare wind-free day, and made the slow 12 mile climb up the medicine bow range. It was so amazing that I didn't even mind the fact that I had to ride my bike up a giant mountain. When we got to the top, it was cold! We actually played in the snow. The view was indescribable and the ride down was filled with alpine lakes and wild flowers.

We arrived in Saratoga for the night, and the reality of Wyoming's lameness began to set in. We camped in this nasty little campground full of mosquitoes. However, the town did have a natural hotspring and free showers, so that worked out well. The hot spring was almost too hot, but felt amazing once you were in.

We rode 40 miles into the wind the next day to Rawlins, which is the worst place ever. We have never before been denied help finding a place to stay by both the police and the fire department. It was depressing. We finally knocked on the door of a house attached to a garage bearing the sign "Todd's cycle shop". It turned out that Todd was long deceased, but the current occupent, Gary, allowed us to camp in the yard. We were terribly grateful.

That night we did some mapping and discovered that we were behind schedule. We decided that since Wyoming was sucking, we would rather skip it that have to skip the end of the trail, which is in Oregon and beautiful. Plus if we make good time, we can ride down the coast a bit to San Fransisco, which is where our plane leaves from.

Soooooo we hitch hiked. We split into teams of Calum and I and Mike and Trevor, and decided to race to Yellowstone. We thought we might be split up for a day or two, but miraculously we both got rides at the exact same time all the way to Landers.

Both of us had pretty great hitch hikee experiences, which was awesome because we were out there for quite some time. Rawlins was not a good place.

Landers is very nice. We camped in the park and now we are at the library. We are hitching again today to get to the Tetons, then we will start riding again through Yellowstone which will be amazing!

The rest of the group is very far away and it is sad. They didn't return our calls for 2 days before the hitch hiking started, so we couldn't really discuss our plans with them. They are on their way to Casper so Dan can take the foreign service exam, but they wont leave Casper until Friday, and if we wait that long for them we will never make our flight in time. They are not on a time schedule at all, so its not as important for them. I am afraid we may never meet up again and that is awful. I miss the hoarde.

No offense to anyone who is from Wyoming or really really likes it, but...

Wyoming sucks.

I'm sure its a great place and all, but its awful to ride bikes in. Worse than Kentucky and Kansas put together. Maybe. Drivers are rude, people are unhospitible and suspicious, it is impossible to eat a meal here that does not contain beef, and the wind blows in our faces, steadily and hard.

So it sucks and we want to get out of here as soon as possible.

Calum and I successfully found a couch surfer in Boulder and had yet another great couch surfing experience.

I cannot say enough that Boulder, and Colorado in general, is the greatest place yet. We had a great time, and wild things kept happening to us. After we touched base with our couch surfer, Calum and I went on a small hike and climbed around on some giant red rocks over looking the city, which was amazing. Afterwards, we were very hungry so we decided to get some Chipotle, the cyclist's fast-ish food of choice. When we got to Chipotle, there were some Patagonia-clad dudes having some burritos and beers on the patio who inquired about our bikes, luggage, and trip in general. We got to talking with them, and it turned out that one of the guys, Johnny, runs an adventure film festival and that they have mini screenings on the first Monday of every month at a local coffee shop. He invited us to put together a slide show of our trip pictures, and make a little presentation. Totally wild.

This was happening in about an hour and a half, so Johnny loaned Calum his laptop, and he sat outside of Chipotle and put together a chronological presentation of our trip so far. We called the rest of the group, minus Stavros who was apparently on a hot date, and Mike who was in Fort Collins already. We all stood up at the front of this coffee shop/bar place and put our presentation on a giant flat screen TV, and me and Calum talked about our trip. I couldn't possibly imagine that these people would find our lives interesting, but they seemed to. We got alot of laughs and a bottle of wine on Johnny for our trouble.

We spent the night at our couch surfer's house, and in the morning Calum, Trevor and I hopped on a bus to a town about 35 miles south of Fort Collins and rode the rest of the way. We were a bit concerned because it was already 6pm by the time we started riding, but we had an amazing tail wind and made great time.

That night we stayed in a park in town, totally illegally (Fort Collins is too big a place to allow that...its also not on route). We found a secluded spot and actually talked to a cop after we set up, who seemed to not care at all. We got rained on by sprinklers at about 5am, and bothered by a lawn mower man, but other than that it was no problem.

Trevor, Calum and I left Fort Collins pretty late the next day and only made it about 25 miles. We camped at the most beautiful spot ever, surrounded by mountains in a place called Eagle's Nest open space. We weren't technically supposed to camp there either...but we did.

Alright I am getting kicked off the computer, but I will finish later.

Boulder is awesome. Very very awesome.

We took a commuter bus here from Denver for 4$, because we decided that riding through 40 miles of urban sprawl would be less than enjoyable. Last night the group (minus Mike who is in Fort Collins with Alice) couch surfed, and Calum and I got a motel because there wasn't room for us all. We walked around town, got an excellent pizza, and watched stupid movies. We were going to leave this morning, but now we are trying to figure out a way to stay another night because this place is pretty cool. I just sent out a bunch of couch surfing emails, hopefully someone replies.

Calum took lots of pictures of the town, so we will have to show them to you, but basically it is extremely bike friendly and has tons of shops and restaurants and a great library. It is also nestled at the foot of some giant mountains, so its basically beautiful.

On our second night in Denver we spent our dinner donation from Bear on a magnificent Mediterranean feast. It was delicious, thanks Bear!

We also formed a primitive government that night at our usual tribal. Naturally, I am the queen. I am mostly a figurehead and a diplomat, and I work closely with Dan, the prime minister. Dan is also on the war committee with Calum, of course. Trevor is the legal department and Mike and Starvros are the navigational committee. Nathan and Stavros are public liaisons. Also Calum and I are council hosts, as the nightly tribal council happens in our tent, and we generally start and end it.

I'm pretty sure that if we did this long enough we would form an entire nomadic culture. We started forming our own dialect almost immediately and its getting worse.

Well, I am off to find some coffee and hopefully call some couch surfers.

So we loitered over our pancakes that morning in Hutchenson for quite awhile. The rain was a very long time slowing down, and we had to visit the bike shop and the post office, so we eventually decided to call it another rest day and just ride 10 miles on to Nickerson, mostly just to give Trevor's uncle back his house.

Ten miles seemed impossibly short. On the way into Nickerson we passed some sort of petting zoo/bed and breakfast with a ton of crazy ostriches running around in the yard. They are basically dinosaurs. One of them was really aggressive and I was pretty sure it was thinking about hopping the fence and eating us. That would certainly have made headlines.

After we got to our campsite, another Mongol hoard arrived to camp in the same spot. I must admit, I immediately got prickly at the site of the invaders. Pack mentality? We camped with them two more times, until we turned north off the trail to go to Denver and Boulder. Luckily. Any longer and I believe Dan and Calum might have organized some sort of battle.

Crossing the border from Kansas to Colorado was pretty exciting. Western Kansas had gotten pretty monotonous and boring and I was really sick of being able to see the next town from about 12 miles away. It was excruciating.

About 10 miles from the border Calum completely jinxed us by commenting that he was sad to have missed out on a Kansas tornado experience. Practically immediately, the wind whipped up and a very looming cloud appeared. Calum and I started riding faster to the next town, where the rest of the group was already waiting. The weather got crazier and crazier and the looming cloud sprouted lightning and a tail. It was a giant funnel cloud. It kept going back and forth between having a tail and not having a tail, and I don't think a tornado actually formed, but it was pretty nuts. I rode as quickly as I probably ever have, even faster than the time I saw that bear, because I could see the town getting closer. Calum was taking his sweet time taking pictures and videos, because he is insane.

We crossed the border and arrived in Towner, CO. It wasn't our planned stop, but we thought it seemed like a good idea, considering the weather. We spent the night in that basement of a tiny church (minus Mike, who was already in the next town with the rival hoard. Traitor).It was quite a relief not to have to pitch a tent in that weather.

The next day we made it to some crazy town called Wild Horse, which had about 3 inhabitants. I'm pretty sure I am not exaggerating. When we arrived we talked to a local woman and her dad, who told us we could camp by the old school house. They also tld us there was tornado about 25 miles away.

We were pretty freaked out and really wanted to be somewhere away from the impending wind, hail, and general doom. We ended up putting our tents up in an abandonded quonset. Dan, Calum and I weathered the worst of the storm in a post office lobby which was near our designated tornado ditch. We all made our way down to the ditch in our rain gear, helmets and headlights through increadibly strong wind. It was rather like being on another planet dressed in space gear...or like being in the apacolypse, we couldn't decide which was more accurate. When we got to the ditch, we found it full of tumble weeds and rather inhospitable. The others walked back to the quonset, but we headed for said post office, as it was much closer to the ditch in case of an emergency.

After everything died down, we went back and went to sleep. Not a great night overall, as the quonset floor was literally covered with bird feces. We are all still waiting for someone to show signs of SARS or something. I missed dinner that night and woke up ravenous and out of water.

The ride the next day was beautiful. I think Colorado is going to be one of my favorite places. At a stopover at a Wendy's, we talked awhile to a biker of the motorcycle persuasion named Bear. He was so astouded that we would attempt to cross the country by bicycle that he gave us a 50$ donation towards a group dinner! He was awesome. We havn't been in a position to spend it yet, but we are looking forward to it. We basically look forward to anything involving food. We spent that night in a hay barn offered to us by a rancher. It hailed again, so we were glad to be under cover. Incidentally, the hay was also full of feces. Rabbit maybe? We're going to get the Hanta virus.

Now we are in Denver at Mike's girlfriend's parents house, and very glad to no longer be sleeping in poop. We saw fireworks last night for the 4th, and camped in the backyard after a delightful lasagna dinner. We are taking the day off here, and then going to Boulder. Some of us are taking more time off there, but Trevor, Calum and I are moving on in the interest of getting to Yellowstone and not having to pull any more 90 mile days.

Well, we are off to purchase long underwear and such for the coming mountains. Oh we can see them now! They have snow!

oh, this is Mike's blog for those of you who don't have it. http://www.clockworko.blogspot.com/

Well I basically haven't updated this in awhile. We've seem to never be near a library during business hours lately.

Anyway, Carbondale was awesome, but that seems like a million years ago now. It was our first collective couch surfing experience and we stayed with some great people. Some of them go to Southern Illinois University. Like I said before, it was nice to be in a city with more than 2,000 inhabitants and more than 3 stores.

Some people broke down and got rescued in the car, Dan and I took a salsa lesson, Stavros and Dan later went to a crazy hippie barn party, and the rest of us had a whole empty house in which to sleep. The neighbors of the people who were hosting us were away for the weekend and offered their house to us. Which was awesome. We took a rest day the next day and Phillipe and Ashley (our hosts) had a potluck in the park for us, where we all tried slack lining. Its where a flat fabric strap about 2 inches wide is strung between two trees (or the like) using a tension system. Then you attempt to walk across it. It isn't very high off the ground, and very fun.

From there we went into Missouri, which apparently is full of the Ozark mountains. Somehow, most of us were fairly unprepared for this. It basically sucked. We spent the next few days slowly making our way up a seemingly endless supply of hills. It was like a self-propelled roller coaster. It was much worse than the Appalachians, but alot less wide, so we were through them much faster. Trevor injured himself on the first day, go figure, so he took a bus to Saint Louis and then to Springfield to meet up with us later. He's a mess.

Probably the coolest place we stayed in Missouri was....Centerville, I believe? We actually stopped just outside of town so I have no memory of what the town actually looks like. We camped in a beautiful riverbed. The water was shallow and crystal clear, and the bottom was lined with tiny round stones. It was absolutely perfect and the site of our first legitimate camp fire (usually we make them in park grills or just use our stoves). We all bathed in the river (using natural, biodegradable soap of course), and it amused me to know that a motorist crossing the bridge would see a girl standing ankle-deep in the river shaving her legs.

Other than that we've been staying in a series of city parks under pavilions. It seems a little like we stay in the same place every night, it just sort of moves and reconfigures itself. Ever since our group has been reunited, we've started calling ourselves the Mongol hoard. We've been becoming less and less civilized, and we just sort of descend on a town and take over their park and start building fires and doing laundry in water fountains. We've developed attack formations, hand signals, and communication cries. We crossed Missouri in this fashion, and entered Kansas.

Kansas is flat and windy and hot, and getting flatter and windier and hotter. I was pretty unimpressed until we took a detour to Wichita to stay with more couch surfers. Our host, Tim, is one of the most genuinely nice and enjoyable people I have ever met. Nice can sometimes mean boring, but this is definitely not the case with Time. He and his housemates are all music majors at Wichita State University (whose mascot is an angry bundle of wheat), and if Tim is an accurate representation, they are all very talented. Calum took a couple videos of Tim playing violin. It was quite amazing.

We arrived there after a long day of riding into the wind (Trevor hitched a ride with a truck because his knee is bothering him), and we all showered and then were introduced to about a million people. Tim took Calum and Stavros to a bar called the anchor. I couldn't go because I am underage, but I hear it was kind of special. Apparently the inside was covered with diamond-plate.

We got to sleep in beds! Well, Calum and I got to. Everyone else slept on comfortable couches and carpets. Also there was a very cute puppy named Holden. He was soft and energetic.

In the morning, Tim brought us all bagels and cream cheese from Panera. SO GOOD. Trevor's uncle was picking him up later in the day to take him to Hutchenson, where we would stay with him, because his knee is still unhappy. I was talking about how I wished I could take a day off too and do some things. Tim immediately offered to drive me! He said he really had nothing to do and wouldn't mind at all. We figured out that between Trevor's uncle's car and Tim's car we could also work Calum in there, so he stayed back too, and everyone else eventually moved on via bicycle.

Oh, Dan bought a backpacking guitar in Witchita, so that's cool.

Tim, Calum, me, and this other couch surfer named Evan all went to a small water park! It was pretty excellent, there were slides. I felt like a giant freak because of my crazy tan lines.
After, Calum and I took Evan and Tim (and Trevor, who we picked up. He didn't feel like water parking)to lunch at a delicious pizza place. Then we went back to the house, played some Rockband, and packed up the car and drove to Hutchenson. Rockband was crazy...mostly I sang, and it blew my mind that the game could actually measure my pitch, and that was what my score was based on. I did pretty well, surprisingly.

Anyway, so now we are in Hutchenson, it is morning. We were going to leave at a reasonable time but there was a heinous thunderstorm, so we are waiting it out. We are also waiting for our pancakes to be ready! Trevor's uncle also made us baked ziti last night. We got showers, slept in beds again, and did laundry. A great visit. We had planned to aim for Larned (sp?), but I don't know what we will do now. Wherever we go, Trevor will get on last ride there in the hopes that his knee calms down.

mmmmmmmm, pancakes.....

We crossed the Missippi river! It was large and brown.

Ok, so we didn't quite make it to our destination from Marion, but we did cross into Illinois that day, at least. That was really cool, we got to ride a ferry across the Ohio river...and I think we also left the cicadas in Kentucky, though they may have dissapeared before Marion. I pretty much can't remember anything, I actually just asked Mike what town we are currently in...Its getting bad.

It stormed like crazy that day, and the group never made it to Trevor's and my switching point. They holed up in Elizabethtown, about 25 miles from Marion, where they met two guys going the other way. I had stopped there briefly to pick up my AWESOME package from my Mom, but then went on. I was pretty far down the road when I finally got cell service again and was able to call and check on the guys (and Michelle). They weren't sure what they were doing at that point so I waited awhile until they decided they weren't going further, then I turned around and drove back to Elizabethtown. Luckily I saw Mike on the way, who had gotten seperated and hadn't been informed of the decision to stay the night. He was about 13 miles out, so we crammed his things into the car and I drove him back.

The church was nice, we slept in Sunday school classrooms and woke up at about 5am to pull out an 80+ mile day to Carbondale, where Stavros had arranged for some couch surfers to host us. Trevor and I decided to actually split that day, so Mike drove out to the spot I had picked him up at the day before, then Trevor drove to a spot about halfway, and then I drove to Carbondale. Calum rode with me so that we could do some things when we got there. We had just come across a giant expanse of nothingness, so we had some things to get.

We arrived in Carbondale, got lunch, and headed for the library. I left Calum there to read and write, and I walked around town looking for biking things and flip-flops (I left mine in Elizabethtown). The town was really nice after going through a million tiny towns with no stores in Kentucky. They had an awesome coffee shop with really good vegetarian food, and a little corner market that sold organic food. I was basically really excited to eat things that I am used to eating.

urg...more later, must leave!

We are in carbondale taking a day off. it is pretty awesome but I am very sleepy and will have to talk about it later.

Whoever decided we were going to make it to Mammoth Cave the other day was clearly smoking crack (Stavros), because it was about 150 miles from where we were. Instead, we aimed for Loretto, which was off-route but only slightly and very near the Maker's mark distillery, which Dan wanted to tour.

I honestly can't remember the ride that day, I guess it was fairly uneventful. It was seriously hot though, I do remember that. Just before we got into Loretto, we saw this giant piece of property on the right which bore the sign "Loretto Motherhouse". It was a convent of the Loretto Nuns, and we decided to go up there and see if they had a place we could camp for the night.

Since I am the official group ambassador, I went into the office to look for someone. The receptionist wasn't there, and someone told me she would be back in about 20 minutes, so I went out to wait with the guys. A couple of nuns walked by (more like jogged--these women were weirdly spry), so I ran then down to see if they could help us out. One of them made some calls and got permission for us to camp by one of the lakes.

It was absolutely beautiful out there!The whole place was, actually. They were a pretty liberal-type of nuns, it seemed. All of them were in normal clothes and there was a big art studio and gallery for one of the sisters who was also a sculptor. The place was also a working farm with big, rolling fields of wheat and corn and cows. The sisters were incredibly nice. They seemed very sad that they didn't know we were coming, and that all of their dormitories were currently full of summer volunteers from their girls' schools around the country.

When we got out to the lake, a troop of these volunteer girls came walking up. They were giggly and loud and seemed quite pleased to find a bunch of half-dressed college guys on their convent. And me, of course, though I can't imagine I was all that exciting.

After they fiiiiinally left, Dan, Calum and I got in the lake to take a bath. We were pretty dirty. While Calum and I were still swimming, a gigantic storm whipped up out of no where. Lightning struck very close and we booked it to the shore. We had very little time to get our things in order, and we all huddled together in the center of our pavilion. Wind started blowing almost 50 mph, and rain and hail followed. The wind was blowing it sideways, so we got pretty pelted. I had managed to get my rain jacket on, but Calum still wasn't wearing a shirt so I tried to cover him so he wouldn't get all stung by the hail. However, I still didn't have anything on my legs from swimming in the lake, so those got pretty battered. Luckily it was all over pretty fast, and the rest of the night was relatively calm except for thunder and lightning in the distance. The whole thing was quite weird.

In the morning, Calum, Mike and I set off for a point on the map with a camping symbol. It wasn't in a town, but I do know that it was about 5 miles before the time zone changes to central time. Dan and Stavros went to tour Maker's Mark. The day was a bit cooler thanks to the rain, so the ride was nice.

When we got to our destination, we found that it was actually a family-run general store, and that the family had dinner ready for us (I had called ahead)and showers waiting. Two other bikers were there going the other way. Everyone was amazing, and we camped in the yard for the night and traveled into central time in the morning.

I believe this was the day we rode to Utica, KY and camped in the fire station there. That night, at about 4am, Trevor, Nathan and Michelle finally re-joined us in Nathan's car! So now we are all together. I volunteered to drive the car the next day, since I never really took the day off that the doctor in Hazard recommended, and I am still sort of having issues.

The break was pretty sweet after two 70 mile days in a row, I'm not going to lie. When I first got in the car, I was pretty sure I had forgotten how to drive, and it took me a good 45 minutes to remember that I could travel faster than 25 mph. Pretty much as soon as I got to our destination, Marion, Trevor called me and asked if I could come and get him. Evidently he was having a bad day. His heel was fine, but he was chased by a pack of dogs at one point, and later stabbed himself in the leg...I didn't know what that meant. I went to go get him, and discovered that he had literally stabbed himself in the leg. Himself. With a knife. Apparently he was trying to cut the bandage off his heel because it was annoying, and the knife slipped and he stabbed himself almost an inch deep in his thigh. Since it was a puncture wound inflicted with a dirty knife, we decided to seek medical help. We found the hospital and they got him all fixed up, with a stitch just in case.

It sounds very dramatic, but it was actually just really funny. Trevor wasn't in much pain and he mostly just felt dumb for doing it. The doctors at the hospital made fun of him.

Anyway, we camped in a town park, and today we are heading for a camping point about 40 miles east of Carbondale Illinois. We cross another state line today! I am splitting up driving with Trevor. I will stop half-way and wait for him to catch up, and then I will get on my bike and he will drive.
I think Michelle is going back tomorrow, I thought she was staying till the end but I was wrong. Its raining today, I hope it stops before I have to ride!

Hmmm, I'm having sort of a hard time remembering what has happened since my last post. I should have brought my journal into the library with me...

We stayed two nights in Damascus since we arrived so late on the first night. We did our laundry and bought some things at the numerous outfitting shops. I met alot of people there, mostly hiking the trail. Evidently AT hikers all have crazy nicknames like DirtyFeet and Spam...so I don't actually know anyone's real names and will never be able to find them again. DirtyFeet was this whacky girl from Eugene, OR with big giant dreads. She may have been my favorite. There was also this man named Storyteller who pretty much did not stop talking for the entire time we were there...I am in no way exaggerating. He had this way of talking to you that made it impossible for you to leave without being incredibly rude. So he wasted alot of my life making me listen to his addled views on reality. He cornered me and Calum in the dinning room for a good hour as we were on our way out for a walk. He apparently needed to talk at us about how we were going to one day cheat on each other and how we needed to develop a contingency plan immediately. It was completely absurd, but he was pretty set in his ideas about relationships and people in general, it would seem.

At one point we were all sitting outside messing around and showing each other card tricks, and this man named Punchline came up and just...put everyone to shame. It turns out that at one time he was the number 5 card manipulator in the world, and now he does standup. I've never seen card tricks like that in my life! There is no way to describe it. He was terribly entertaining.

In Damascus, Dan and Stavros set off for Ashville with plans to meet up with us later, and Calum, Mike and I continued along the trail into Kentucky. The first night we made it to Council, VA. We camped in a town park where we met up with another kid named Mike whom we had met at the hostel. He left way after us but he is pretty speedy. It was a good day.

I saw a bear! I think this was the day I saw the bear...It was on Clinch Mountain in VA. I was behind the guys going very slowly up a giant mountain, when a bear just came out of the brush on the left side of the road, obviously meaning to cross. It saw me, and we both sort of stopped and looked at each other, and then the bear sort of loped across the road and I turned my bike around and went down the hill! I was going so slow that I didn't want to try and pass it going up-hill. I know black bears are not ussually aggressive but I was worried it might have cubs...plus it was way bigger than me!

I waited awhile and then went back up the mountain. When I got to the spot again, there was the bear, on the other side of the road, looking at me! I peddled extremly quickly. I made it up that mountain faster than I ever thought possible, clutching my newly-purchased dog repellent spray the whole time.

The next day we crossed the border into Kentucky. It stormed all day and it was rather miserable so we didn't make it far at all, probably about 35 miles. We wasted alot of time at the Breaks inter-state park trying to find this guest book that the map asked us to sign. It was to record the number of cyclists crossing VA and to help VA get more funding for bicycle tourism, so we really wanted to sign it. Also we looked at this little coal-mining museum they had. Anyway, we spent that night just over the border in a town called East Elkhorn. As soon as we crossed into Kentucky life became significantly less bike-friendly, and we had no idea where we were going to sleep that night. It was getting late and no one seemed to be around to ask. We called the sheriff, who was completely unhelpful, and continued riding around town. I finally wandered into a church and found these ladies haveing a meeting and a potluck. They said we could sleep in the church and then they fed us copious amounts of potato salad and cake. Wonderful.

Then, we rode to a town called Hindman. There is an amazing man there named David who runs the Knott Country Historical Society and a B+B for cyclists. He is a former actor from DC and was great to talk to.

That day started out really well but turned quite awful. We were about 30 miles from Hindman when we stopped at a gas station and some woman convinced us to take a short cut. Horrible idea. Calum and I got sperated from Mike and had no way to call him. Mike ended up back on the trail, but Calum and I added about 2.5 hours to our trip trudging around some really run-down parts of Appalachian Kentucky.

We finally got to the Historical society and were greeted with cold glasses of sweet tea by David. There was NPR plaing in the yard, and kittens running around everywhere. It was basically heaven. David did our laundry and gave us ice cream and we camped in the giant tent he had for us. Oh, the other Mike had left us on the way to East Elkhorn, but he was at David's too.

Next we attempted to get to Booneville, but somewhere near Hazard, on the worst road EVER, the abdominal pain I had been having for a few days became unbearable. There happened to be a clinic in the parking lot I was doubled over in, so Calum helped me hobble over there. It turned out that I had tore up my uterine lining over-extering myself. I didn't even know that was possible. They gave me a shot of pain meds and a prescription for later and told me to walk up hills whenever I could and to try and take it as easy as possible...right...

We then wasted almost 3 more hours waiting for Wal-mart to fill my prescription. By the time we left, Booneville was pretty out of the question so we aimed for Chavies instead. Someone had told us we could camp at the church there, but when we arrived, the pastor said he didn't know what we were taking about and basically shot us down. We were trying to find a place to stealth camp when the sherrif rolled up and seemed to want us out of town. We went on, but it was getting dark by then and seemed pretty hopeless.

We were stopped on the road fixing something on Calum's bike, when a mom in a van pulled over and asked if we were ok. We told her we were looking for somewhere to camp. She commanded us mom-style to stay RIGHT THERE and wait for her to get back with her truck. We did, and she and he husband and son took us to their house where we showered and slept very comfortably in their basement. She cooked us dinner and they all sat with us and talked about our lives. They were the Hamblins, and pretty much the nicest family I have ever met. They are so getting a postcard.

In the morning they gave us breakfast and we went on our way. Their silly german sheppard followed us for about 3 or 4 miles, until I got worried and called the house to let them know. He was collected in the truck, and we kept going. We visited a giant log cathedral in Buckhorn on the Hamblin's recommendation. It was pretty cool.

That night we stealth camped about 30 miles from Berea. It was buggy and hot but otherwise uneventful. We got to Berea the next afternoon, where we stayed in a motel courtesy of Calum's Mom, which was WONDERFUL. I took a lovely bath, and made the water so grey that I immediately took a shower as well. It was a rest day for me and Calum, but Mike needed a new tire and had to bike and extra 30 mile to get it. Oh, the other Mike had left us again in Hindman, but we saw him again in Berea!

In the morning we met up with Stavros and Dan and all rode to Harodsburg. We left pretty late in the day so we arrived here pretty late as well. We asked at the firestation about camping, and they directed us to a town park. But first, we stopped to get some delicious Mexican food. We met some ladies from Memphis who talked with us about our trip. Calum took a group picture for them and they insisted we take 50$ to pay for our dinner! We ate, made camp, and passed out. Then we woke up and went to the library...and its now!

Today we are going to Mammoth Cave. Very exciting. Trevor, Nathan and Michelle (who dropped her summer class) will be meeting us in a few days in Elizabethtown, just over the Illinois border. It has been SOOOOO HOT. I hope it cools off.

Oh, Elizabethtown Illinois. Good place to send a care package if you get it out quickly enough... :)

I forgot to mention the cicadas. Evidently the 17 year cicadas are out now, even though we had them in MD 3 years ago. They have been wild.

We are in Damascus VA! Finally! It took us allllllll day long. We came from Wytheville this morning where we camped last night in the town park. It was nice, but I have to say, the southwestern part of Virginia is rather gross. Until NOW! Because Damascus is awesome. Practically everything in town is geared towards people doing the Appalachian Trail or the TransAmerica bike route. We are staying tonight in a hostel called 'The Place'. It is for bikers and hikers of the aforementioned trails and it seems that no one runs it, it just exists on the honor system. Everyone seems really nice. We are basically starving and I am actually writing this from a pizza parlor with a public access computer while I wait for my baked ziti to come out...

Oh, also, we met the other two kids on our trip today, Mike and Dan, whom the others picked up along the way while we were behind. But now we are all reunited! Well...except Trevor is still home injured and Michelle and Nathan have gone home...Nathan will return, Michelle wont.

The ride today was out of control. I think it was over sixty miles, and many of them were up hill. We climbed a mountain today, steadily and extremely slowly. And then....we got to go down the other side! It was glorious; about 18 miles of steady downhill. Totally worth it.

What started out as a horrible horrible morning during which strong wind blew in our faces as we climbed hills (I was actually knocked over at one point), and scary trucks blew past, turned into a wonderful ride and a happy reunion.

I'm not going to lie, I kindof wanted to quit this morning. Not actually, but I definitely wanted to sit down and not move again for hours (this was after i was blown off my bike and into the road by WIND). But we made it! And its lovely.

We are in Radford VA.

It is hilly and a little hot but really pretty. Calum and I are still about a day behind the group, but I think we have officially stopped caring since they seem to be into riding zillions of miles of hills every day, and I'm really just not. Trevor is back in Richmond with a hurt achilles tendon (he left us in Afton), but he hopes to be healed and able to rejoin us by Sunday.

I have stopped craving meat. I've been eating a little better and lots of omelettes.

Probably the most exciting thing since Charlottesville was our night at the Cookie Lady's house in Afton VA. We climbed the second steepest hill on the trail, and it basically sucked horribly, but at the top there lay an amazing mecca of long-distance cycling. More importantly, it also contained the Cookie Lady, June Curry(ie?). Google her, she's famous, and the nicest person in the world. She's in her 80's, and has a special house for bikers who need a place to stay. It was stocked with food and drink and comfortable couches. The walls were covered with more memorabilia than I could even look at, because she's been busy being the guardian angel of bikers since 1976. Seriously, google her.

Last night we camped behind the general store in Catawba. Which is not really a town, really it is just the general store. And a post office. Somewhere in there we stayed in Vesuvius in the churchyard of a man named Pastor Dan. He let us take showers and watch Borat in his house. He talked very slowly...it was interesting.

Tonight we are camping on a lake about 10 miles away from here, so I have to get going.

I have a sweet tan line across my cheek from my sunglasses. I love it.

Calum and I are in Charlottesville staying at Trevors apartment. I got a chance to check this, and I can't see the Utterz postings? But my mom said they were working so...

Anyway, to catch up in case it really is not working, I was having some problems with my knees which is why were are behind the others-I saw an EMT when we stayed at the firehouse in Mineral and he said I would be fine if I didnt go too hard the next few days. I feel pretty much fine today. My other muscles ache though! getting hillier. We saw the mountains rise up in front of us on our ride today; beautiful but intimidating. Everything still smells absolutely wonderful--honeysuckle and something else that arranges itself in little white blossoms and makes the air smell like...god.

I was actually surprised at how well I rode today, I guess I am adapting quickly. Hopefully my body keeps up with the terrain. Calum and I basically fell on an omelet when we got into town (about 3.5 hours ago) and we are already hungry again. I've been craving meat which never happens so I guess I need to eat more protein. Hence the omelet. I should probably eat more of everything, actually. I have been delighting in the fact that I can eat things I never eat because they are too fattening...I can eat anything! As long as its not junk....milkshakes aren't junk, right? As long as they don't come from McDonalds?

Went to a bike shop today to check the fit on my bike and ask about some noises from the front brakes. They fixed everything and informed me that my stem (the part that connects the handle bars to the rest of the bike) was installed way too high, and could spontaneously snap off and kill me. I think this is a little exaggerated but still good to know. They adjusted it correctly and I will keep it there.

We saw tiny baby horses running around today, they were lovely and awkward.

Ok, Calum and I are going to go eat more food.