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Ride Across America - 2001

6/15    Day -1     Arrive in Astoria, OR

6/15     Day -1     Astoria, OR

The trip began yesterday, flying out of Albuquerque at 9:30 a.m. and into Portland at 11:30.  My mother, who was visiting my brother in Seattle, drove down with him to pick me up and give me a ride up to Astoria.  We arrived late afternoon, checked into the hotel and drove around a bit to check out the town.  Astoria is beautiful little port town at the mouth of the Columbia River.  The cool weather was something of a shock coming out of the 90+ degree New Mexico heat.  We had a fantastic dinner at a wonderful new restaurant on the water called Baked Alaska.  If you're in the area, I highly recommend it.  The food and the sunset view were great as was the service.  Big day tomorrow.  Everything kicks off in the morning.

6/16     Day 0     Astoria, OR

Cool weather again today.  Started off with a quick breakfast, then off to unpack and reassemble my bike.  Fortunately, it arrived in the same shape and number of pieces that I shipped it in.  Once inspected and assembled, I went out to pick up a better windbreaker for the cool breezy days ahead.  Then I headed out with Mark for a quick 8 mile ride to the coast for the ceremonial dipping of the rear wheel in the Pacific.  It was windy and cool, about 57 degrees.  We took the required photos and headed back to the hotel.  The kickoff briefing was about two hours long followed by a very good and plentiful meal catered in the next room.  I met a lot of people from all over the country and from all walks of life.  All in all it was a good day.  Tomorrow starts the big ride, bright and early with a 69 mile ride to St. Helens.

6/17     Day 1     Astoria, OR to St. Helens, OR

We kicked off the morning with breakfast at 6:30 and a group photo in front of the hotel before taking off down highway 30 along the Columbia River.  The weather today was mostly cloudy and cool, around 45 degrees in the morning and warming only into the low fifties throughout the day's ride.  Not to bad for riding, but definitely a change from the 90+ degree Albuquerque heat. We climbed out of Astoria, wound along the river and then up over the coastal mountain range.  Our total cumulative elevation climb today was a surprising 3400 feet.  My top speed was 42.9 miles per hour on a descent into Rainier for our second SAG stop at the 48 mile mark.  The road leveled out for most of the rest of the ride ending the day at about 69 miles in St. Helens.  I pulled off the road to check out a the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant along the road.  I got a picture of a deer at the foot of the cooling tower.  Interesting contrast!  Turns out the plant, which appeared nearly deserted, is actually shut down.  Tomorrow should  be an interesting ride through Portland and on to the Welches resort on our way past Mt. Hood.  One day down and 49 to go!

Additional notes because I was too tired to think last night:  My average speed was 14.8 mph.  When I got to St. Helens, I ate a light, late lunch at a place called Burgerville with Jamie and Sean, two brothers from San Jose.  They made an excellent milkshake!  Also, they had a great sign at the edge of town - Next Burgerville...27,500 miles!

6/18     Day 2     St. Helens, OR to Sandy, OR

Today we left St. Helens about 7:30 a.m. and headed straight into Portland along highway 30.  The route was virtually flat the whole 25 miles into town.  We got into town and climbed up Germantown Rd. onto and over the St. Johns bridge (I think) which crosses the Willamette River.  I got some great photos from the middle of the bridge on either side.  One side facing downtown Portland, the other up river.  Our first SAG stop was just over the bridge.  We wound through some neighborhood streets with excellent bike lanes and eventually ended up on a bike trail along N. Marine Blvd.  There was a bit of confusion around the I-5/MLK Parkway interchange, but we navigated that and found ourselves on a fantastic trail that wound behind the airport and along the Columbia river.  Excellent trail...clean and  not crowded.  I couldn't help thinking that after three days and a hundred miles of riding, here I was right back at the airport!  We headed out toward Sandy, climbing up the bluff and riding the rolling terrain out to highway 26.  Along the way, their was an incredible full view of Mt. Hood in the distance.  Great photo op.  I had lunch at Verna's Cafe in Sandy with a bunch of riders out on the patio.  Pretty decent food, but much better company.  Along the last few miles I turned up a steep, steep driveway to the Oregon Candy Farm.  I wanted to ship some of their awesome chocolate home, but they were afraid it wouldn't make it in the heat.  When they found out what I was doing, they kept trying to fill me up with samples!  Tonight we're staying at a nice resort near Mt. Hood called The Resort at the Mountain.  We ate at the Panda Panda Chinese Restaurant and now I'm about to go check out the Jacuzzi.  

6/19     Day 3     Sandy, OR to Kah­Nee­Ta, OR

Today was simply an amazing day on the road.  We left the Welches Resort and immediately climbed about 2500 feet right out of the gate from 1500 feet elevation up to 4000.  The temperature dropped about 5 degrees as we climbed.  The first SAG stop was at the top of this climb.  We all loaded up with water, bananas, power bars and stuff because the next stop wasn't for 45 miles.  There were two more significant climbs before the SAG, one of about 1000 feet and a second of 800.  Incredible views of Mt. Hood dominated the scenery all day.  I got great photos from various angles.  I'm mailing off my film as I complete rolls and they will be scanned and posted within about a week (I hope) of sending them off.  Today, Sean took a picture of me and my bike with Hood in the background on his digital, but I forgot to hook up with him to get the file.  I'll try to post tomorrow!  There were some great descents between climbs that were a blast to blow down.  I rode a lot of the day with Jim, a Catholic priest from Marion, Ohio.  We were keeping about the same pace for the better part of the day.  As we came down out of the mountains and away from Mt. Hood the landscape and temperature began to change very quickly.  We moved out of the lush, cool pine forest with streams and waterfalls immediately into a high desert environment.  The temperature rose quickly and eventually wound up in the 80s by the end of the ride.  The second SAG stop was at the 45 mile mark.  The landscape was amazingly similar to the sparse forested areas leading up to the cabin in the Zuni mountains near Grants, New Mexico.  We were now on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation headed to the Kah-Nee-Ta Resort for the night.  As I descended into the canyon I saw a bald eagle soaring overhead.  I wasn't quick enough to get the picture, but what a spectacular sight.  Jim caught up to me again and we rode the rest of the way together.  A few more climbs and one monster downhill roller coaster ride into the canyon where the resort is located.  It's really a nice place.  Mineral springs, golf, river kayaking and, for most of us, just relaxing in comfort.  Actually, I hiked up a trail above the resort and took some excellent pictures overlooking the entire valley.  Tomorrow should be a little easier except we do have to climb out of this canyon!  Easy after that and a huge day the next day...116 miles with some decent climbs.  I think I'll go lose a few bucks in the casino!!! 

6/20     Day 4     Kah­Nee­Ta, OR to Prineville, OR

After yesterday, most anything would be a letdown in terms of scenery and temperature changes.  We started out about 7:30 a.m. and immediately had to climb about 1000 feet out of the canyon.  It wasn't too difficult, but a tough climb with cold legs is a little rough out of the gate.  Today was a bit of an animal day for me.  At the top of the climb out of the canyon, a small dog started following me and since it was still a slight incline, I couldn't shake him.  He followed me for over a mile.  I gave him some water because he was wearing himself out.  I decided to name him Bud, appropriately I think, after the discarded beer can sitting next to him on the side of the road.  I finally shook him on the downhill side, but couldn't help worrying if he would find his way back.  Back to where, I don't know?  It's not like he was near ANYTHING when he found me!  Later in the day I got chased by a couple of crows overhead.  Not for long, but just enough overhead to make me think about an Alfred Hitchcock film!  I stopped briefly in the Warm Springs Indian Museum in Warm Springs, but didn't pay the $6 to see the exhibits.  I headed off to Madras for the first SAG stop and ended up having lunch at Subway with a bunch of riders.  From there it was on through the heat.  I almost stopped at a small taco stand on a side road, but thought the better of it having just finished a turkey sub only 10 minutes earlier.  I'm a little surprised at the amount of Mexican food stores and restaurants.  It appears to be, in large part, due to the migrant worker population, but the clientele outside that taco stand all looked to be locals.  Nothing too exciting the rest of the day.  Most of today's scenery looked remarkably like the drier desert and grassland areas of New Mexico.  Not much precipitation on this side of the Cascades.  I'm writing this while doing my laundry.  Dinner will be at the restaurant next door, The Apple Peddler.  Then, get everything ready for a long, hot ride tomorrow to John Day.  116 miles, a couple of big climbs and a predicted temperature of 94 degrees in John Day.  So far, I'm holding up pretty well.  I've been holding back since we started to try not to burn out and conserve a little for tomorrow, our first century ride.  Today, there was a little less to hold back!  My thighs are a little tight and, yes, my rear end is a tad sore!!  All in all, though, I'm feeling surprisingly good!

6/21     Day 5     Prineville, OR to John Day, OR

Whew! Today was a pretty long day.  We left Prineville early after a 5:15 a.m. wake up call, breakfast at 5:40 and on the road by 6:30.  The road left town and began an easy climb of 300 feet over the first 15 miles.  The next 15 saw a climb of 1300 feet to the summit of Ochoco Pass at 4720' elevation.  The next 12 miles was an incredible downhill ride dropping 2500 feet into the town of Mitchell.  I stopped by an amazing shop called Rustic Creations and talked to Bruce McAllister, the owner, for a few minutes.  He and his brothers make the most incredible stuff out of twisted pieces of juniper.  Then it was off for an immediate 7 mile climb of about 1500 feet to the top of Keyes Summit (4369'.)  From there it was a fantastic 15 miles of downhill with a bit of a tailwind.  I rode into Dayville with Colleen from Maryland and Mona from Maine and ate lunch with Lee and Beverlee from Southern California and Malcolm from Maryland at the Dayville Cafe.  I had an excellent cheeseburger, which was probably the worst thing I could have eaten.  But, hey! Sometimes you just need a burger!  Then it was a pretty flat ride the last 30 miles into John Day.  Today's scenery was far more interesting than yesterday.  Lots of mountains, canyons, roadside streams, lakes and rivers.  Tomorrow's ride is 81 miles and a couple more mountain passes and the hardest thing about it may be that it's the day after today!  Today's ride was the longest I've ever done in a day and was definitely a challenge after four days on the road.  I'm off to eat dinner and hopefully an early bedtime.  I feel pretty good, but I'm definitely a little tired.

6/22     Day 6     John Day, OR to Baker City, OR

This will probably be short because I am absolutely wiped out!  Today's ride was a challenge on it's own, but following yesterday's century, it was really tough.  The day started out late because the restaurant was totally unprepared for all of us.  It took 2 hours from the time an order was placed.  I'm pretty sure I could have cooked breakfast for everyone faster than that.  Anyway, after a very late start it took about 10 miles just to get my legs going.  They pretty much felt like rubber all day, but came around just in time for a 7 mile climb of 2000 feet.  On the way up this mountain pass we passed a number of self supported riders on their way across the country to Virginia.  Most of today was spent in the mountains, climbing and rolling up and down.  It always seems like there is way more up than down!  Then the route hit a terrible stretch of road that was an awful chip seal pavement for about 12-15 miles.  It seemed as though it would rattle my bike apart at any time.  The worst part was that it was covered with loose gravel that would stick to the tires and kick up into the chain and everywhere.  I stopped at the top of that summit (the third of the day) to help Sara change a flat tire.  Just below, and about when you thought it couldn't get any worse, a construction crew was laying down a brand new 2 mile stretch of BAD road!  Just imagine if, at the end of the work day, your best efforts have resulted in, at best,...a crappy road!  Anyway, chip seal paving is done by simply laying down a slick of thick tar/oil and pressing gravel chips on top.  Then it's left to traffic to attempt to smooth it out.  What's left is a top layer of loose gravel with tar oozing through, especially in the hot sun.  Doug was shuttling people down the hill who didn't want to ride through it.  I rode through it because I didn't want to get all the way to New Hampshire and say I rode all the way across the country...oh, except for those two mile of BAD road in Oregon!  It really wasn't too bad although loose gravel can be a cyclist worst nightmare.  Fortunately, the hotel tonight is probably the nicest Best Western I've ever stayed at.  They had cold bottled water and cookies waiting for us and dinner was absolutely fantastic.  We had a huge selection including salad, pasta, macaroni salad, marinated chicken breasts, roast beef, rice pilaf, mashed potatoes, vegetarian lasagna, mixed vegetables, rolls and ice cream for desert.  I had a little of everything and then some.  It's amazing to see the appetites that come in off the road.  Tomorrow's another 80+ mile day into Ontario.  Another day after that and we'll finally have traversed the state of Oregon and moved on into Idaho for a highly anticipated day off in Boise.

6/23     Day 7     Baker City, OR to Ontario, OR

Today was a great day on the road.  We started the day with a wonderful breakfast with lots to choose from. If you're ever in Baker City, stay at the Best Western right off I-84. They really took care of us...first class treatment all the way. The great breakfast made my very first flat tire much easier to take. It was right at the hotel while I was topping off the air in my tires. The valve stem separated from the tube and was almost completely hanging loose. I'd never seen that before. I quickly replaced it and was thankful that it happened right there in a comfortable place to fix it.  It's much nicer to fix a flat under a tree in the grass than in the gravel alongside the highway!  The route wound around town and then headed out highway 30 East which skirted along I-84, the railroad and the Burnt River.  The ride rolled up and down for about 14 miles.  Today was the first time we had to get onto the interstate.  There are occasional stretches where there is no other route but the freeway and in those situations it is usually legal for cyclists to ride the shoulder.  We had a few stretches of 3-5 miles on the interstate, but I misread my route sheet and got on about 15 miles too soon!  It was great!  Smooth pavement, a nice wide shoulder and a constant 3 percent downhill grade for about 20 miles.  It was then that I wished I'd just hopped on the freeway right out of the hotel.  I began to see everyone else off on the side highway meandering around the valley.  I may have been on the wrong road, but I was making really good time!  I cruised at about 32 miles per hour for the whole time I was on the interstate.  It's really cool taking an exit off the freeway on a bicycle!  Our first SAG stop was at the 33.9 mile mark in Weatherby.  I've got a set routine at SAG stops now.  I only like to carry water on the road, but when I hit the stops I like to mix a bottle of Gatorade and suck it down.  I top off with water, grab some energy bars, Fig Newtons and then on the road again.  I rode out with Fr. Jim from Marion, Ohio and we rode the rest of the way into Ontario. The first 40 miles was the easiest so far. Mostly downhill and a bit of a tailwind besides.  The next 40 was only slightly more challenging.  We went through the small town of Huntington and climbed up about 400-500 feet.  It was downhill to a reservoir at Farewell Bend and a new time zone!  There is a small chunk of Oregon along the Idaho border that is in the Mountain Time Zone.  Who knew!  From there it was down to the Snake River and on into Ontario on the border for the night.  Nothing too exciting about the terrain or the ride today.  Jim is a bit of a birdwatcher and pulled his binoculars out to show me some grebes out on the water.  Other than that, we passed our first potato field!  That's about as exciting as today's ride got.  I felt really good today.  Everyone was pretty wiped out after the last few long days in the mountains.  I found my legs early and had a great ride.  It was a pretty easy day overall.  Everything's relative, I suppose.  Tomorrow we have a nice 61 miles into Boise and I never would have thought I would talk about 61 miles as a light day on the bicycle!

Note:   I have received a lot of e-mail and I definitely appreciate the comments and all the encouragement. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have enough time at the end of the day to answer all of them individually. It really does make a big difference reading them at the end of the day. Thank you all!

6/24     Day 8     Ontario, OR to Boise, ID

The ride today went very fast.  I rode the whole way with Mark Lilly from West Virginia.  We actually took our time leaving this morning, because otherwise, we figured, we'd get there before check-in time.  We started out less than a mile from the border of Idaho at the Snake River and stopped there for the required state crossing photographs!  The route today wound through the countryside with very little traffic most of the day.  It was also a fairly flat ride throughout.  The cumulative climb statistic that we track, just so you know, is a cumulative sum of all the uphill climbs through the day.  It is not a total elevation change.  In other words, the altimeter will increase only on the uphill climbs and does nothing on the flats or downhills.  If you climb 1000', decline 1000' and then climb back up 1000', you are at the same elevation, however, your cumulative climb is 2000 feet!  That's how on a mostly flat ride, we ended up with a 1700 foot climb.  All those 20 foot rolling hills really add up.  Today we moved away from the Snake River and toward the Boise River valley.  We rode through mostly farmland the whole way.  I always find it interesting checking out the various methods of irrigation as we go along.  Most of the route in Oregon was irrigated through sprinkler systems with the water pumped from surface water sources - streams, rivers, ditches.  Today we passed mostly irrigation ditches that feed small waterways to a level where short 2 foot tubes siphon water over the edge and into the field about every 2 to 3 feet along one side of the field.  We rode through Boise to our hotel which is near the downtown area and right next to Boise State University.  The Hewlett Packard Women's Challenge was going on in Boise which is a major women's cycling tour event.  It was way cool riding through town along the same route that the race was about to follow.  People were gathering in lawn chairs along the route to watch the race.  We went right through downtown and half the city was gathered at the finish line.  We rode right through the finish line just minutes before the race came through...unless they were gathered there to greet us!  You think!!  As expected, the hotel rooms were not ready and some of us ended up waiting four hours to get in our rooms.  A few people were cranky about that, but that's the breaks.  I dug through my luggage.  Found my swim suit and spent some time in the pool and the hot tub.  A bunch of us headed out to the River Festival, but only made it as far as the first pub!  We hung out there all night.  It was fun getting to know everyone a little better.  During the riding days/nights there is so much to do that you really don't have that much time to hang out.  At 10 o'clock there was a huge fireworks display down at the River Festival.  We couldn't see them from where we were so Colleen and I ran down along the river walk to find a break in the trees to see them.  The only place we found was up on a bridge alongside traffic.  It must have been funny to see us there.  We were sitting on the sidewalk watching through the bars of the rail on the bridge with traffic buzzing along right behind us.  We watched the fireworks and talked about our kids and families and fireworks at Disneyland! That was pretty much the highlight of the day.

6/25     Day 9     Boise, ID (REST DAY)

No stats today!  I slept in today until the maid service woke me up at 8.  I got up, showered, drank coffee and did some laundry.  There is a pretty good bike shop a block away, so I went over there to see if I needed anything.  Funny thing...you pretty much always find something that you really, really NEED!  I bought another pair of cycling shorts and another jersey as well.  I also bought a mirror and another tube.  Then I headed out walking to check out the town.  Boise seems like a pretty nice place.  I was actually expecting a much larger city.  It's population is only about 170,000 which still makes it the largest city in Idaho. The surrounding counties push the areas total population over 400,000.  The tallest building in Idaho is here and towers a whopping 19 stories over the downtown area.  They just broke ground on a new building that will be 25 stories high.  Boise is known as the City of Trees, so named during early expeditions which followed a river they called La Riviere Bois - 'les bois' meaning woods or forest.  Interestingly, there weren't that many trees.  They were just concentrated along the river bank in an area that, otherwise, has very few trees.  There are now over 140 species of trees here, but only two are native - cottonwood and willow.  I headed over to Julia Davis Park alongside the river.  Boise State is just opposite the park on the other side of the river.  I strolled through campus and went into the football stadium to check out what they call the smurf turf.  They have bright blue astroturf covering the field.  Anyway, from there I went to catch the Boise Tour Train and Trolley tour through town with about a dozen other cyclists.  While waiting for the tour, I went through the Idaho history museum.  The tour lasted about an hour and took us through an old historic residential area and back around the downtown area.  We went by the state capital which was designed and built as a 1/3 scale replica of the U.S. Capital building.  After the tour, I walked back downtown and went into a small souvenir shop called Taters.  I talked to Cindy Fogdall (the owner, I think) for a while about our trip and, apparently, a number of our group had been through there today.  You have to check it out if you're in Boise and need some fun and interesting Idaho potato souvenirs.  As Cindy said, "They're not just potatoes, they're Idaho potatoes!"  I then went to the Brick Oven Bistro to get a bite to eat.  The house specialty is a side dish called corny pots.  It's a bowl of hand-mashed potatoes with creamy corn gravy poured over the top.  Today's special was red beans & rice.  I tried a little of both.  The corny pots was awesome and the red beans & rice were very good also.  Thumbs up!  So much for the day off.  Tomorrow is another short day...50 miles to Mountain Home.  It sprinkled a little today and looks to threaten rain tomorrow.  We'll see.  So far, the weather has been fantastic.

A few notes to answer some questions - There are about 70 riders on this ride which is the inaugural ride of this northern route.  The ride is supported by a team of about 8 staff including mechanics, sweep riders, SAG support, and our truck driver.  The youngest rider is 15 years old and the oldest is almost 75!  We all start at different times in the morning, but usually within an hour.  There are riders of all skill levels out here.  Some are very good and finish fairly quickly and some take their time getting in.  Most of the bikes are standard racing or touring bikes with a few recumbents and one tandem.  We typically get spread out throughout the day by as many as 50 miles or more on long days.  The SAG stops vary with our shortest distance being 11 miles (after a pretty mean climb) and the longest being close to 50.

6/26     Day 10     Boise, ID to Mountain Home, ID

Today's ride was only 50 miles to ease us back into the saddle.  We had a late start for breakfast and a lot of us took our time getting out on the road.  Many got out early - some to beat the heat and wind, others to get done before the threat of rain materialized.  I wasn't too worried about rain.  Most were thinking about the 30% chance of rain.  I put my money on the 70% sunshine!  Now, tomorrow actually might see a little rainfall and thunderstorms.  We left town and headed along the Boise River on a bike path.  We missed a turn off the bike path and ended up passing the next turn by a 1/4 mile or so.  No worries!  We stopped at an old dam on the river that had been an operating hydroelectric power plant until 1988.  We spoke to a couple of guys who were working on the plant.  In the current energy situation, they were working on updating and rebuilding the power plant to put it back into operation.  We took some photos and got back on track.  We past a rock wall across the river where a bunch of swallows were flying in and out of their nests.  Absolutely beautiful.  From there we rode past the Micron plant and onto the Interstate again for a fast ride to Mountain Home.  I pulled a 1 1/4 inch nail out of my rear tire.  I only noticed it because it was rubbing slightly on my brake pad.  It had penetrated the bead on top and came out the sidewall.  Amazingly, it never touched the tube and I was back on the road in about four minutes!  Kevlar is a wonderful thing!  I couldn't wait to tell Fred, who has already had 11 flats since starting.  We all got a great photo at the SAG stop when Brad, one of the mechanics, was throwing out a bunch of old tubes.  We had Fred hold them all along with a tire pump while we snapped photos.  He has a great sense of humor about it, thankfully.  As we approached Mountain Home the route sheet had a typo on it which caused most of us to miss the turn.  Again, no worries!  For the second time today, a missed turn became another opportunity.  About eight of us ended up in eating lunch in a great little place called Rattlesnake Station Steakhouse.  Scoops Ice Cream Parlor is in the back room and both are really fun with great food and deserts.  The walls are covered with signatures and graffiti left by diners over the few years the place has been in business.  The owner came back to where we were sitting, drew a large bicycle on the wall, wrote America By Bicycle 2001 - Astoria, Oregon to Portsmouth, New Hampshire and invited all of us to sign our names around it.  The deserts were especially good, the carrot cake in particular!  If it sounds like we're always eating, it's because we pretty much are!  I don't think I've eaten this much since I was eighteen years old.  Of course, I don't think I've maintained this level of physical activity since then...if ever.  The Air Force Base is about 10 miles out of town and there really isn't much else in the town of Mountain Home.  The hotel, another Best Western, does have a really nice pool which is where a lot of us spent the afternoon.  Tomorrow is a long ride of 96 miles.  There is a better chance of rain tomorrow and the wind typically kicks up in the afternoon out here so everyone is looking to get an early start.

6/27     Day 11     Mountain Home, ID to Twin Falls, ID

Any thoughts of beating the wind today were dismissed immediately.  At 5:45 a.m., I stepped outside into a blustery 18 mile per hour wind.  The skies were dark and rain seemed nearly certain so we all packed up our rain gear and prepared for a tough day.  After a quick breakfast, I headed down the road with Mark and Maurice.  We got held up for almost 15 minutes while two trains passed in opposite directions.  We got passed by a group of the faster riders who rolled past in a pace line of about 10 riders.  Julianne, one of the support staff, dropped back and joined us as the four of us formed our own pace line for most of the first 30 miles.  Drafting in a pace line is a very effective way of dividing the wind resistance between a number of riders who take turns out front.  Unfortunately, it can also be a little dangerous as Marsh found out when his front tire bumped Colleen's and he went down a bit hard on some very rough pavement.  He got patched up and was able to complete the day's ride.  The terrain and the scenery early on looked very much like what you might see up on Albuquerque's west mesa...wide open with very dry grasses, lots of scrub brush and...an old discarded refrigerator!  At 30 something miles we hit the first SAG stop and fueled up.  Our pace line kind of broke up a little after that and I joined up with Colleen, Mona and Wilson.  We rode to the second SAG stop in Hagerman, a small town down in a canyon along the Snake River where it's joined by the Malad River.  It was a fantastic view and a great ride down into the canyon.  There was a small waterfall coming off the canyon wall off on the left side of the highway and the river to the left.  The four of us stopped at the Snake River Grill for lunch and were soon joined by Steve and Bryan.  Bryan had us rolling in the aisles with his amazing floating pea trick!  He placed a pea from the salad bar in his mouth, tilted back his head and, blowing gently, was able to balance the pea on air.  The rest of us all tried it, but couldn't do it.  Clearly, Bryan has spent a little time practicing this pea trick thing!  The rest of the ride was through what everyone called "cow country."  There were literally dozens of dairies and thousands of cows along the road.  We finally got to Twin Falls, crossing over the Snake River gorge on the way into town.  This is near the place where Evil Knievel attempted his famous jump over the Snake River back in the seventies.  From atop the bridge it's an absolutely beautiful view of the gorge cut through the volcanic rock.  I did, however, find that amidst the wonder of this natural phenomenon...the golf course at the bottom of the gorge was in very poor taste! and I happen to love golf.  Bryan and I rode the bike path along the rim for about a mile and back.  By the time I got to the hotel, my odometer read 99.4 miles.  I couldn't end at that, so I rode around behind the hotel coming to a stop back at the lobby door with the odometer reading 100.00 miles on the nose!  One more century under my belt!

6/28     Day 12     Twin Falls, ID to Burley, ID

Knowing that today was a short 38 mile ride made it very difficult to get going this morning.  Breakfast was at 8:00 and I wandered down there about 8:30 or so.  A lot of people were already dressed and ready to ride.  I had a very relaxed breakfast of coffee, granola and yogurt with a croissant.  I was almost the last one on the road at 10:15 as I casually rode off through town.  At the corner where the route took a left to head out of town, I took a right and headed down to the historic old downtown district.  It was a small tree lined street with small shops and cafes up and down both sides.  I had a great time checking out a lot of the shops along the way.  At the end of the street was a small novelty shop called Poindexter's.  I went in to see if I could find something for Marisa.  It was a great little shop with gag gifts, costumes, bumper stickers and all kinds of goodies!  In talking with the proprietor, Chris Bolton, I told him about our trip.  He said he thought he and his wife had seen us last week in Oregon.  He explained that they had stopped at a candy factory outside of Sandy where there was a cyclist who was trying to send some candy back home to New Mexico!  That was me at the Oregon Candy Farm on day 2 of our trip!  That's why he looked familiar when I first saw him.  What a small world.  We talked for a while longer and I bought a few things.  It's a really fun shop.  Check it out if you're ever in Twin Falls.  As Chris told me, "If you need it, we don't have it!"  I stopped a few more places downtown and finally decided I should get going.  It was already after noon.  On the way out of town, I saw an ice cream shop called Daisy's with a big bicycle on the sign and a Lance Armstrong sandwich special for lunch.  I stopped for a smoothie and a small sample of some of the best pecan brittle I've ever tasted.  By now it was after 1:00 and I finally headed out of town.  A lot of other riders had gone out to Shoshone Falls where there was a swimming area.  It was a few miles off the route, but what the heck!  I turned off and headed out there.  It was down at the bottom of the gorge and I really didn't feel like climbing back out so I took a few pictures and headed on again.  I took more back roads out to the bridge over the gorge and stopped to take more pictures there.  Turns out I was the last rider over the bridge, but I wasn't the last to finish the day.  One of the group in front of me got a flat and I caught up with them.  I rode out with them, but got tired of being in the sun all day and sped up to get done.  Shower, dinner and a little  laundry before bedtime.  Tomorrow's a long day and an early start is probably a good idea.  I'm really looking forward to Susan and Marisa coming out to see me tomorrow.  We will probably get into Blackfoot about the same time tomorrow evening.  I can't wait!

6/29     Day 13     Burley, ID to Blackfoot, ID

Whew!  What a day.  110 miles with a decent tailwind most of the day.  It was a very fast ride for everybody, personal best times for many.  That makes two centuries in three days with a leisurely 45 mile stroll in between.  I left out of the hotel at about 6:45 or so.  Most everyone had already left.  I felt really strong today and rode harder than usual.  I stopped at the first SAG stop at 32 miles before 9:00, grabbed some Gatorade, a banana and some water and rode back out after a short stop.  We did a little climbing and rolling along the canyon for a while and then settled onto old Highway 30 for most of the rest of the trip.  Today was a little more scenic than we've been through most of the week.  We followed and criss-crossed the Snake River, never straying too far away from the valley at any time.  At American Falls a lot of people stopped at the grocery store there and grabbed a sandwich.  I kept going to the SAG stop just out of town.  The route again crossed the Snake, for about the tenth time, and stopped opposite the dam.  They had watermelon at the stop for us today which was a nice treat.  Mona and Colleen rolled in with these huge sandwiches which they both shared with me.  Just then Maurice rolled in and I had to take off.  This sounds pretty lame, but one of my mini-goals since early in this ride was to finish at least one day before Maurice.  Maurice is a retired engineer in his sixties that always finishes each day early.  He leaves early, stops only briefly to fill up with water and hits the road again.  He's very strong, not super fast, but very consistent.  So, when he rolled into the second SAG stop I had to hit the road.  I rode pretty hard and caught up with a bunch who had stopped in Aberdeen for a bite to eat.  I rode out with Julie and Gunnel, but soon overtook them and rolled on.  Jamie and Rich came up from behind and invited me to hop on for a 21-22 mph ride into the third SAG.  I filled up with water, grabbed some snacks and made the mistake of laying down in the grass for about 20 minutes.  I really didn't want to get up, but...you guessed it!...in came Maurice.  He had no idea what was going on, but Colleen was laughing at me as I grabbed my helmet and headed out!  I rode the rest of the way with Julie, Gunnel and Rich, each of us taking turns pulling out front.  We beat the worst of the heat and, yes, I rolled in about 15 minutes before Maurice!  All in all it was a very good day on the road.  Tomorrow is a very light day - only 35 miles into Idaho Falls.  Sort of a rolling rest day before the serious climbing into Wyoming starts.  Tonight we had the best meal of the trip so far.  It was catered here picnic style outside the hotel.  The guy doing the barbecuing was a pro, a real BBQ god!  The chicken was absolutely amazing.  The potatoes were cooked au grautin style in dutch ovens that he stacked four high with hot coals above and below each pot.  Dessert was peach cobbler, also cooked in a dutch oven.  Absolutely marvelous!!!  On a somewhat sour note, Susan and Marisa didn't quite make it here tonight.  I rode 110 miles today and they had a harder day than I.  They got stuck in Salt Lake City and were unable to get a flight up here.  They are staying overnight and will catch an early flight up to Idaho Falls tomorrow morning.  I'll go ahead and get up and ride early to get there about when they do.  It should be okay.  We'll still have most of the day to do whatever we want.

6/30     Day 14     Blackfoot, ID to Idaho Falls, ID

Today was a very light day.  It's only about 24 miles from Blackfoot to Idaho Falls but our winding around on back roads added the rest. Breakfast was catered by the same group.  It was very good as expected.  Everyone ate at a casual pace and prepared to head out for the short ride north.  I left with Jim and Frank and rode at a moderate pace for the first few miles.  Jim and I picked it up a little and were joined by Dawn from the 15 mile mark into the SAG at 24 miles.  After a short break, I took off thinking it would be a good idea to get there.  I didn't hear from Susan before I left so I hoped that meant they had gotten on a flight early.  As it turns out, the flights to Idaho Falls were all full, but they managed to get on one to Pocatello which is about 45 miles south of here.  They rented a car and drove on up.  Meanwhile, I caught up with Dawn again and we rode the rest of the way into Idaho Falls.  I caught the first glimpse of the Grand Tetons which on a good day are barely visible over the western foothills.  As we rode up to the hotel I saw Susan and Marisa on the lawn near the falls across from the hotel.  I sped up to meet them and intended to do a little hop up on the curb to meet them.  Instead, I didn't quite make the hop and I dumped my bike onto the grass over the curb.  I did a summersault and landed sitting down right at Marisa's feet and she promptly jumped into my lap and gave me a great big hug.  Susan joined us on the grass and while totally unplanned, Dawn said it looked as though we'd scripted the reunion!  It was really great to see them.  We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around Idaho Falls and just being together.  Marisa must have kissed me a hundred times!  It was really great.  Tomorrow we leave Idaho on our way up and over the pass to Jackson Hole.  We'll be climbing to the highest elevations yet at the summit which is over 8400 feet.  Idaho Falls is at about 4500 feet so tomorrow's ride is not something you kids want to try at home!  Seriously, though, this is probably the hardest day's ride of the whole trip.  It should be worth it, however, as the scenery is also some of  the most spectacular that we will see.  I'm going to make this short so I can spend a little more time with the family.

7/1     Day 15     Idaho Falls, ID to Jackson, WY

Sometimes you go up, sometimes you go down.  Today, we went up!  Then, we went up some more.  As I expected since I first saw the itinerary for this trip, today was the hardest day of the trip.  I've been a little anxious about today's ride for a long time and it turns out with pretty good reason.  I woke up to a beautiful sunrise.  Our room was on the seventh floor looking east out over the falls with the foothills in the background.  I got a few pictures and went down for breakfast.  I left the hotel and rode out with Christine.  Jill, Lloyd and Bob caught us at the edge of town and we headed out together.  I was looking for the trailer where I rented a room the second summer I worked up here in 1984.  I wasn't sure where exactly it was until I saw the sign that I lived across the street from which read Warning to Tourists, Do Not Laugh at the Natives.  The sign was still there, the trailer was not.  We rode on and soon the morning wind kicked up right in our faces.  As the sun hits the valley, the air warms and rises bringing a cool rush of wind down off the foothills.  The wind really beat us up even before we got to the climbing.  Then we began climbing and it didn't stop.  After the first major climb up to over 6000 feet we descended a while and then prepared for the real climbing.  We crossed out of Idaho and into Wyoming and the heavy stuff started almost immediately.  The scenery was as intense as the climbing.  The final push to the summit at Teton Pass was a 2000 foot climb to over 8700 feet that was a 10 percent grade at times.  A lot of people ended up walking up some or all of the last mile and a half.  I rode the whole way even though at times I think I could have walked faster.  When I finally pulled over the top, the view of Jackson Hole below and the Grand Tetons off in the distance was almost overwhelming.  It certainly made the climb worth it.  Most climbs you look back from the top and think it wasn't as bad as you thought it was going to be.  This one was every bit as difficult and more.  The descent down the other side was even more intense.  Trying to keep the speed from getting out of control, watching the road for traffic, gravel, pot holes and other riders made it all the more interesting.  I stopped a couple of times down the 5 1/2 mile, 10% graded descent because my hands were stiff from working the brakes.  Near the bottom with about a mile of steep grade remaining and a reasonably straight road ahead, I let it out and got up to the top speed of the trip at 47.2 miles per hour.  A sudden cross wind kind of freaked me out a bit as I managed my way down what was left of the hill.  The rest of the ride into Jackson was pretty flat and I got in and wanted to collapse on the bed.  This was one of the toughest days on a bicycle I've ever had.  Susan and Marisa were waiting at the hotel when I arrived.  We ate dinner and then drove around Jackson a little bit.  I was pretty tired so we came back and just relaxed at the hotel.  Tomorrow's ride to Dubois features some more climbing, but nothing like today's.  It will be a challenge, though, just because it comes right after today.

7/2     Day 16     Jackson, WY to Dubois, WY

Today I'll call the Purple Mountain's Majesty leg of the Sea to Shining Sea Tour!   It was more climbing today, but nowhere near as difficult or challenging as yesterday.  We've pretty much gotten past the heavy duty long haul climbing that we've seen here in Wyoming and what we saw in Oregon.  There will be some more climbing to be sure, but no more 14 mile long climbs.  We started the day by heading straight into Grand Teton National Park.  I've been here a number of times and am always amazed and inspired by the scenery all around this place.  The interesting thing about these peaks is that their appearance changes from every angle you see them from.  There wasn't as much snow on top as I expected.  There has been a pretty serious drought all across the whole route that we've traveled so far and Wyoming has been no exception.  Marisa and Susan spent the morning looking around Jackson Hole and the park.  They caught up to me at the second SAG stop which was at the top of Togwotee Pass on the Continental Divide at over 9600 feet elevation.  It wasn't a very tough climb, but the elevation makes it a little interesting.  It was a wonderful downhill ride all the way down about 15 miles averaging about 30 mph the whole way.  We're staying in Dubois tonight, a small town of about 860 people.  It's one of many small outlying towns near Yellowstone National Park that thrives on tourism while rarely being the destination.  Tomorrow takes us into Riverton and the next day into Casper for our second day off.  

Today's entry is purposely short in order to discuss a few incidents that have marred this otherwise wonderful trip.  The first was an accident that occurred coming out of Twin Falls, Idaho.  Harold Jacobs was hit by a car on the main street headed out of town.  His bicycle was mangled pretty bad and he broke his jaw and pretty well got beat up.  He has been in the hospital since and his wife, Barb, has flown in to be with him.  I don't know all the details, but it certainly gave everyone pause to think about what we were doing.  It can be very dangerous at times.  I hadn't written anything about this incident because I didn't want Susan to worry about me any more than she already does.  I figured I would tell her when she got here.  Anyway, it appears Harold will be okay, but his recovery will take a little time.  Today's very tragic news came as quite a shock at dinner tonight.  Bob Donohue (I think) passed away in his sleep last night.  Bob and his son Joe had come on this trip together.  I spent about 45 minutes talking to Bob in Blackfoot before dinner.  He was so excited to be out here doing this ride with his son.  We had a moment of silence this evening after Doug told us.  It's truly amazing how little time it takes for someone to touch your life and how so often we don't appreciate when that has happened.  Bob touched a lot of lives in the short time on this trip and will be missed.  It's not clear at this time what the cause was, but it's hard to imagine that yesterday's intense activity didn't have anything to do with it.  Don't know for sure.  Tonight I will say a prayer for Harold as well as for Joe and the rest of Bob's family.  I ask anyone who's so inclined to say one for the rest of us.

7/3     Day 17     Dubois, WY to Riverton, WY

Today started with probably the worst breakfast we've had so far.  It was late and there wasn't enough which, it turns out, was not a big problem since it wasn't that good.  I got out on the road pretty early in the pack and headed out for Riverton.  Just out of town Chris Lloyd caught up with me and we rode the rest of the day together.  Chris is recently retired from Allentown, Pennsylvania, but has spent most of the time traveling.  Sounds like he's got it right.  Including this trip, he's got the next two years of traveling planned.  The scenery is distinctly different from what we'd been riding through the last few days.  Starting at the bottom of the hill coming off the Divide yesterday, the scenery turned quickly from high elevation forests to high desert landscape.  After dinner last night Susan, Marisa and I got in the car and drove up the scenic overlook coming into town.  It wound up to the top of one of the higher hills in the area.  From the top you could see for probably 75 miles in every direction.  It was a beautifully diverse terrain.  We took pictures and generally enjoyed the view of forested mountains, the Wind River through the otherwise dry valley and the sculpted limestone formations over the hill to the north.  There were more of these peaked limestone formations as we headed out of town this morning going southeast.  The first 50 miles or so was more or less a downhill ride.  We had a nice tailwind on top of that and averaged almost 20 mph going into the second SAG stop at 54 miles.  Susan was planning to meet me at this stop with a sandwich, but we were moving so fast we got there before she and Marisa did.  Chris and I headed out and they pulled up about a half mile up the road.  I wasn't really hungry yet so they went ahead to Riverton.  The wind picked up in our faces and we took turns pulling out front for the rest of the ride.  It certainly slowed us and made the last part of the ride a little more challenging. I think everyone was thinking ahead to tomorrow's ride and the possibility that we might have to ride 120 miles in the same kind of wind.  The weather is looking like afternoon thunderstorms could develop.  Given the unusually hot temperatures they've had here this year, a little rain might not be the worst thing that could happen.  I prefer to just get up and see what happens!  Either way, tomorrow will be a challenge.  It will be the longest single day ride for many of us, myself included.  It is also the longest day of the tour.  I think an early start to beat the heat will be the best strategy.

7/4     Day 18     Riverton, WY to Casper, WY

Okay, so you've just ridden a century in a stiff headwind and 95 degrees.  Now get back out there and give me another 20!  A lot of people were stressing pretty heavily over today's ride.  When the dreaded headwinds developed it confirmed everyone's worst nightmare scenario.  I decided I would be riding a 20 mile warm-up today and then start my century ride.  Everyone has their own way of dividing up or mentally tackling the day.  Right at the 20 mile mark, Susan and Marisa caught up to me on their way to the airport in Casper.  We said our goodbyes on the roadside as everyone passed me by.  When Karen pulled up riding sweep I knew I'd better get going as I was now officially DFL (Dead _ _ _  Last!)  I took off and soon caught up with Marty who rides one of the recumbents in which he tends to average between about 9 and 11 miles an hour.  As the winds were pretty strong, I decided to hang back with Marty and rode side by side with him all the way to the second SAG stop at 62 miles.  Marty currently resides in Denver.  You know when you call customer service numbers and hear the recording that "This call may be monitored for quality control."  Marty is one of the guys monitoring for the mutual fund company he works for.  Is that a trip? or what?  Now, every time I hear that recording I will think of Marty!  After the second SAG stop at about 1:45 p.m. and 65 miles, the wind stopped and I was totally fresh having hardly exerted myself all morning.  I took off and kept a nice pace for the next 35 miles or so.  Pretty much the only interesting scenery of note today was a totally surprising view just off the highway of a place appropriately named Hell's Half Acre.  It's a really cool canyon in the middle of nowhere.  A number of scenes of an alien planet in Starship Trooper were filmed here a  few years back.  Anyway, a lot of people were having a difficult time in the heat and the sun all day.  For me it wasn't hard to imagine that I was on a training ride on the west mesa of Albuquerque - 95 degrees, a stiff headwind - even the terrain and scenery were almost identical.  At about 20 miles out the wind kicked up again in my face.  The surface winds were coming at me, but higher up the winds were blowing the developing thunderstorms in my direction.  A large cloud settled right over my head and very nicely accompanied me the rest of the way into town.  Still pushing a headwind down below, it was much easier doing it in the shade.  Soon, it began to rain the kind of rain that comes down in large single drops that sporadically hit you every few seconds.  Not enough to really get you very wet, but just enough to cool you down...a good old fashioned afternoon desert thunderstorm.  Where most people got beat up pretty badly all day, I had a fantastic day for my longest ride ever.  I arrived reasonably refreshed and in pretty good shape.  We had Mexican food for dinner tonight.  I'm usually pretty suspicious of Mexican food outside of the Southwest, but this was surprisingly good.  Afterward we watched fireworks from the back of the hotel.  They were being fired off from a hill just behind the hotel so we had a pretty good view.  Unfortunately, it was raining a little harder by now, but that didn't stop the show or dampen the spirit.  Happy Fourth of July!  Still later a bunch of us (Steve, Kim, Brad, Julianne, Jill, Gary, Christine, Jamie, Shawn and I) jumped into a hotel shuttle and Chad the driver took us around to check out a few of Casper's hot spots!  That's really a relative term I guess, but we finally ended up at Beacon's lounge.  Pretty much everything here is a cowboy bar, but Brad and Julianne poked their heads in and reported back to the van.  We were packed in pretty tight, so loading and unloading was something of a challenge, if not a spectacle!  Brad reported that AC/DC was playing on the sound system and no one gave them dirty stares so maybe it was okay.  We all pretty well figured that Casper was the kind of town that guys don't go to bars in shorts and sandals, you know.  As it turned out we did kind of look out of place as the only ones in the joint that didn't have either a hat or boots or both!  As we walked in a few of us commented that we were probably gonna get our asses kicked in here, but...oh, well!  We have a day off.  We'll worry about that later!  As it turned out, almost immediately, Jamie was out on the dance floor by himself - itself a little strange to begin with - and some guy got pissed off at him because he thought Jamie was mocking the way he was dancing.  Fortunately, Jamie just walked away.  It was incredibly funny, but the guy really was mad.  Jill went over to try to talk to him and his girlfriend and settle him down a bit.  We weren't sure if that was helping our situation or not, but in the end nothing came of it.  Anyway you cut it, 120 miles can wear you out so half of us took a cab back and the rest called the hotel shuttle about an hour later.  All in all, a very full day!

7/5     Day 19     Casper, WY (Rest Day)

Day off in Casper.  I did virtually nothing today, but relax.  I finally got a couple more rolls of film developed, scanned and on the Photos link for you all to check out.  More to come.  Not much to do in Casper, so doing nothing doesn't really make me feel like I'm wasting a day.  I could use the rest.  Some people are going to the ball game tonight.  The Casper Rockies!  I don't know if I'll go.  Single A baseball seems like not much of a step above high school, but it's really the only game in town (no pun intended!)  Today was a well deserved day off.  We've had a tough run since the last day off.  Three centuries, two major mountain passes, the heat and sun have all taken their toll both physically and mentally.  Harold's accident and the tragic loss of Bob have tested us emotionally and, for many of us, spiritually.  Along the way, we've met a lot of challenges and hit some major milestones as well.  We crossed another state, Idaho, and two more mountain ranges.  We conquered the steepest inclines so far of 10 percent climbing up to Teton Pass.  Along the way we crossed the official 1000 mile mark.  We climbed over the highest elevations we'll seen on this trip at over 9600 feet where we crossed the Continental Divide.  We rode 120 miles against the wind and in 100 degree heat...along the way crossing the one third mark on our journey.  Whew! Astoria seems like a month ago and a world away!  Today we lose Steve from Minnesota and Kim from California as they both finish their rides and head home.  We pick up two more riders in Casper.  Elizabeth joins her mother Nancy on the ride and Marilyn joins us as well.  Today we rest and reflect.  Tomorrow, another century!

7/6     Day 20     Casper, WY to Lusk, WY

Today I got a very late start...DFL, in fact.  I didn't sleep all that well last night and my roommate got up at four thirty!  I couldn't get back to sleep and finally dragged myself out of bed and down to breakfast.  I left one of my water bottles at the first SAG stop the other day and was trying to locate it.  Todd had lent me one of his and I wanted to get it back to him.  I couldn't find mine so Cathy lent me one of her short ones.  As I was bringing my bags down to the truck, Mona got a flat when her valve stem broke so I helped her change it out.  I finally pulled out and headed out of town.  I rode alone until I caught up with a lot of people at the Subway in Douglas.  I had a turkey sub and rode the rest of the way with Mona and Colleen.  Colleen's husband Clayton is here visiting and he was waiting at the 76 mile mark with watermelon!  A very nice touch.  It was a very gradual climb for a lot of the rest of the way.  There were about a dozen trains that passed in both directions along the highway.  All of them were hauling coal (from Montana, I heard) and each train had well over a hundred cars each.  Almost everyone commented that they were the longest trains they had ever seen.  The headwinds picked up again and made for a tough last 20 miles.  It wasn't as hot as it has been, but still pretty warm.  By now, the three of us had spread out.  Mona way back, Colleen up ahead a few hundred yards.  I struggled a bit today as my legs felt like rubber all day.  At this point, I suddenly got VERY hungry and decided it was time to get this over with.  I rode past Colleen and she got behind and I pulled her in the rest of the way.  Some days are better than others and today I just never seemed to get it going.  When I got to the hotel, there was a reporter for the local newspaper talking to Wilson who was giving her the rundown on our trip.  It's a weekly newspaper, The Lusk Herald, that will apparently feature our group and the tour in next week's front page!  Supposedly, they have a web site where we can see the story.  When I get it, I'll put a link in here.  I finally saw some wildlife today, antelope and lots of them.  Two of them hopped across the road right in front of me.  We've not seem much wildlife since the mountains in Oregon.  It's been so dry and hot in the day that you just don't see much.  You can at least get a sense of the local fauna by the roadkill you pass!  Across Idaho and Wyoming, I've seen squirrels, rabbits, deer, rattle snakes, various birds, skunks, a porcupine and a raccoon.  At least I think it was a raccoon!  You sort of miss something with the two dimensional view on the roadside!!  Believe it or not, the strangest roadkill to date had to be the fish near Shoshone Falls outside Twin Falls, Idaho.  Yeah!  FISH!  There was an irrigation pipe that pumped water straight up and bubbled back down through a screen to filter it somewhat before it flowed through the sprinkler systems.  There were about a dozen small fish 3-4 inches long that got "filtered out" and were left with the rest of the debris sitting on the screen.  Tomorrow we'll leave Wyoming and head into South Dakota.  This will be the first state on the trip that I've not already visited.  It's looking like rain is a strong possibility over the next 3-5 days.  We'll see.  Regardless, we get back to some more climbing again.  Not the heavy duty stuff, but enough to work up a sweat.  A group of people headed to the local pub here, but I was too tired tonight.  Anyway, Jamie was going so who knows what might happen!

7/7     Day 21     Lusk, WY to Hot Springs, SD

Today started with a solid breakfast at 6:00 and off for another 92 miles of fun in the sun!  I pulled out of the hotel and joined up immediately with Larry, Ron, Irv and Van.  We kept a pretty nice pace until the first SAG stop where Ron went on his own and we picked up Christine and Bob.  Everything was moving along nicely until it seemed as though it suddenly got harder.  It seemed like a hill or a headwind, but it was neither.  Turns out I had a slow leak in my rear tire and was losing pressure.  I was only a few miles from a rest area so I waved everyone else on and stopped to pump it up.  It held long enough to get to the rest area where I changed it out in a little more comfort.  Turns out I'd picked up a tiny wire which pierced the tire and tube.  It was still in the tire, but only noticeable from the inside.  These wires are probably the most frequent causes of flats for us along highways frequented by trucks.  They're tiny wires that come from the steel belts in radial tires when they shred apart.  You see the rubber all over the shoulder, but these wires are too small to see and they are extremely sharp.  Bob, Irv and Christine all waited and helped me fix my flat. It was pretty cool.  I've never had so much help fixing a flat tire.  They then rode on as I stayed back to wave down one of the vans to pump it up with a real pump.  From there it was a gentle climb for about 10 miles to the state line where, of course, I stopped for the mandatory state line photo op.  It sucks when you get to one of these spots and you're alone.  I put on a little more sunscreen while I waited for someone to come by.  Shawn and Will pulled up a minute later and Shawn got the picture for me.  We left Wyoming behind and began to climb some more.  This was another first for me.  I've never been to South Dakota before.  As you cross the state line at this point you immediately get into some beautiful grasslands.  There's been quite a bit more rain in this area than in most of Wyoming and it's pretty apparent.  It had rained here just last night and it was fairly humid compared to the extreme dryness we've been in for most of the trip. We dropped into Edgemont for a lunch stop with a huge thunder cloud looming ominously off in the distance.  I caught a photo of Shawn passing by with the cloud in the background and the highway we were going to climb after lunch going up over the hills in the distance.  Lunch took a while as a bunch of us hit the cafe at the same time and, as usual, we overwhelmed the one waitress trying to take care of everyone.  I finally ate and headed off for the remaining 25 miles.  The road immediately climbed upward for about 4 miles at about a 6 percent grade.  It was downhill for a couple miles rolling for 8 more and one last 1 mile climb.  Hot Springs is at the bottom on the other side of that last climb.  It's a nice little town with hot springs, of course, and a lot of little shops and cafes.  This would seem to be a jumping off spot for tourists on their way to Rushmore and the dozen other sites in the area.  We had an outdoor barbecue which was pretty good, but not even close to the one we had in Blackfoot, Idaho.  It seems like a lot of the hotels we've been staying at are real close to Dairy Queens which is very dangerous when you pretty much have to have a blizzard every time!  Tomorrow we go past Mt. Rushmore on our way to Rapid City.  A handful of us have plotted a different course that we are going to try in order to get to the Crazy Horse monument as well.  Our route actually is 15 miles shorter and is less hilly than the one Doug plotted out.  We really want to see both mountains so that's the plan.  Should be a lot of fun.  I don't know when I'll get back this way so I want to see as much as I can.

7/8     Day 22     Hot Springs, SD to Rapid City, SD

Today was a long and tiring day on the bicycle, but probably the most fun and interesting of any day so far.  We took off with the plan to go off route after the first SAG stop, visit the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mt. Rushmore and hook back up with the rest of the group at the second SAG stop.  We traded off a ride through Custer State Park and up Iron Mountain for the alternate route.  We definitely took the easier of the two routes as you can tell by the official daily climb.  We did far less climbing going the other way and it was 15 miles shorter.  The rebel group included Bob, Tink, Lloyd, Jill, Christine, Mona, Colleen, Shawn and I.  We took a leisurely ride into the first SAG spotting one buffalo off in the distance and checking out entire hillsides of prairie dogs.  I'd never heard them make any noise before.  They make kind of a honking sound, sort of.  After the SAG, we stopped in Custer for a real breakfast having left Hot Springs with only the continental breakfast stuff from the hotel.  Jim also wanted to take our route, but didn't want to wait for us to eat so he headed out on his own.  We took off and got to the Crazy Horse Memorial 5 miles up the road.  From the viewing balcony outside the visitor's center you get a fantastic view of the carved mountain.  What really strikes you about this phenomenal effort is the sheer size and scale of the project.  It dwarfs the Rushmore sculptures by many, many times.  Equally as impressive is the fact that the memorial has been totally funded privately and through old fashioned commercial enterprise.  The entrance fees and all the profits from the gift shops and restaurant go toward funding the ongoing effort as do all the private donations of money and equipment.  Work has been going on for 52 years now and is nowhere near complete.  It is, however, becoming far more recognizable now that work has been completed on the face.  There is a bus ride that takes you to the base of the mountain, but we had a lot of riding and more sightseeing to do yet.  We headed off to Rushmore on an unknown route and without support.  As it turned out, we were on far better roads than the rest of the group with nice shoulders and nowhere near the climbing.  This part is for Tim - we left Hot Springs on route 385N to the town of Custer.  From there Doug had plotted a route which took 16A East across Custer State Park winding up toward Mt. Rushmore.  Our route left Custer continuing on 385N past Crazy Horse to 244E which climbed a bit, but was mostly downhill into the entrance to Mt. Rushmore visitor's center.  The other thing we got to see coming from the west was a profile view of the Washington sculpture as well as some fascinating rock formations back behind Rushmore.  The monument itself is very impressive.  I can only imagine what it looks like lit up at night!  A number of riders were still there, but most had left fearing the looming thunderstorms moving closer in the distance.  Shortly after we got there Lloyd, Jill, Bob, Christine and Shawn left for the same reason.  Mona, Colleen and I stayed and planned to meet them in Keystone at the bottom of the hill.  We watched the movie and got some more pictures and then the weather really was getting pretty hairy.  They wanted to stay and wait for it to pass, but I asked some park employees where the town was from there and the rain was just beyond moving this way.  I told them it might not pass quickly, but if we left RIGHT NOW we could make it to Keystone.  We hopped on our bikes and flew down the 10% grade descent into town.  The second SAG was there and just as we pulled in it began to rain.  We ate at the Miner's cafe next door and watched as it rained harder and harder and then began to hail.  Good timing!  The Miner's cafe specialty is their cinnamon buns and all the waitresses wore tee shirts that said BIG BUNS! on the back.  We waited for almost two hours for the rain to clear and finally left when it looked better.  It was still raining, but only lightly and at 4:00 we thought we should get on the road.  It was only a 20 mile ride into Rapid City, but the storms were still brewing about in all directions with a lot of lightning which is the real reason to stay off the road.  It stopped raining about a third of the way up the 1.5 mile climb out of town.  Along the way, the rain kept creeping up on us and we would outrun it.  It was pretty exciting, really, racing the weather into town.  I'm not at all used to riding in the rain and one of the interesting problems is that it's nearly impossible to see any glass on the road.  About 13 miles out of town Christine got a flat and those in front of her continued, not knowing, while those of us in back stopped to help.  We got her going fairly quickly, but the rain again caught up to us.  Another 2 miles down the road, Shawn blew a tube as well.  At this point, it was Christine, Shawn, Colleen, Mona and I.  As they were wrapping up the repair, Colleen and Mona headed off as they were a little slower and this way they could get a head start.  Mona likes to be in back because she brakes a lot going downhill so Colleen took off first and not 20 yards down the road, Mona got a flat!  Shawn and Christine were finishing up Shawn's repair so I rode ahead and got working on Mona's tire.  Fortunately, it was the front tire which is a lot easier to work on.  Just then, Julianne pulled up in the van and brought us a good pump to get back going.  The supposedly new tube that I put in Mona's tire was no good because it wouldn't hold air as I began to pump it up.  She was kind of frustrated and was considering jumping in the van and riding in from there, but we'd have none of that.  Someone came up with another tube and I managed to change it out again in about a minute and a half!  The rain was starting back up and the lightning was moving closer too.  Everyone headed out and Julianne was going to hover nearby in the van which was some comfort.  Mona is slow in the hills so everyone went ahead and I hung back to make sure she got in.  She's a personal trainer and runs a fitness center in Maine.  I kept thinking it was kind of cool that I was the one pushing and coaxing the trainer in over the last hills.  It was a very exhilarating day and I told everyone, "Now, this is living!"  We all made it in and felt very satisfied yet physically a little drained.  Tomorrow's an easy day before another 116 mile day into Pierre.  

7/9     Day 23     Rapid City, SD to Wall, SD

I rewrote yesterday's entry to fill in some detail as I was just too tired last night.  Today was a very easy day of only 58 miles to Wall.  It was a fairly uneventful ride through rolling hills and green, green pastures.  We got to Wall a little after noon and had lunch.  Everybody made their way at one point or another over to the Wall Drug Store to check it out.  It's really the ONLY thing in this town and buses come through all day long dropping people off at this drug store.  It's pretty cheesy really, but it does have pretty much everything you could ever think of in the way of souvenirs and then some.  The original advertising gimmick since it opened in 1931, and still today, is Free Ice Water!  Also, you can get a cup of coffee in the cafe for 5 cents!  I never drink coffee after noon or so, but since Tim Goodrich had told me that I had to have a 5 cent cup of coffee, I had one cup in his honor!  Yesterday and today we said goodbye to three riders completing their portions of the ride.  While most of us are going the distance, a number of riders signed up for shorter segments and are joining and dropping as we go along.  Yesterday, Tink and Dawn spent their last days riding with us and left this morning.  Today was the last riding day for Ben who had joined us in Jackson Hole to ride a while with his brother Maurice.  I keep forgetting to mention, but a few days ago on the ride from Lusk, WY to Hot Springs, SD, Frank had kind of a freak accident on the road.  A bee got between his sunglasses and his eye and in the panic to get it out, he lost control and went off the road.  In the fall he broke a couple of ribs and ended up in the hospital.  He was released today and his wife, who has been following along since the beginning in an RV is taking him home.  We'll miss all of them!

7/10     Day 24     Wall, SD to Pierre, SD

Today was an extremely rough day on the rode.  We woke up to rain this morning which was different from the trend of afternoon showers.  It was a pretty steady downpour until well after breakfast.  A lot of people went ahead and left in the rain.  I hung around as long as possible to see if there would be a break.  Finally, it lightened up and I rode out with Lloyd, Bob and Jill.  We got a little wet, but the rain stopped about a quarter mile down the road.  It was pretty smooth sailing for the next 30 miles with a steady tailwind and a nice road to the first SAG stop.  I got sick after eating an energy bar that didn't sit too well.  I felt awful and couldn't muster any strength for the next 25 miles as I fell back and rode by myself just trying to work through the nausea.  It took forever to get to the 2nd SAG and I had a hard time just getting off the bike.  I was starting to feel a little better and stopped at a store in Midland and was able to eat something.  I left there again with Lloyd, Bob and Jill and started to get my legs moving finally.  We turned with the wind and had a nice ride for about an hour.  Bob and I were out front a ways hoping to outrun a pretty dark storm heading our way.  We couldn't, but happened to be near a vacant house with an open garage where we all took refuge as the sudden downpour rolled past.  Julianne was bringing up the rear riding sweep and we managed to wave her down to come in out of the rain.  When it let up we took off, but got pretty wet from the water coming off the road.  After the third SAG stop we took off with 30 miles to go and no wind whatsoever.  That didn't last long as the wind promptly picked up to about 18 mph and just beat the tar out of everyone over the last 20 miles.  It was a brutal day and the rain looks to continue tomorrow.  Even worse, the route tomorrow is under construction and the only detour turns out to be a dirt road.  14 miles of it!  Not looking forward to that.  We hit another milestone today as we crossed into the central time zone when we crossed the Missouri River.  Tomorrow, we will hit the halfway point in the ride.  That's in both miles and number of riding days.  1800 and something miles and 25 days.  It's been an amazing trip so far and I've seen and done so much.  Physically, it's been hard, but easier than I thought.  The body is an amazing thing the way it responds day after day.  Some days are better than others, but you just keep going.  What's really difficult is being out here without Susan and Marisa.  It was so nice having them along last week.  Even though I found myself worrying a lot about them on the road, it was great to pull in at the end of the day and have them there with me.  There are a lot of things that I've seen out here that I definitely want to come back and see with them.  It's the only downside to this trip...not being able to share it all with them.  I don't know if Susan really realized just how much I stressed over coming on this ride.  Since I first thought about doing this over a year ago, I have gone back and forth in my mind over whether I wanted to take off and be away from them this long.  I talk to them on the phone every night and that really helps.  Marisa never used to talk on the phone to anyone, but she gets on the phone every night to tell me everything that happened each day.  I miss them both a lot and can't wait to see them again when they come out in Wisconsin.  I really feel lucky to have such a wonderful family and they are with me in my thoughts every step of the way.

7/11     Day 25     Pierre, SD to Chamberlain, SD

The word for today is WIND.  When I woke up and looked out the window, I saw the flag outside the hotel standing at perfect attention.  The winds were out of the southeast, the exact direction we would be traveling all day.  94 miles today and all but 5 of them were directly into the wind.  The 5 miles were part of a dirt road detour around a construction area.  There were 8 more miles of dirt road that turned back into the wind.  It was not a lot of fun.  The wind made it feel like climbing about a 3% graded climb all day.  Imagine, now, what it's like actually climbing a hill in this wind.  Well, we soon found out at we had to climb up and away from the river.  It was pretty steep and the wind made it even worse.  The only good thing was that it was a constant wind.  Although slow, you just find a speed and cadence that you can work with and press ahead.  With gusts it's very difficult to hold a pace.  I soon hooked up with Rich, Nancy and John and we worked together in a pace line until the first SAG stop.  Nancy SAGged fom that point and the rest of us took off.  Shortly afterward it was down to Rich and I.  We got through the detour at the same time as Jim and Ed so we all hooked up and worked it into the second SAG.  After refueling with food and water we took off again.  Riding together made it a lot more bearable.  We worked our way back down to near the river and turned directly eastward toward Chamberlain.  There were two long steep climbs at the very end of the day which after a tough hard day seemed more like Teton pass.  It was very satisfying to finish the ride today, but most everyone was dragging afterward.  Hopefully, the winds will change or die down tomorrow.  We only have 71 miles to do and everyone's hoping for an easier day.

7/12     Day 26     Chamberlain, SD to Mitchell, SD

Today was a shorter and much easier day than yesterday.  The winds were still present and still coming out of the southeast, but our route shifted slightly more to the east so the winds were not directly in our face.  Just enough to make an easy 70 mile flat ride into a bit of a challenge.  After yesterday, everyone was pretty tired and that added to today's challenge.  Let's see the last three days we've had wind...wind...and more wind!  There has been a little controversy up here around changing the name of North Dakota to just Dakota.  I don't know about that, but I think they should take this whole section of the country and just call it Wind in Your Face.  That way you could stand out on the prairie, point your bicycle in whatever direction you want and as far as the eye can see there would be nothing but Wind in Your Face!  Oh, wait.  That's pretty much what we've already got!  Here's to hoping tomorrow's a tailwind!!  Today was actually not that bad.  The little towns along the route were nicely spaced about 12 miles apart all the way today.  They were all established way back when along the railroad at equal distances for the steam engines to take on water.  Turns out to be a perfect way to break up a bicycle ride as well.  This is real small town America, each with populations of a few hundred to a few thousand.  The people here are typically very friendly and the drivers mostly courteous toward us on the road giving us plenty of space as they pass.  So far, Oregon has been by far the most bicycle friendly state with Idaho being the least.  The scenery and landscape today didn't change too much except that today we almost immediately moved up and away from the Missouri River.  This is an area where the states agriculture transitions from mostly ranching in the western part of the state to mostly farming in the eastern part.  We past a lot of corn fields today as well as soybeans.  There are hardly any trees out here, just a lot of rolling farmland, but it's been mostly green ever since we rode across the state line.  This area yesterday and today is known for the great fishing in the Missouri and for pheasant hunting all around.  I say a number of pheasant in the corn fields today.  I rode mostly alone today, except for the last 20 miles or so that I rode with Lloyd.  The last 10 miles into Mitchell were the best as the road was completely lined with trees to break the wind.  It was fantastic!  We picked up 5 mph easily without the wind.  We rolled into Mitchell and stopped at Dairy Queen where we saw a bunch of bikes out front.  Afterward, as we were leaving we stopped at a Goodwill store.  I had been looking for just such a place to buy a tie for Mal.  Malcolm is just about the coolest guy on the trip.  He doesn't look at all like one of us.  He rides a hybrid bike with no clips or cleats.  He wears tennis shoes and this old white long sleeve collared shirt to keep the sun off his arms.  He is definitely doing this ride his own way.  I've been teasing Mal that I was going to get him a tie to go with his shirt.  He said he needed one that was at least fourteen years old to go with the shirt.  I think we found one that was at least that old!  We presented it to him tonight at route rap.  Mitchell is known primarily for one thing.  The Corn Palace.  It's an interesting tradition that began in 1892 when they decided they needed a way to let people know that there was a reason to come out this way.  Apparently, decorating the outside of a large building with different colored corn was their way of showing off bountiful agricultural products of the area.  We checked it out.  Interesting!  Every year they redo it with new designs.  Tomorrow is another light day of only 70 miles into Sioux Falls for another day off.  We need it.  

7/13     Day 27     MItchell, SD to Sioux Falls, SD

Today was another windy day, but not a headwind and not nearly as strong.  It was a welcome relief from the last few days.  We had a short ride of 70 miles into Sioux Falls for our third day off.  Not much excitement today.  I left with a large group after breakfast.  Again, the towns were spaced about twelve miles apart, but we wound around some of them.  We stopped for lunch in a town called Calistota where they were preparing for their annual Sports Day festival.  I think it would have been more fun to just stay there and enjoy the very small town hospitality, but we finished eating and headed out.  By then, it was down to Bob, Lloyd, Shawn, Christine, Colleen and I.  Colleen is riding to raise awareness of FAS - fetal alcohol syndrome.  She has a niece with FAS and has raised quite a bit of money for the National Organization of FAS.  The local NBC affiliate was waiting at the edge of town to do a brief interview of her as part of a story around the local FAS organization.  We all rode in with her and met the reporter who did the interview and then caught all of us on video for the evenings news broadcast.  As it turned out, none of us actually saw it, but Colleen's sister is going to try to get a copy of the video.  Anyway, we got to Sioux Falls and settled in for the day off.  We had a guest speaker at route rap from the local chamber of commerce.  He gave us the rundown on the town and some of the history.  A bunch of us (Bob, Marty, Christine, Chris, Neal, Shawn, Colleen, Jamie, Elizabeth and I) called a cab and headed downtown to see the falls and check out the downtown area.  It was a little early for the laser light show that the city puts on at the falls every night so we walked to the downtown area to see what was going on.  We ended up at a blues bar and had a drink while we waited for the light show.  There was a moment that you really had to be there to appreciate.  It was luau night at the bar and Marty was being very friendly with the cute and way too young waitress.  It was pretty hilarious when she put the lei around his neck and posed for the photo - Marty getting "lei'd!"  We made our way down to the falls for the light show which was a bit of a disappointment, but still interesting.  It was mostly a history lesson of the city of Sioux Falls.  We called the cab and headed back to the hotel.  Tomorrow's a day off and I've got a lot to do.  

7/14     Day 28     Sioux Falls, SD (Rest Day)

Today was a bit of a lazy day getting going.  I finally got it in gear and cleaned my bike really well.  I hadn't cleaned my chain in about 600-700 miles and it had been grinding for too many days now.  I got the rest of my bike cleaned up as well as the daily threat of rain seems to have subsided somewhat.  When I was done it looked almost like new.  Then I finally caught the laundry room empty and did my laundry.  It's a little difficult when there is one washer and one dryer and 60 people want to use it at the same time.  I got done and was going to do some work putting captions on all the new photos I've gotten developed and scanned.  Unfortunately, something is wrong with my photo albums on ClubPhoto and they have not been accessible lately.  In addition, the phone system in this hotel really sucks.  There is so much noise on the lines that even when I do get a connection, it's been miserably slow.  It's surprising that in a city this size I have had the worst connections of any on the trip to date.  In fact, the fastest connections I've gotten have been in some of the smallest towns.  Anyway, it's impossible to work with the photo images on such a slow connection so I didn't do any of that.  That left me a little time so Bob, Christine, Mona, Colleen and I went to the movies to see The Score.  It was pretty good.  Afterward, we had a great meal at Outback Steakhouse which was fantastic and went back to the hotel to get ready for the ride tomorrow.  It's not a long one, only 64 miles, but the day after a rest is always a little hard to get going again.

7/15     Day 29     Sioux Falls, SD to Worthington, MN

Was today an easy day?  Yah, You Betcha! Welcome to Minnesota.  We finally left South Dakota and almost immediately the wind seemed to turn in our favor.  Actually, the road turned here and there and the cross winds from the southeast occasionally switched to cooperate with us.  When we got to the border there was no sign at the state line.  There was a stone monument thing where a sign obviously used to hang.  I was riding with Bob, Shawn, Christine and Jill and we all hung from the horizontal sign post while a local rider we met on the road took our picture.  We had a pretty leisurely ride into Worthington and stopped at the Dairy Queen for lunch before moving on to the hotel.  We ran into Dave and Cathy who were out checking out the town because their room wasn't ready yet.  We checked out a local museum across the street from the hotel.  It was pretty interesting.  We met the mayor of Worthington there and he gave us a little insight into the local scene.  One of the exhibits at the museum was about a nearby wind power generating station.  The display stated that southwestern Minnesota was one of the windiest places in the US.  Most of us already had our own opinions on that!  Pipestone National Monument is near here as well.  This is a spot where only Native Americans are allowed to quarry the stone for use in carving ceremonial pipes.  Also nearby is the childhood home of Laura Ingalls in Walnut Grove whose life and books were the basis for "Little House on the Prairie."  We don't actually get to go to any of these places.  That's one of the drawbacks of a tour like this.  Anything that's more than a few miles out of the way is probably farther than you want to go.  Tomorrow we ride 90 something miles to Mankato.  I spent a little time in Mankato a long time ago, but don't really remember much about it.  I do remember seeing a comedy show at Mankato State University one night.  It was Don Novello.  Any of you Saturday Night Live fans remember him as Father Guido Sarducci.  Other than that, I remember it as the first place I'd ever seen a river that runs north.

7/16     Day 30     Worthington, MN to Mankato, MN

Today was a pretty good days ride of 94 miles.  It started early with rain falling briefly while we ate breakfast and prepared to leave.  The rain stopped just before I left.  I took off again with Bob, Lloyd, Jill, Christine and Shawn.  Once we got through town and turned toward Mankato, the wind got behind us nicely and we had a great ride all the way to the first SAG stop at 30 miles.  Just as we were getting ready to leave it began to rain again...this time a little harder.  Everyone donned their rain gear and we headed out for a bit of a soaking.  It wasn't too bad really and there was still a tailwind.  I'll take rain with a tailwind any day over a dry headwind.  The rain stopped after about 8 miles or so.  We got off the highway for an early lunch and rode into the small town of St. James to find a restaurant.  We had to ride on a dirt road through some construction, but we found an excellent little restaurant that had just opened up for the day.  It's called the Hickory Inn.  When they found out what we were doing they apparently called the local town newspaper because a reporter, Rich Knoll, showed up a short time later.  He sat with us as we ate lunch and asked us a bunch of questions, got all our names and where we were from.  At this point, Shawn had ridden on ahead and we had been joined by Marc part way through lunch.  Everyone else had fast food at the next exit down.  Rich took some pictures and promised to send us some copies of the paper after the story is published this Thursday, I think.  Meanwhile, Paul the owner of the restaurant had shown us a different more direct route to the next town.  We decided to take it because it was supposed to be a little shorter.  I don't think it was any shorter, really, but it was a much better road with hardly any traffic and a much better shoulder to ride on.  As it turned out this would be more important than the distance.  On the stretch that we bypassed, three riders went down on the rough shoulder.  There were apparently some very deep grooves between the shoulder and the roadway.  Beverlee got caught crossing over and went down.  Lee apparently flipped over her and went down very hard breaking a few ribs.  Will went down also and ended up with a separated shoulder and some serious road rash.  It was a very tough day that could have been avoided by taking the route we took.  By the time we got to the second SAG stop, Karen was sitting there alone and Julie had gone back over the route to try to find us.  In retrospect, we should have called ahead and told them we were off the route.  Oh, well.  We finally made it into Mankato by late afternoon.  I spent a few weeks here about 22 years ago and I only recognized a few things.  There has been an awful lot of growth since.  Tomorrow, we have a near century day of 98.6 miles into Rochester.  Then we have a short day over to La Crosse in Wisconsin where we will begin to hit some nice rolling hills.  Susan and Marisa are preparing to come out again to see me the day after that in Wisconsin Dells.  They will follow me for a few days across Wisconsin all the way to Manitowoc.  I can't wait.  I really miss them and it will be nice to see them again.  I forgot to mention that in Sioux Falls we lost three riders, Nancy and Elizabeth Coe and John Paul, who had completed their rides.  We were joined by John Clark who is riding from here to Niagara Falls, I think.

7/17     Day 31     Mankato, MN to Rochester, MN

Today was a long, hard day starting with a half mile climb immediately out of the hotel straight up Main Street.  I started the 100 mile day alone, but met up with everyone by the first SAG stop.  I got to see more of the hilltop area of Mankato on the way out of town.  Mankato is kind of a neat town nestled around the Minnesota River and surrounded by hills.  Anyway, there wasn't much time for anything but riding today.  It was hot and very humid since it had rained quite a bit overnight.  We rode on some pretty nice roads early on that were under construction so all the traffic had been routed around on detours.  I was alone through much of this and it was totally quiet with no one and no traffic around.  A bunch of us rode together, but by the end of the day everyone begins to find it harder and harder to keep the same pace so we started to drift apart into smaller groups.  When I got to Rochester, I was with Christine and Brian was a little ahead of us.  We stopped at Subway where we saw Bob and Shawn and had a cold drink.  There happened to be a  bike shop about four shops down so we went over to look around.  It was a pretty good shop and we got the whole scoop on Lance Armstrong's amazing day in the mountains.  I picked up a new lubricant for my chain because the stuff I was using just wasn't cutting it.  By the afternoon, I would be grinding it out and the sound is worse than the actual friction.  It just wears on you listening to even the slightest grinding like that.  Anyway, we got to the hotel and I showered and took a power nap before dinner.  Dinner really sucked and it was served by the indoor pool area which was nearly as hot as it was outside and certainly more humid.  Afterward, Bob and Christine and I asked the hotel clerk where a good dessert shop was and they all immediately recommended Baker's Square.  We had the hotel shuttle take us over there and we ordered four different huge slices of pie and we shared them all.  We couldn't even finish those, but when our waitress returned, I noticed she was wearing a button with a picture of a slice of key lime pie on it.  I love key lime pie.  That was it!  I had to have some, so she brought us yet another piece.  We could barely walk out of there when the shuttle came back for us.  Now that is what dessert is all about!

7/18     Day 32     Rochester, MN to La Crosse, WI

Today started with a pretty lousy breakfast of pancakes and eggs (again) in the tropical rain forest conditions poolside.  As hot and humid as it is outside, it probably would have been  cooler to do it outside.  Anyway, I took off feeling pretty good with Bob, Lloyd, Shawn and Jill.  For some reason, I felt really strong and was pounding up the hills today.  It felt pretty good.  I'm not sure, but I think it was the pie!  That, and the new lubricant worked wonders and my bike felt like new again.  I road ahead and enjoyed the rolling landscape that provided today's challenge over the 80 mile route.  As we moved east, it really started to roll up and down pretty good.  This is what we have to look forward to through the western part of Wisconsin as well.  Apparently, the state is divided in two.  The area west of The Dells features the high bluffs with sharp rock edges similar to what we rode through today.  That provides the steeper climbs and descents in and out of the well defined valleys.  East of The Dells is the glaciated side of the state which is a somewhat more smoother landscape that settles down a bit and rolls down to the Lakeside on the eastern border.  Today was brutally hot and humid as well.  When you're riding, you create enough of breeze to make it feel a little cooler.  It's not until you stop that you realize the heat is so intense.  It also becomes very difficult when the sweat is pouring off your brow and into your eyes.  If it gets mixed with sunscreen, it can really sting.  The scenery was the best it's been in a long time, first a lot of farmland (more corn and soybeans) and then turning into high bluffs overlooking the valleys below.  We had lunch in the small town of Rushford.  After talking to some of the locals, we decided to take another detour on a bike trail along the river.  It wasn't advertised as a shortcut, but more scenic and hardly any climbing.  It really was fantastic.  It was shaded about forty percent of the way and was a pretty well maintained smooth asphalt trail.  There was only one minor problem along the way.  There were a number of trees that had fallen after a recent storm and we had to carry our bicycles over about five of them.  Otherwise, it was a good trail and I was glad we took it.  We met up with the route about seven miles later and followed it the rest of the way into La Crosse.   We got to the state line at the same time as about twenty other riders, so we all posed for a group photo at the sign.  Then we rode over the Mississippi river and into town.  It was a long and hot day and tomorrow will be more of almost exactly the same, but about twenty more miles.

7/19     Day 33     La Crosse, WI to Wisconsin Dells, WI

It turned out that today was really nothing at all like yesterday.  We definitely caught a break from the heat today as the sun never did break through the clouds.  I left La Crosse at about 6:30 by myself and headed out across town.  Immediately at the edge of town the road climbed up over the bluff and away from the river.  It was the kind of long hard climb early in the morning that really wakes you up.  I passed quite a few people on the hill and caught up with Christine and Bob at about the 17 mile mark.  We rode together the rest of the way.  Today was one of the more scenic days in a very long time.  The road climbed and rolled up and over hill after hill all day long.  I'm getting a lot stronger and have gotten to where I really like the short rolling climbs.  The real long stuff still bogs me down and I end up slowly grinding it out, but the shorter ones are a lot of fun.  It's fun to hit the hill and blast up over the top.  I past a lot of people today doing just that.  Maybe, it was just that I was anxious to see Marisa and Susan tonight.  We past through a beautiful little valley with lots of Amish residents.  I didn't know there were Amish in Wisconsin.  There were horse drawn buggies passing the other way through the whole valley.  After that we climbed up over Wildcat mountain.  It was the first thing we'd seen since western South Dakota that had "mountain" in the name.  It wasn't that tough, but on a long day everything wears on you little by little.  We stopped in Hillsboro on the other side of the mountain for lunch at Ron and Nancy's Bar and Grill.  A couple of locals had pointed us there and recommended it as the best food in town.  It wasn't a very big town, but the food turned out to be pretty good and (best of all) very cheap!  We headed off for the last push into Wisconsin Dells.  We got into the hotel by about 2:00 pm and decided to ride the mile into town to see what all the fuss was about.  This place was a totally tacky cheese-fest of a tourist trap from one end of town to the other!  The town is full of water parks, go-cart tracks, miniature golf, hotels, gift shops and restaurants.  We decided to catch a boat down the lower dells and see the actual reason this place is famous.  It was pretty interesting.  The river is a caramel brown color caused by tannic acid which seeps from some kind of tree.  It's apparently the same stuff that's used for coloring in cola and other drinks.  The rock formations themselves were also interesting.  There were trees growing right out of the top of the rocks.  I don't know how they do that!  We headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up in time for dinner.  Susan and Marisa were coming to see me for a few more days.  They flew into Milwaukee and were driving back to meet me.  They finally got here at about 9:30 and were both totally exhausted from the trip.  We hugged and kissed and talked the rest of the night until I had to get to bed.  Tomorrow's an 80 mile day, but shouldn't be that hard.  

7/20     Day 34     Wisconsin Dells, WI to Fond du Lac, WI

I got up early and left this morning without going to breakfast.  I just wanted to get going and try to get done early.  Today was a relatively easy 80 miles with fairly cool temperatures and bearable humidity.  The terrain was slightly rolling and there was very little wind.  I missed a turn and put in an extra mile or so before I got back on track.  The scenery was nice with a lot of trees and lightly rolling hills.  I've noticed something since almost immediately after crossing into Wisconsin.  A lot of people here are really into lawn statues.  I've never seen so many lawn statues as I've seen in the last two days.  Immediately after the first SAG, there was a young kid putting up a lemonade stand.  I stopped for an unexpectedly excellent glass of lemonade.  I don't know how well he made out today, but he probably would have done much better if he was on the other side of the SAG.  Marisa and Susan spent the morning in The Dells and ended up taking the same boat ride that we took yesterday.  I got to Fond du Lac about 45 minutes before they did.  Marisa and I went swimming for about an hour and then we got dressed and went out to dinner.  We found a place with the most incredible prime rib.  The place is called the Sunset Supper Club right on the shore of Lake Winnebego.  We had to wait about 50 minutes to be seated, but the view was good and the food was more that worth the wait.  Tomorrow's a short day into Manitowoc.  The next day, we all get on the ferry to cross Lake Michigan while Susan and Marisa head back to Albuquerque.

7/21     Day 35     Fond du Lac, WI to Manitowoc, WI

Today was a quick 57 miles into Manitowoc.  It's kind of funny, but it sometimes seems harder to get up for the short days.  You keep thinking it's a piece of cake so you leave later or don't mentally get going or something.  Today was a little of all of those...plus that huge prime rib last night still felt like a volkswagen sitting in my gut!  I started out with Mona, Colleen, Lloyd and Jill.  Wisconsin really has been a beautiful ride across the whole state.  The rolling hills with farms and dairies dotting the landscape create a picturesque scene that just goes on and on forever.  It really has been a treat.  The weather today has been about the same as it has been the last few days, very humid and warm, but not to hot.  Early this morning we rode past Lake Winnebago as we left Fond du Lac.  I read somewhere that this is the second largest fresh water inland lake in the U.S.  I don't quite know what that means exactly, but there you have it!  I left the SAG today with Bob, Christine and Shawn and rode the rest of the way in with them.  We were done just after noon and they all went to eat.  I went on to the hotel to meet up with Susan and Marisa.  They weren't there yet so I got my stuff and showered.  They had made a wrong turn on the road and took a little detour, but made it okay.  There were absolutely no rooms in the entire town of Manitowoc so we had found a place about 20 minutes away.  It's a golf resort called Fox Hills in the small town of Mishicot.  We drove out there and had to wait for our room so we went into the town to eat.  There was only one place that was open.  It was a little Italian restaurant that served a pretty mean meatball sandwich.  We settled into our room and I desperately needed a nap.  We drove back into Manitowoc for dinner and to get the scoop on tomorrow's day.  It's hard to believe that this town would be totally booked up.  There was a bicycle race going on, another ride across Wisconsin stopping for the night here and a number of other events going.  Marisa and Susan and I went down by the water after dinner and watched as a large ship departed the port and within minutes completely disappeared into the fog.  Looking back the other direction, we caught one of the nicest sunsets since Astoria.  Marisa managed to get a picture of the sun going down below the tree line as we drove on back to the hotel.  She has a little toy 110 camera that takes surprisingly good pictures, but unfortunately she usually manages to get her finger right in front of the lens!  She and I went swimming when we got back to the hotel and then it was time for bed.  I love having my family here with me even though it seriously stresses my daily routine.  I usually don't swim at the hotels, but Marisa pretty much has her heart set on it every day she's out here.

7/22     Day 36     Manitowoc, WI to Ludington, MI (Rest Day)

Today was not a typical rest day, but it was, for the most part, a non riding day.  We got up and drove into town so I could get my bags on the truck.  We had breakfast and then I had to get my bike and ride the three miles down to the water to catch the ferry across Lake Michigan.  I dressed in normal street clothes and shoes so the short ride was a little different.  It's difficult to ride without being able to clip in.  We got to the port and everyone was beginning to gather.  Marisa, Susan and I walked out along the water break out toward the lighthouse.  We all took pictures  and headed back because we were nearing loading time at 12:00 noon.  When we got back, it was time to say goodbye.  It was even harder this time because Marisa has pretty much figured out the drill and she started to cry and tell me that she didn't want me to go.  That made it even worse as we all hugged and kissed.  Finally, Susan had to just go and they headed back to Milwaukee and I headed onto the ferry to cross over to Michigan.  The boat was pretty interesting, but not very restful for a rest day.  There used to be an entire fleet of these coal fired boats that ferried people, cars, trucks and railroad cars across the lake.  Now it's down to just the S.S. Badger which makes two round trip crossings every day of the season.  It was cooler once the boat got underway, but still very muggy.  A bunch of us played cards for awhile, then I went out on the deck and played a couple of games of Yahtzee with Christine and Neal.  It turns out, Neal should be in Vegas and he pretty well kicked our butts with the dice.  After we got to our destination and got our bikes off the boat, everyone headed into Ludington to find something for dinner.  The Welcome to Michigan sign was another photo op and I got a great group photo at the sign.  A bunch of us stopped at a place down the street called The Jamesport Brewing Company.  The food was great, but it took forever to get served.  By now, it was about 9:00 and we still had to ride about three miles to the hotel.  It wasn't dark yet since we again changed times and were now on the western edge of another time zone.  Tomorrow is our last century of the trip, but the curve ball here could be the weather.  It's looking like thunderstorms will be moving in the area.  Hopefully, we can get out early and get done before they hit too hard.  I hear this part of Michigan is pretty well flat so if the winds are in our favor then it should be okay.  

7/23     Day 37     Ludington, MI to Mount Pleasant, MI

I was one of the last riders out of the hotel this morning because I just didn't wake up this morning.  I had been up until about 1:30 a.m. trying to get a hold of Susan to make sure they made it home okay.  Their flight had been delayed on both legs of their trip and they got in more than an hour later than expected.  I rode out of the hotel alone to tackle the last century ride of the trip.  The rain never materialized and fortunately for us the cloud cover held pretty much throughout the day which made for a very comfortable ride.  The temperatures were probably in the 80s.  Doug had said that this day would be as "flat as a pancake."  It was not!  Gunnel described it as more like a belgian waffle!  The vertical climb was about 2500'.  Nothing really tough, but when you're expecting a flat ride it's a little harder to get up for.  The good news is that the winds were not quite tailwinds, but enough behind to help a little.  The bad news is that the roads in Michigan have been the worst of the ride.  Minnesota was pretty bad, but these are ridiculous.  It would seem there's a point that you would quit patching the patches on the cracks and eventually repave, but not yet I guess.  So far, what we've seen of Michigan has not been much to write about (or take pictures of for that matter.)  I will say that Ludington was a nice little town.  By contrast, it was a much nicer port town than Manitowoc on the other side.  The the water in Manitowoc you see the Budweiser brewery, some other industry and not much else.  Approaching Ludington from the water you see nicely laid out and well manicured parks, an amphitheatre, restaurants, shops and bed & breakfast establishments all along the water.  From there, however, there really hasn't been anything distinctive whatsoever.  It's nice...very green with trees everywhere, just nothing of note to distinguish.  I rode with Bryan for a short time today and then continued on my own for most of the  rest of the ride.  I did ride with Lloyd and Jill for about 5 miles, but we turned with the wind 20 miles from the end and I just took off.  I averaged about 25 mph for the last 15 miles or so.  When the road is nice and the wind to your back, you just gotta go!  There wasn't much in Mount Pleasant.  A bunch of us went over to the lounge at the Holiday Inn to watch the highlights of the mountain stages of the Tour de France since today was a day off.  What an impressive display of sheer will and power.  Lance Armstrong is nothing less than phenomenal.  I was always amazed watching him, but after doing this ride and climbing some of the mountains we've climbed I am simply blown away watching him climb 8% grades at speeds that I average on the flats!  Incredible.

7/24     Day 38     Mount Pleasant, MI to Birch Run, MI

Today was as easy a 74 mile ride as you can ask for.  It truly was as flat as a pancake with a very nice tailwind almost the whole way.  The only other thing you could possibly ask for is better roads.  I rode with Bob, Lloyd, Jill, Mona and Colleen pretty much the whole way.  We were joined a few times by Marc and Marty on the recumbents and by Will as well.  It was a stop as often as possible day!  Stop to get sandwiches for later, stop for water, stop for SAG and then stop to eat the sandwiches.  Then, of course, we needed to find ice cream after that!  It's amazing how a 74 mile day can be stretched out as much as a 105 mile day.  That's what Team DFL is all about!  The charter members of team DFL on this trip are Bob Hoffman, Lloyd Baker and Tink Wonderlin.  They have done a number of these rides together over the years and they've definitely figured out how to keep the TOUR in cycling tour.  Tink, who was the oldest rider at 75 years young, left the ride back in Rapid City, SD and headed down to New Orleans to compete in the Senior Olympics.  He's a pretty amazing guy with a great sense of humor.  His philosophy is to stay on the bike as long as he's having fun.  When it stops being fun, he gets off the bike.  Very simple!  Bob and Lloyd have kept the team intact since Tink left and they open up the bar usually within about 15 minutes of getting to the hotel.  Jill is also a key part of team DFL.  She is a longtime friend of Lloyd's daughter and has ridden numerous tours with Lloyd and the guys.  If you haven't figured it out yet, FUN is pretty much the name of the game here.  I have had a great time with these guys for most of the trip.  Along for the ride with team DFL has also been Mona, Colleen, Christine, Shawn and pretty much anyone who's ready to put a good time at a higher priority than finishing the day's ride early.  We arrived (DFL, of course) in Birch Run and stopped for a Slurpee at 7-11 not a mile from the hotel.  A lot of people extended the day's ride by going on to Frankenmuth which is one of Michigan's most visited tourist attractions.  I decided not to do the extra miles for what had been described as yet another overdone tourist trap.  May be my loss, I don't know.  I finally got the news article from the Lusk Herald newspaper posted.  I've been slacking off lately on getting stuff updated.  You can access the article off the Intro page under the NEWS link.

7/25    Day 39     Birch Run, MI to Port Huron, MI

Today's twist was definitely the weather.  It rained overnight and this morning was rather cool, but dry.  It was in the 50s to start the day which we haven't seen since Oregon and probably never made it much higher than 70.  Later in the day we got caught in the rain which could have been avoided had we not stopped for a fun and tasty lunch in Yale, Michigan.  I rode out of the hotel with Bob, Christine, Shawn and Jamie.  We caught up to Lloyd, Jill, Colleen and Mona.  Bob dropped off to ride with Lloyd.  Lloyd will be finishing up his ride at the end of this week.  Bob also leaves for a while, but will rejoin us for the last few days.  Jill is taking a few days also to be in a friends wedding.  She will also rejoin.  Colleen is meeting some friends in Niagara and they will be taking a different route, self  supported, to finish down in Maryland.  Shawn and Jamie only have one more days ride with us.  They will drop off in Ontario to visit some family before taking their own route, self supported, the rest of the way.  On the other hand, a number of new riders will join in Niagara Falls for the New England portion of the tour.  The highlight of today's ride was the lunch stop in Yale.  I scouted the town and got a local's recommendation to eat at CJ's Restaurant.  We were not disappointed.  The food was good and the dessert (homemade pie, of course) was fantastic.  The town of Yale celebrates the annual Bologna Festival every year in late July.  This year's is coming up this weekend.  It's a fairly small town, but you could see all the signs of preparation for the big event.  In fact, they had loudspeakers mounted up and down Main Street with music playing.  Neat little town.  They apparently make a lot of bologna in this town although it wasn't until later that it struck me as interesting that there wasn't any bologna on the menu.  Hmmm!  Anyway, our waitress, Diane, informed us that she was the Bologna Festival Queen of 1993.  Of course, that was all it took.  We started singing the Oscar Mayer song and after she helped us remember the words we all sang it together...pretty much freaking out the rest of the local customers!  

"My bologna has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R.  My bologna has a second name, it's M-A-Y-E-R.  I love to eat it every day and if you ask me why I'll say, 'cuz Oscar Mayer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A!"  

Then we needed pictures to fully document the moment and she gracefully sat with us while we snapped a bunch of photos.  We had been joined at that point by Larry, Ron and Marsh.  Just after leaving, the rain began to come down a little harder than the sprinkling it had done throughout lunch.  If we hadn't stopped, we would have definitely made it into Port Huron without getting wet, but then what's the fun in that!  When we did, the directions were pretty confusing.  We knew we were on the right track, though, when we approached an intersection in a residential area.  There were a bunch of kids hanging out on the porch of the house on the corner.  As we neared the STOP sign, they all chimed in with Jamie in harmony when he called out, "all clear" to indicate no cars were coming!  They had obviously heard a lot of other groups of cyclists as they went by.  We rode by the lake and headed on to the hotel for our last stay in the states for awhile.  Tomorrow we go international and head into Ontario for a few days.  Should be fun.  So far there hasn't been much of anything interesting to see in Michigan and today did nothing to change that.  One thing is for sure...the roads here are, by far, the absolute worst of any state we've been to.  The drivers have been across the spectrum with both the nice, patient drivers and the rude ones pushing the envelope on both sides!  We'll see how things go in Canada.

7/26     Day 40     Port Huron, MI to London, ONT

Today was a lot of fun to start the day.  We rode all together out of the hotel and side by side over the bridge and into Canada.  Initially, Doug had told us that we would not be allowed to ride over the bridge.  A few ambitious riders went over the bridge last night to find out whether some arrangements could be made.  Turns out they will accommodate groups of riders when they are escorted over the bridge, but Doug would have to arrange it with the crew that would be there in the morning.  Doug managed to make the necessary arrangements early this morning and scheduled for us to ride as a group.  We all gathered at 7:30 a.m. and rode two by two behind the SAG vans, out of the hotel and up the ramp onto the bridge.  When we got to the American side of the bridge we were met by customs officials who had an escort vehicle waiting for us.  They blocked off the two right lanes of traffic for us and off we went.  It was like a parade with sixty something bicycles.  We had never ridden together like that before and won't again I'm sure.  Everyone was snapping pictures up and down the line to capture the moment.  The Welcome to Canada sign was right on the bridge in the middle so there was not stopping for the usual round of photos.  I got a riding snapshot as we passed under it.  Hopefully, it will turn out okay.  I'm getting pretty good and getting the camera out on the roll and snapping off the quick shots.  There was no problem passing through the border crossing as they simply waved us all through together.  Once on the other side, we all regrouped and quickly dispersed along the road.  It was kind of chaotic with that many riders on the road all together.  Soon, though, everyone was spread out and on their way.  It was a tough, hard ride the entire day directly into about a 20 mph headwind.  It wasn't quite as bad as the day from Pierre, SD into Chamberlain, but it was still pretty grueling.  I started out the ride with Christine, Shawn, Bob, Lloyd, Jill, Mona and Colleen.  After about 17 miles or so, it was down to just Shawn, Christine and I.  The others has stopped for a more substantial breakfast than the continental at the hotel.  We got to the SAG at 30 something miles and took a nice rest before tackling the wind again.  We rode out and I pulled for most of the next 20 miles to where we stopped for lunch.  I was feeling pretty good, but I sometimes drag after stopping long enough for lunch.  After lunch I rode in back while Shawn and Christine took turns pulling out front for the last 20 miles into London.  On days like this one I don't take many pictures or do a lot of sightseeing either.  It's pretty much just put the nose to the grindstone and crank it out.  The riding is a little different now than it was in the beginning of this trip.  It's hard to describe, but early on there was a lot of anxiety and stressing over many of the days rides.  Now, we've settled into the routine and nobody really worries about not being able to do the miles.  It's not a question of whether you'll finish anymore, but rather when and what will the variables be along the way.  It's a lot like work or life in general for that matter.  You pretty much know what to expect everyday.  It's the variables and the curve balls that get thrown your way that make it interesting.  While riding, it's been the weather primarily that can throw you for a loop.  Today, for example, along with the wind, it was quite cool to start the day...in the teens!  That's Celsius, of course.  We're all brushing up on our math skills to convert temperatures from Celsius to Fahrenheit and from U.S. to Canadian currency.  I have to mention that there is a most striking transition from Michigan to Ontario.  All of the houses here are incredibly well kept with beautifully manicured lawns and flower gardens.  Nearly immediately, and all day long it was very noticeable.  The difference was like night and day.  It also seems like about every 10th house or so has the Canadian flag proudly flying from a flag pole right out front.  It's very refreshing to see that kind of outright patriotism.

7/27     Day 41     London, ONT to Brantford, ONT

Today was another windy day with about 12-15 mph headwinds.  I rode with Christine, Lloyd and Mona most of the day.  Actually, Mona and Christine were up ahead and Lloyd and I kept falling back.  We are riding through a very diverse agricultural area of Ontario.  I was very surprised at some of the crops we passed.  There was a lot of corn, some alfalfa, wheat and soy beans.  The surprises were tobacco and ginseng.  I didn't know they could grow tobacco all the way up here.  The real interesting one, though, was the ginseng.  I assumed it had been brought over here from Asia because maybe someone figured out it could grow here.  Not so!  Turns out it is native to this particular part of Ontario.  They grow it under shade covers and packed in straw to simulate the natural underbrush environment.  The most interesting thing we found out is that they can only use any single plot of land for one ginseng crop.  The land is tied up for 7 years for a single crop to fully mature and be harvested.  They typically harvest at 3, 4 and 5 years with the value of the crop increasing each of those years.  Once harvested, that plot of land can never be used to grow ginseng again...ever.  It's perfectly fertile for any other crop to grow.  But that is it for ginseng.  I've never heard of that with any other crop.  We got this wealth of info from a ginseng store Lloyd and I stopped at.  They were fantastic and told us all about the native Canadian Ginseng products.  The store is called Rainey Ginseng Farms in Waterford, Ontario.  Neat place.  Check it out.  I think all they're products are available on their web site.  The rest of the day went pretty quick rolling into Brantford.  Brantford's claim to fame is that it is the hometown of Wayne Gretzky.  Tomorrow, we complete our ride through Canada and cross back over at Niagara Falls.  It should be fun.  I've been there once when I was about 10 years old or so.  I'm looking forward seeing the falls again.

7/28     Day 42     Brantford, ONT to Niagara Falls, NY

The day started out quite cool outside.  I got a bit of a late start and headed out by myself.  Not more than two miles down the road, I stopped at a Tim Horton's donut shop for a blueberry fritter and a cup of coffee to warm up.  An older gentleman sat next to me with his coffee and we talked for about 15 minutes.  He asked about the bike ride and where we were going today.  He mentioned that the mayor of Niagara Falls, NY is a friend of his.  Then he started talking about a recent trip to Chicago and how, of course, the mayor is a good friend of his.  Well, I could see where this was headed, so I finished up my coffee and headed on down the road.  Just as I left, Ed from Colorado Springs passed by so I caught up and rode with him the rest of the day.  It turned out to be a bit longer of a day than planned as we added about six miles to the 64 that were planned.  I hate to say we got lost.  That's such a harsh way of putting it.  I like to think that we took advantage of alternate extended route planning tactics.  We had to take a little bit of an overland route when two roads that were supposed to meet didn't.  On the upside, the planned route had a bridge out along the way and everyone else had to carry their bikes down the banks of a small river and then walk across 2x6 planks to the other side.  A fun time was had by all it appears.  We caught up with the Julie-Gunnel gang at Tina's Country Kitchen along the way so we stopped.  I call them that because Julie and Gunnel started riding together way back early in the ride.  Their group has grown to include Chris, Wilson, Rich and Van, but Julie and Gunnel are still the nucleus of that group.  Recently, they have begun to give DFL a run for their money as they leapfrog back and forth on the road stopping at nearly every opportunity for fun or food.  You see, some people eat to ride while others ride to eat!  Their was only one person working at the restaurant and she was doing her best to keep up.  When we pulled up, an extra ham and cheese sandwich came out of the kitchen so Ed and I split it and were able to get going without the long wait everyone else had endured.  We hopped on with them and all rode into Niagara Falls together.  We went straight down to the falls to get a look along with about 50,000 other tourists.  The people were as much a sight to see as the falls.   The falls are pretty amazing to see.  We stayed down along the falls for about an hour and a half and then headed on to the hotel which was on the American side about 6 miles from the falls.  On the Rainbow bridge crossing over back into the U.S. we stopped in the middle to take pictures at the flags in the middle that marked the international border.  We also stopped at the Welcome to New York sign for more of the same.  Later that night, Doug actually gave some of us a ride back to the falls.  He has never done that before so it was something of a surprise that he did.  We walked back across to Canada because that is where pretty much everything is.  We all (Gordon, Sylvia, Steve, Christine, Steve, Chris, Brad, Julianne and I) packed into the Hard Rock Cafe for a little while.  Then we walked around the corner and were presented with the most incredible and disgustingly shameful display of nonstop tourist traps that went on and on seemingly forever.  It was like Wisconsin Dells times ten and then some!  We checked out a few places and then walked back over and caught a cab to head back to the hotel.  Tomorrow is the last day off of the trip.

7/29     Day 43     Niagara Falls, NY (Rest Day)

A lot of people headed back to the falls area for more sightseeing.  I did my laundry and caught up on some sleep.  I thought about going on one of the tours around the area, but decided I'd seen enough for now.  This was one of the places that I would like to come back with Susan and Marisa and we can do all the extensive touring together.  I didn't do much else all day.  I did ride down to a souvenir shop and picked up some t-shirts for presents for Billie and Julie, my little granddaughters.  I stopped at Buzzy's for pizza and chicken wings and then headed back to the hotel for another nap and to get ready for the last week of riding.  My father will be joining me in Portsmouth for the celebration banquet at the finish.  It should be fun.  It's going to be a little sad to end this and say goodbye to all the people I've met out here, but I'm also anxious to get home.  I've really been missing Marisa and Susan.

7/30     Day 44     Niagara Falls, NY to Henrietta, NY

A few people finished up their rides in Niagara and a bunch of new people joined for the last week's ride.  Colleen headed off on her own with some other friends of hers on a self supported stretch to finish in Maryland.  Bob also finished his ride in Niagara Falls.  I don't know all the names of the new people who've joined the ride, but there are about 7 new riders.  In addition there are three riders who are rejoining us for the last week.  Kathy rode with us the first leg from Astoria to Boise. John Paul joined in Boise and rode until Sioux Falls (I think.)  I think that the highlight was that Joe Donahue has rejoined us.  He and his father, Bob, rode together with us from Astoria until the unfortunate events the morning after we rode over Teton Pass.  It was really nice to have him and the others back on the road with us.  Christine and I rode together on a near perfect day for a bike ride.  It was cool and overcast all day and the roads were excellent.  There was a little rolling up and down, but nothing big.  The highlight for me came after we were passed by the fast pace line of Dave, Cathy, (Chicago) Steve and (England) Steve.  Everyone rides at whatever pace they are comfortable with and you tend to team up with other riders of the similar speed.  Christine and I seem to average between about 16 and 19 mph.  These guys seem to keep a pace of a fairly impressive 20-24 mph.  When they passed us I joked to Christine that we could catch them and she took off.  Oh, no!  Here we go!  We hopped on with them and what a ride!  The problem, at least for me, with jumping on a pace line like that is that it's not as hard to hang on behind them as you draft along.  What is hard that eventually as the lead rider peals off one by one, you work your way to the front of the line and then it's your turn to pull for a while.  It wore me out, but I managed to pull for a few miles and a few hills without dropping the speed much.  We rode the last 20-25 miles or so with them and it was a lot of fun.  I've tried to ride with as many people along the way as I can, but I never expected to ride with them for that length of time.  That kind of speed is exactly why I put my mountain bike away and got back on the road.  Very exhilarating!  

7/31     Day 45     Henrietta, NY to Syracuse, NY

Today was a great day for the kind of slow meandering along that I ended up doing.  I got a rather late start this morning after not getting much sleep last night.  After such a hard ride you'd think that it would be easy to sleep.  The hotel we stayed in last night definitely left a lot to be desired.  It was one of the worst so far.  If you ever find yourself in Henrietta, which is just outside of Rochester, do NOT stay at the Day's Inn.  There were a few nice rooms, but most of us didn't get any of them.  Gary asked me what a nice room would have been.  A nice room would have been one where the bathroom door closes so you don't have to see your roommate's naked ass!  That's just for starters, but a very important feature.  Anyway, I rode out by myself and got as far as Pittsford, about ten miles or less, where I stopped for a cup of coffee and a blueberry scone at Starbucks.  I drank my coffee and read the paper before finally heading out.  It was a nice day with the temperatures getting up into the eighties by afternoon, but the humidity was not very high which made for a very comfortable ride.  I'm not sure it's all that typical, but with the low humidity and mostly clear skies, the sky was a beautifully clear blue with occasional puffy white clouds.  It made for a nice backdrop to the rolling hills we're riding as we followed along the Erie Canal.  The canal is quite an engineering marvel given it was originally built back in the early 1800s.  It extends from Albany and the Hudson River all the way to Buffalo connecting the Atlantic to the Great Lakes.  It series of locks raise the canal some 500 feet in the process.  There were small towns and villages all along the route today, some not more than 3 or 4 miles apart and rarely more than about 7 miles apart.  I detoured into a lot of them just to check them out.  It turned the 82 miles into about 93 by the time I was done.  It also took a lot longer than it should have because I really took my time today.  I rode with Eugene from Toronto for a while today.  He joined us in Niagara for the last week and has been struggling a little his first few days.  I'd ride with him a few miles and then detour off into one of the little towns.  Then I would get back on track and catch up to him and ride along a little further.  I rode near or at the end of the pack most of the day.  With Lloyd, Bob and Jill gone, someone had to keep up the DFL tradition!  I've never actually finished last on any day.  It's pretty hard to finish later than George who is often the last one in off the road.  George is the ultimate tourist on the road.  He has collected old license plates from every state we've been to and probably some we haven't been to.  You can often find him off in a junk yard fighting some rusty bolts to get his hands on the latest prize.  This morning I stopped to talk to some riders that were headed west on self supported ride across the state.  It was a father and his two teenage daughters riding to Niagara Falls together along much the same route we had ridden.   I couldn't help but think how fun that would be to do a ride like that with your kids.  All in all today was a long, but really enjoyable day.  There aren't that many left and today was just a reminder of how much there is to take in along the way when you just stop and take the time to enjoy it.  

8/1     Day 46     Syracuse, NY to Utica, NY

Today was another 82 miles of fun in the saddle.  I rode with Christine the whole way and we added a few detours just for fun.  We got a late start and right out of the gate we took a detour off the route in Liverpool and rode a few miles on a fantastic bike trail along Onondaga Lake Park.  Toward the end of the trail there was a lot of activity as they were obviously setting up for a festival or party of some kind.  I stopped to ask someone what was going on.  Turns out I asked the right person - Judy Kelly-Wickwire from WSEN, a local radio station that was sponsoring the Oldiesfest 2001 at the park.  Also going on is the Ultimate Fishing Challenge with a grand prize of $5 million!  50 fish will be tagged with various prizes and whoever catches them wins them.  Sounds like fun.  We were also informed that Onondaga Lake is known for something else.  It's apparently one of the most polluted lakes in the world!  You couldn't tell from the where we were.  The trail was great and there were hundreds of walkers, joggers, skaters and cyclists up and down the lake side.  By the time we left the lake and got back on route we were pretty much at the end of the line.  We definitely were taking our time again and made our way through the traffic and out into the country.  I have to say that the roads in New York have been mostly superb.  In town, they deteriorate a little, but otherwise they've been fantastic.  I heard that there had been a law passed that any new roads or old roads under construction have to be upgraded to include a bike lane.  I don't know if that's true, but all the highways have had nice 4 to 6 foot shoulders to ride on.  By 10:30 we were barely 20 miles down the road in the small town of Calistota or something like that.  We stopped at the bakery and had a doughnut with Mike.  Mike has been filling in for Doug, leading the ride since Niagara.  Doug left for a few days to greet the other group that was a few days ahead of us.  They left San Francisco on a 52 day ride that just ended in Portsmouth.  Doug returns tomorrow night to finish up with us.  Here was the surprise for today...when we were leaving the bakery, Christine and I had our backs to the street and suddenly we heard a familiar voice from the street.  "Hey, get those bikes off the sidewalk!"  It was Lloyd...in a car!  He was on his way to a meeting in Utica.  He was picking us up at the hotel this afternoon to take us to his house for dinner.  This was just a fun coincidence.  We headed out when we saw Jen and Todd bringing up the rear.  In a classic DFL maneuver, we snuck up from behind and drafted off the sweep for a few miles to the SAG!  The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful.  We got to the hotel and got cleaned up in time to meet Lloyd.  He looked pretty comfortable having made a pretty quick transition back to normal life.  Dinner at his house was wonderful.  It was great to sit comfortably and eat a home cooked meal instead of some high volume country buffet like the dozens we've eaten at on this trip.  Lloyd's wife, Lucy, his kids and his granddaughter were all there.  It reminded me of coming home from school.  I had asked Lloyd before, but we showed up with some laundry and Lucy was kind enough to let us do a load while we were there.  I just needed a few days of riding clothes to get me to the end.  We laughed and talked all evening.  After dinner, we went for a tour of Lloyd's business.  He owns a manufacturing company where they provide full service plastic mold injection.  They do design, make the molds, manufacture the parts, hot stencil any writing as well as some assembly for their customers.  A very impressive operation that employs about 45 people there in Sherburne, NY.  The company is called Chenango Valley Technologies.  Afterward, we picked up Jill and all her stuff and brought her back to finish the ride.  She had taken a few days off to attend a friends wedding.  Tomorrow's a 92 mile day with only three days to follow until the end.

8/2     Day 47     Utica, NY to Albany, NY

I've missed a few day here so I'm going to try and catch up, but I may cut some corners here and give the real abbreviated version for now.  It's getting very difficult to find the time to update this with everything going on.  Time is becoming extremely short and there's a good chance I will never see many of these people again so I am trying to spend as much time with everyone as possible.  Today was a long day on the road.  Our last 90+ mile day of the trip.  Jill rode with Christine and I on her first day back as we headed out toward Albany.  The ride was mostly flat like most of our New York ride along the Erie Canal.  The exception was a nice little hill just outside of Little Falls.  No big deal, but a good little wake up for the ride.  We haven't really done any climbing since we left Wisconsin.  We were joined by Rich part way through the day and he rode with us into Amsterdam for a lunch stop.  We stopped at a little place called Russo's Grill that really didn't look like much.  I ordered a hamburger, but most of the 10 or so cyclists in the place ordered the turkey sandwich.  This was the highlight of the day because when they brought them out, these sandwiches must have had about a 1/2 pound of turkey in each one.  No kidding!  With the homemade Italian bread they stood about 4 inches high...nearly as high as it was wide.  On top of that Rich, Christine and I ordered a large order of fries that was so big, the three of us couldn't finish it!  That's big.  After finishing my hamburger, I downed a half of one of these so it wouldn't go to waste.  With ridiculously full stomachs we all headed out and dragged ourselves into Albany to complete our last full day of riding in New York.  Tomorrow we would cross into Vermont and then ride virtually across the entire state in less than a day!

8/3     Day 48     Albany, NY to Brattleboro, VT

 Immediately after leaving Albany, we began to roll a little bit out in the country.  The weather has really been superb for most of the last week and a half.  Yesterday, it got pretty hot.  By the time we rode through downtown Schenectady it was about 92 degrees and very high humidity.  Today, however, it was threatening rain all day so the overcast conditions made for a very pleasant ride.  Unfortunately, those same conditions limited what are surely some awesome views in the mountains in Vermont.  More about that later.  We got slightly lost early on when we crossed the Hudson River on the sidewalk in order to stop and get some pictures.  Unfortunately, the sidewalk didn't allow us to go through the tunnel, but dumped us off to the side with a bunch of one way streets all around.  We were wandering around looking for the end of this tunnel.  When we found it, I looked back and we had been right on top of it and didn't know it.  We had been told that today would be a tough climbing day with the first real sustained climbs in a long, long time.  We hit Vermont, took the usual state line photos, and jumped straight into some hills almost immediately.  These were not the rollers we'd been getting used to, but the long climbs we hadn't seen since way back in South Dakota.  We were crossing Vermont at the narrowest point going from Bennington through Wilmington all the way to Brattleboro on the border with New Hampshire.  The hotel we stay at tonight is less than a mile from the border.  We crossed the entire state in less than 70 miles!  In New Mexico, you can often go 70 miles and barely get to the next town!  The first real big climb was after Bennington and was about 10 miles of climbing.  It was not the heavy duty 10% stuff...more like 4-6 percent stuff.  Even so, 10 miles up is 10 miles UP!  In Wilmington, Christine and I had lunch with Mike and Sara while we waited for Jill.  I had stopped to ask about the local restaurants and got the scoop on the town from Sonya Alexander who, it turns out, is the town manager.  We ate at the Vermont Inn and topped off the meal with a couple of scrumptious pieces of pie.  When we pulled up Mike and Sara were both eating raspberry pie.  We thought they were almost done eating, but joined them anyway.  Turns out, they had just put their priorities straight and had ordered dessert first!  I had the raspberry pie and Christine had the Mississippi Mud pie which when mixed together were an amazing combination.  The next climb came right after lunch and was about 3.5 miles up to the summit in the Green Mountain National Forest.  There is a viewing spot on top which advertised a 100 mile view.  Because of the weather I mentioned previously, we got shortchanged about 95 miles or so on the view.  It was a beautiful ride nonetheless.  Vermont has been an extremely scenic treat for us after the relatively flat landscape we've followed since getting off the boat in Ludington, Michigan.  We finished the day's ride with a nice downhill roller coaster ride into Brattleboro.  Somehow we managed to stretch the day out and it was almost 4:00 when we pulled into town.  Karen was riding sweep today and she found us in one of the local bike shops.  We all went next door and sat out back overlooking the river and had fruit smoothies and relaxed for awhile.  What a day...and tomorrow promises even more climbing than today which offered a cumulative vertical climb of about 5180 feet.  This was one of the top 5-7 climbing days as far as cumulative numbers go, but was certainly not one of the top difficult days.  Tomorrow may prove otherwise.

8/4     Day 49     Brattleboro, VT to Manchester, NH

As promised, today was far more challenging than anything we've seen in many weeks.  In fact, I would say this was most definitely one of the top 5 toughest days of the trip.  There were not any real long climbs, but they kept coming one after another all day long.  There were at least two separate climbs that averaged about a 10% grade.  Now that's climbing!  Welcome to New Hampshire.  Most of today was out in the country which Doug, who is from here, calls Cow Hampshire.  It was beautiful country all day long.  The only real town of any size that we went through today was a small college town called Keene.  Keene State College is there and it looked like a really fun little town with lots of shops, cafes and pubs.  Unfortunately, it wasn't even 8:00 when we went through.  On the other side of town we hit the first big climb and it went up and then went up some more.  Just when you thought it was nearing the top, it turned a corner and notched it up a tad and climbed even steeper!  It was a killer of a hill.  It didn't go for long, but it was enough to let you know this is not kid's stuff here.  This is for real!  We haven't done this kind of grade since Teton Pass and you know that was tough.  Everyone is a LOT stronger than early on in the trip and still this was tough.  Personally, I did much better today than back in Oregon and Wyoming, but it was pretty intense all the same.  We had lunch in a little town called Antrim.  I was riding with Steve, Steve and Christine.  We had been joined by Bob who came back today after nearly a week off.  He had left in London, Ontario to attend a wedding.  I'm not sure I'd be able to leave and then come back like that.  Anyway, back to Steve and Steve for a minute.  For the most part, I don't really know most people's last name out here.  That's pretty much the case for everyone to some extent.  It's easy when you're the only Phil in the group, but in some cases it's a little more interesting.  You know people by their first name, where they're from and what they do.  When we started the ride there were three Steves.  There was Steve from England who is a SWAT police officer.  He, then, is often known as either England Steve or SWAT Steve.  Steve from Chicago is an ATF officer, so he is either Chicago Steve or ATF Steve.  The other Steve finished riding in Casper, WY and he is a history teacher from Minnesota.  So there you go!  There are also three guys named Chris.  In this case, however, they are distinguished differently than the Steves.  There is tall Chris, short Chris (also recognized as Chris of Chris and Neal, who are both teachers and very good friends who ALWAYS ride together) and then there is recumbent Chris who rides one of the four recumbent bikes on the trip.  Okay!  After lunch we headed out with one more serious climb to go.  This climb was detailed on the cue sheet in bold type and with an exclamation point!  This was supposed to be even steeper than the one this morning.  It was on a road called Joe English Road and it went pretty much straight up.  The cumulative climb today was about 6000 feet or so.  It's amazing, really, when you get to these hills and you're already tired...you just drop a gear and grind it out and eventually you get to the top.  A number of people walked up both of these intense hills today.  That's how steep they were.  It doesn't matter anymore what the conditions are of the road or the body, you just get on the bike and your legs start cranking. You're way to tired to go any more...get on the bike and the legs start turning.  Eat too much for lunch and you can't hardly move...get on the bike and the legs start turning.  Sore, tired, rain, heat, wind you name it...get on the bike and the legs start turning.  That's how you do it...you get on the bike and the legs start turning.  All the way until you get to the end.  And so, tomorrow is the end!  I have very mixed feelings about the end of this ride.  I have had an amazing time out here and I'm riding stronger than ever.  I've met some wonderful people and made some great new friends.  I've seen this country from an entirely new perspective and been so many places I'd never been before.  I will remember this ride and this whole time for the rest of my lifetime.  However, 50 days is a long time and I am so ready to get back home and see everyone...especially Susan and Marisa, of course.  I knew I would miss them a lot, but I've never been away anywhere near this long and it has worn on me pretty hard these last few weeks.  Early on I missed them, of course, but everything was so new and the riding was a tough physical challenge nearly every day.  Now, the physical part of riding has become fairly mechanical as I've already described so there are not nearly as many distractions and more time to be a little homesick.  Every night for the last week when I call home, Marisa counts down the days until I get home.  She has also begun making a list of all the things she and I are going to do when I get back.  It's becoming a pretty long list!  Tomorrow we will get up early and ride to a meeting spot a few miles from the ocean.  At 11:30 everyone will gather together and prepare for the last ride as a group to the ocean.  There will be a police escort that will take us down to Wallis Sands State Beach where we will all dip our front wheels in the Atlantic ocean and mark the end of our cross country ride.  My father is meeting me in Portsmouth and should be there to see us ride in and also for the celebration banquet tomorrow night.  Tonight after dinner we went around the room and everyone had an opportunity to get up and talk about their experiences, reminisce a little, thank each other, say goodbye or say whatever they wanted.  Chicago Steve had prepared a story to relay to the group which got everyone rolling with laughter.  England Steve and I both had small parts in the bit where I finally did my impersonation of Doug's now infamous "You're gonna climb!" routine.  I'd been prodded for nearly a month on the road to do it in front of everyone at route rap.  This seemed to be the right time for it.  You have to either have been there, and know Doug, to appreciate it, but everyone seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Everyone there had something to say if only a brief thanks or goodbye.  A few, like Jim, had carefully prepared their words while others simply winged it.  I had not prepared anything, but had some time to think about it as we went in alphabetical order down the check-in list Doug prepared for SAG stops.  When my turn came, I just went around the room and recalled memories, incidents, quotes or other good times with a rider or two at each table.  I can't really remember everything, but there was Gary in Astoria when his kids decorated his bike; the 120 mile day to Casper when I rode with Marty much of the way; Rich who helped me get through the 94 miles of wind from Pierre to Chamberlain; Todd the quiet one who always had an optimistic and encouraging word; Will who seemed to not know there were smaller gears on his bike the first two weeks; England Steve who had one of my favorite quotes when he said, "She had a face like a slate hangers' nail bag!";  the day when the road was so bad that the highlight of the day was helping Sara change a flat tire; the day Christine and I rode with Dave, Cathy, Steve and Steve and how exhilarating that had been; the day at Mount Rushmore with the whole DFL gang; the sight of Deanna in full gear when I nicknamed her "Deanna of Borg"; Karen, the most patient staff member of all; Larry, who took care of every last detail for us each day; and one of my favorite moments of the trip...the sight of both Nancy and her granddaughter running out of the lobby of the hotel in Mankato with ear to ear smiles and hands waving in the air as they ran to the swimming pool.  If you haven't noticed yet, the trip ended up being about the people more than anything else.  Yes, we rode past some amazing sights, overcame some amazing obstacles to meet the many challenges along the way, climbed some incredible mountain passes and endured some hard weather situations.  In the end, it is the people I rode with and met along the way that I'll remember forever.  

8/5     Day 50     Manchester, NH to Portsmouth, NH

Today unfolded pretty much the way I described earlier.  Breakfast was at 6:00 this morning which was pretty early for such a low mileage day.  Everybody had to be at the meeting point a few miles from the beach at 11:30.  I left with the last group out of the hotel at about 7:45 which included Dave, Cathy, Steve, Steve, Gordon and Sylvia, Christine, Jill, Julianne, Brad and Todd.  We rode at a moderate pace most of the way, in no hurry since there were only 48 miles to go by 11:30.  There was a SAG stop at 28 miles where a lot of people were still hanging out when we got there.  There was an MS ride going on at the same time and there stop was just down the road from us.  Bob and his son rode out with us for the short ride remaining.  We got only about 10 miles down the road to the town of Exeter where about 30 riders were hanging out at a coffee shop.  We stopped and had coffee and hung out for another 20 minutes.  When we arrived at the school, everyone was hanging out and taking pictures.  We got lined up with the police escort up front followed by the four recumbents and then the rest of us, two by two, making up a line a quarter mile long.  As we approached the beach, it seemed to get rather quiet in the line.  I know I was quietly contemplating the end of this 50 day ride and I suspect many others were as well.  We rode north up the coast for another mile before turning into Wallis Sands State Beach.  After that it was fairly chaotic as we made our way to the beach where many friends and family members were waiting among a lot of locals out for a day at the beach.  I was surprised to see so many people out at the beach since it was a very overcast day with a mist hanging in the air like rain that wasn't quite heavy enough to actually fall.  Finally, amongst all the people waiting for us, I noticed my father and headed straight to where he was.  I hadn't thought that it was going to matter whether anyone was waiting there for me or not, but it was a great feeling to have my dad there just the same.  Everyone was making their way down to the water.  It was pretty crazy with everyone in the water, bikes in the air, taking pictures, hugging and generally making a scene.  Steve and Steve were popping champagne bottles and spraying everyone in sight.  It was a lot of fun.

I have more here.  I'll finish later...