Two Babes On Bikes

Day 64, Two Babes Off Bikes and Into the Pacific Ocean!

2008-10-05T11:22:00.009-05:00

WE DID IT! WE MADE IT! Love to everyone who supported us through our 4,040 mile journey from Crane Beach, MA to Dillon Beach, CA.

Day 63, Martinis to lick your wounds

2008-10-04T00:31:00.001-05:00

In an effort not to dwell on the past, may we only say that today's effort was mightily rewarded with hard liquor at the end that will power us tomorrow to the Pacific! But if you really want the story, California was evidently trying to test our endurance, since we went 92 miles today (accidentally) in strong headwinds, some rain thrown in there, several miles of gravel roads, and choices between certain death and less certain death. That was, in fact, a choice we had today: death by Route 12, with no shoulder and trucks whizzing by our cute little heads, or endless miles of gravel roads, which on 25/28 mm tires with headwinds and tired bodies and minds spells somewhat certain death also. We hedged our bets and chose gravel. Since we write tonight, we evidently beat the house.

By the end, it was solely the knowledge of the proximity of the ocean and our welcoming crew that kept us going until well after dusk. Beer was just not going to cut it tonight; strong martinis (on the house) did! Vive tomorrow! Tomorrow, tomorrow, we love you, tomorrow, you're only a day (and 61 miles) awaaaaaaaay.

Day 62, Is that salty air I smell?

2008-10-02T23:00:00.004-05:00

A vertical mile of climbing today, over 30ish miles up Carson Pass in the Sierra Nevadas that varied from fairy benign to horrifically steep. While the views from the mountains were scenic, suffice to say that we are decidedly over climbing mountains, and do not find it necessary to climb any more anytime soon.

This one's for you, Scotto:

Our reward for our 30-mile uphill effort was 50 miles of descending 7,000 vertical feet, which unluckily for us at first did not always mean downhill. Some cruel road engineer decided that it would be fun to have several miles of downhills intermittently punctuated by terrible, demoralizing uphills. However, the last 20 miles of our 76 mile day were indeed all downhill and a very, very appreciated rest on our legs.

We are so close to sea level! A mere 1,200 feet above, we are the lowest we've been in a long, long, long time. We are so excited to only have two more days of biking, and cannot wait to see our huge welcome crew next to the PACIFIC OCEAN. We've started making wave noises to each other. It's quite soothing although our imitations will not sound so sweet as the real deal. Pssshhhhhhh. Psssshhhhhhhh. Ahhhhh we can hear it already!

Day 61, California, Here We Are

2008-10-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

Our last state line was crossed today, a very momentous occasion, which as the following pictures demonstrate was a solemn moment for us both:

We are now in the Sierra Nevadas and are ready to tackle our last mountain pass of the trip tomorrow! We are a little non-plussed at least by the foothills of the Sierras, as they seem to look exactly like the 100 other mountain ranges we just crossed in Nevada. We are now finished with our brief encounter with civilization where these squarish things called "houses" and these tall, alive things called "other people" exist and are headed instead to comingle with bears. But as soon as we have descended from the mountains we'll be back into it all and closer to the Pacific than ever.

Days 59 and 60, Cruisin the Carson City Strip

2008-09-30T23:49:00.005-05:00

In this post-Carrie era, we have now developed a new "camping" routine, which involves staying in hotels and not cooking our own food. We must say that it is rather luxurious, especially when the hotels involved have hot tubs. After 70 miles yesterday cycling with David (including 7 extra miles since our route had a TURN on it for the first time in 450 miles. Not being used to this "turning" phenomenon, we missed the one turn of the day) and some gambling last night at our hotel casino, we decided to take our rest day today here in Carson City.

Carson City is probably everything you'd ever expect from the Nevada state capital, which is not much. But it has Starbucks, a movie theater in which we drank in the entertaining "Burn After Reading", and a nice pub where we had a drink with Molly's friend Justin aka Woz who was passing through!

Justin's talk of owning a plane to get around made us think twice about our current mode of transportation. However, the mere 300 miles we have left are supremely undaunting! FOUR MORE DAYS OF CYCLING. Bring it.

Sunset Riding into Carson City

2008-09-30T14:55:00.001-05:00

Day 58, We're almost done with this state...

2008-09-28T23:44:00.000-05:00

We rode 111 miles back to civilization today! We are really excited to have been able to double up a day, which will make our Sierra Nevada mountain pass in a couple of days easier to break up and then it's all downhill to the ocean! We write from Fallon, NV, and are extremely happy to have made it here, almost all the way out of this forsaken state.

We rode today with David, another x-c biker, and having three of us really made quite the peloton on the road. We must have had enough people to attract a tailwind for once, and by lunchtime, we had already gone 80 miles. With Carrie motorpacing us for the third day in a row (so pro, so pro) we finished out the long day with smiles on our faces and appetites enough for double chocolate milkshakes.

We are happy to report that we have now seen the world's largest shoe tree, which looking at the picture with all of the dangling shoes becomes rather self-explanatory:

Sleeping in tomorrow and then to Carson City to perhaps try our luck before Cali? Back to reality now that Carrie-Mom will be leaving us, although we have made the strategic decision to send all of our camping gear home and motel it up for the rest of the way. Less weight for us, the faster we get to the ocean.

Day 57, Groundhog Day

2008-09-27T22:35:00.000-05:00

Mountain. Basin. Repeat. Mountain. Basin. Repeat. Every day, Nevada stretches on endlessly, with the same rhythm of 4 mountain passes and 4 headwind-filled basins. We empathize with Bill Murray.

Quite the exciting apres-bike adventure, however. We found ourselves in the middle of the desert at a quasi-nudist colony with hot springs. The hot springs were lovely; the sight-seeing was not so much. But the "jacuzzi" in the middle of a giant basin was a good end to our day.

Our accomodations are so "rustic" this evening that we are afraid to use the beds and have instead decided to camp out on the floor. Carrie is with us an extra day in order to get us back to civilization!!!

Day 56, How many mountain ranges can you cross in one day?

2008-09-26T22:38:00.000-05:00

The traveling convenience store/deli strikes again, and again, and again! We have given food and cold drinks now to Dai, a Japanese guy biking from Alaska to Chile, to Josh and Judy who are walking across the US (!), and to Chris and Paul, an Englishman and a Welshman biking xc who almost thought we were mirages in this desert.

Besides the beautiful Great Pyrenees who guarded his sheep ferociously and the four mountains we ascended today, nothing much of interest to report from Eureka, NV. But we are alive and well and a week from tomorrow we will see the magnificent Pacific Ocean!!

Day 55, Motorpace Mama

2008-09-25T22:34:00.007-05:00

Trees are inspiring. Especially living trees that were around before Jesus Christ ever walked the earth. The bristlecone pine tree can live up to 5,000 years, and the closer it is to the tree-line, the more it thrives on its harsh conditions. There are many reasons for its survival: it sections off its trunk, meaning that even if most of the tree has died, the sectioned off parts can continue living. Its bark, instead of rotting like most trees, instead is enormously resistant and erodes slowly. The three of us hiked up to 10,000 feet early this morning (after mule deer joined us for breakfast) and saw these magnificent trees.

So if those trees can survive that long and through so much, surely we can survive a little over a week in getting ourselves to San Francisco!

Molly showed some serious awesomeness today and totally saved an x-c biker named Dave, who found himself at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Nevada, with a completely broken chain and no idea how to fix it. She swooped in, got her mechanic's hands all greasy and voila, he should be good to get to Cali now!

We had lots of fun pretending to be pros as we motor-paced behind the van today. Carrie was an excellent motor-pacer, especially since there was 35-mph headwinds. We couldn't wipe the permagrins off of our faces as we cruised behind at 20 mph when previously without the van, we had been going a ferocious 6 mph, downhill.

It's now time for some R&R as we head out to the middle of nowhere again. Our days in Nevada have the following rhythm: uphill, downhill, flat/headwind. Uphill, downhill, flat/headwind. Repeat after me: uphill, downhill, flat/headwind. Uphill, downhill, flat/headwind...

Day 54, We may be in the desert, but no more dry towns

2008-09-24T21:21:00.000-05:00

We write from under the twinkling stars again in the darkest night sky in the contiguous United States, at Great Basin National Park in Nevada. We are quite proud of our Nevada stateline pic and used some serious creativity for this one:

What a day. As soon as we left Milford, UT, we were immediately in the middle of nowhere. The landscape is like nothing any of us have ever seen before. It is stark but mountainous, with huge basins in between the mountains. Nevada has over a hundred separate mountain ranges due to the massive fault lines underneath us, which means we have a lot of climbing ahead of us! We are in the Great Basin, which stretches from Utah to Idaho to Nevada to New Mexico, and it is an area where water, instead of finding its way to the ocean, washes into basin areas and evaporates into the air.

We had several notable occurrances today, which did not include the approximate 30 cars we passed in total today, eastbound and westbound. We off-roaded in the minivan (there's a phrase you don't hear often) to an abandoned mine called Frisco. We saw beehive-like charcoal ovens and remnants of what used to be a lively community and is now scrap metal left rusting in the desert.

We had a herd of pronghorn antelope gallop across the road in front of us while we were riding, and we saw a coyote surveying the land by a river. We also had three climbs in which Molly and Stephanie played the ever-popular categories, with today's categories being 'Foriegn Phrases', 'Cartoon Characters', and 'Names in the Bible'. If anyone has any eclectic suggestions for categories, please send them along as they will be much appreciated in this desert. Carrie is always waiting for us at the top of the climbs with her driving buffet car, and we appreciate her honks as she passes in front of us into the vast nothingness. And when I say nothingness, I mean nothingness:

The sagebrush ocean we are crossing is unlike any scenery anywhere else, and it is quite the adventure to be cycling across it. Tomorrow morning we will hike to see the oldest living things on this earth, which are bristlecone pine trees that are 4,000 to 5,000 years old. That and the open skies are more than enough to amaze.

Day 53, Happy Highway Hills

2008-09-23T22:03:00.005-05:00

Utah has kicked our butts for quite awhile now, but we have been kicking its butt right back at it. And we are about to kick it for good as of tomorrow! Due to the rather difficult nature of Utah's hills and mountains, we were slightly behind schedule. We decided that without weight, we could probably double up and do two days' worth of riding in one, and we had planned on doing 95 miles today. A little sleuthing and we found a 77 mile route instead that did NOT involve a 4,000 foot climb! So here we write for the last time from Utah, thankfully.

Our sleuthed shortcut was really fun riding. The climb in the morning didn't take very long, and certainly the newly-stocked sagwagon was delightful. The entire trunk is filled with an assortment of yummy goodies that make convenience stores look like child's play.

The downhill was classic and helped restore our faith in bicycling. Just two days earlier, Stephanie had decided she hated riding her bike, but this downhill put the love for her bike right back into her heart (it may also help that 60 extra pounds are no longer attached to her bike). The shortcut then took us on I-15 for 16 miles, and we summited a mini-mountain (6500 ft) on an Interstate highway--not bad for a day's work. An extra long break at lunch in Beaver, UT (where the Budweiser sign proclaims, "it's always colder in Beaver"...hmmm....) gave us the strength to finish up our day in questionable FLDS-compound lands.

We even had time this afternoon to have an apero outside the hotel on the lawn, where Carrie was delighted to be mistaken for Stephanie's sister! Tomorrow there are no services for 84 miles, except of course the minivan/sagwagon service, which is better than any old Chevron could ever provide.

Day 52, Party in Panguitch

2008-09-23T08:06:00.004-05:00

What started off as quite a difficult day turned into a realllllly good one in the end. We had two tough climbs today (what else is new in Utah...) and the first one we climbed up at the turtle pace of 6 miles per hour with a ghastly headwind bearing down on us. It took us three hours to get 18 whole miles. In the words of a dear brother, "woof."

We saw our German friends from Salida, CO for the third time in two weeks on the first climb, though—they stopped to take our picture. Truly, when there are so few people in remote places like this, people you see twice feel like old friends.

We got to leave our trailers half-way through the day, because Stephanie's mom Carrie joined us today! She picked up enough provisions to get us through Nevada (which with as much as we eat is quite the carload...and she did not forget the important things like Coronas and limes). While she was shopping we left our trailers for her to pick up later so we could tackle the second climb that was much, much easier on our poor bodies without 60 extra lbs.

The highlights of the day came at the end of the day. We got a huuuuuge downhill on a bike path which is so fun when there are no cars to honk at you and scare the living daylights out of you:

Then, as we were momentarily stopped on the bike path, Carrie drove up next to the bike path and we got to get huge hugs on the side of the road and get previews of the food and beer coolers she has purchased for moon-like Nevada! And then, as we arrived in our destination of Panguitch, Molly’s husband Doug arrived on his way back from vacation to join us for the evening! More hugs (and kisses for one of the babes :) We have quite the party here and had dinner all together at the only place open in this rockin’ town.

We start off tomorrow knowing that we have a super-sagwagon driver for the next week! Our legs couldn’t have done it without you, Mom!

Day 51, Angels and Fairies

2008-09-22T09:19:00.001-05:00

It was a day of angels. We both were dreading the day ahead, with our bodies battered by all of the climbing in recent days. Today we had on the menu a 3,500-foot, 25-mile climb up Boulder Mt., followed by another grueling and STEEP 1,000 foot climb in desert conditions. At the bottom of Boulder Mt., as soon as the climbing began it was miserable, and so we decided to take matters into our own hands. Stephanie flagged down a minivan, and asked if they might be able to do us a favor. The passengers of the minivan didn't quite understand the request, but once Stephanie discovered c'etait des francais, tout allait bien! A quick explanation in French later, ces anges francais took our heavy bags up to the summit of the mountain so we could bike practically weight-free! 25 miles later, we found our bags right next to the summit sign (9,600 feet) and our legs rejoiced the entire way up. So did we, actually, as we laughed and chatted for the first part of the climb, instead of being covered in a cloud of doom instigated by our pain.

The second set of angels came as we were taking a quick sun-filled siesta at the bottom of the Boulder descent at a state park. We awoke to find a cold Pepsi near Molly and a cold Dr. Pepper near Stephanie--it was the same couple as yesterday who had offered us cold drinks from their RV as we sweated through desert-like heat in Capitol Reef! The two of us babes had been talking about how nice it would be to have a "cold drink fairy" here in Utah, and now for two days straight, Merle and Becky have been our cold drink fairies! Thank you to them!

The third set of angels came as we rolled into Escalante and found the grocery store shut on Sundays, naturally. We had passed the only open convenience store about a mile and a half before and were not looking forward to going back and buying some horrid food such as Kraft mac n cheese or the ever-lovely processed meat. Then, two boys came out of the closed grocery store holding, lo and behold, bags of groceries. It turned out to be the owner's sons, and they let us in to do our shopping--cheers to not having to eat bologna or hot dogs for protein!

We figure that it will take us our whole lifetime to repay all of the kindness that we have been given on this one trip. And that, in the end, is probably the most important thing we will take away from this amazing adventure.

Day 50, The things they were given

2008-09-20T22:04:00.000-05:00

We have amassed quite the list of items that we have been offered, and in almost all cases have accepted, on this trip by various kind people in every state: pears from an orchard, homemade cherry pie, peaches, tomatoes out of the garden (normal), a tomato out of a purse (not normal), grilled chicken for breakfast, coffee, cookies, protein bars, water, Gatorade, beer, wine, cold Coke and Dr. Pepper in desert-like conditions (heaven!), cabins, firewood, backyards, hot showers, computer usage, pancakes (twice!), concert tickets, serenaded guitar songs, rides to the grocery store, rides up the hill to our campground on our day off in the rain, rides in a golf cart to carry firewood, a ride in a boat to waterski, an offer to shoot badgers with a pistol should those pesky badgers come abotherin' us durin' the nighttime, and in the most recent and perhaps most eccentric yet fascinating episode, we have been given dinosaur poop. Yes, you read that right, good old petrified dinosaur crap! Scientifically known as copralite, we are now both proudly carrying bike-friendly portions of this oddly-beautiful substance. As Molly noted, now we too are fossil-fueled.

The source of the poop was friom an off-hour tour of the rock shop in Hanksville this morning, which was run by the late Ernie, a man who the scientists came to for questions about dinosaur bones, fossils, rocks, and petrified wood in southern Utah. Ernie would've turned 90 today. We met Bill and MaryAnn last night who were Ernie's good friends and shared his passion for the land, and they offered to give us a tour of his ecletic and impressive rock shop. We always find it best to learn about things by the people who are passionate about their subject, and so the rocks of Utah came alive for us today through Bill, MaryAnn, and their friend Reese as they gathered together for a memorial for Ernie.

You can tell a lot about the earth during the dinosaur age via copralite, but we found the story of how copralite came to be called as such the most compelling story. Back in the 1800s, the early paleontologists were cutthroat about their dig sites and would devastate and even bomb each other's sites. This guy Cope and this guy Marsh were mortal paleontologic enemies, and when Cope died, Marsh decided to get the ultimate revenge by naming dinosaur crap after Cope--hence copralite.

We biked in crazy headwinds (which luckily became crazy tailwinds, eventually) through Capitol Reef National Park and up to Torrey, a small enclave of culture in southern Utah. We had very good culinary experiences today. We hit an organic farm, Mesa Farm, in the middle of the desert and got our long-standing (since Kansas) questions about irrigation answered by Randy, the farm owner. Then we had the ultimate gourmet dinner at Cafe Diablo in Torrey. We figure that if Stephanie climbed Boulder Mountain last year (as we'll do tomorrow) fueled by Patron margaritas, then we shouldn't break the tradition!

Photo Extravaganza

2008-09-20T18:58:00.006-05:00

A computer in southern Utah woohoo!

The long-awaited stateline pic:

Lake Powell with our campground under the stars on the left in the distance:

The rocks make you feel pretty small:

More rocks to come in the next few days...well quite a few days really, no trees until Cali. Rocks, rocks, rocks. Rocks!

The Signs We Live For

2008-09-19T23:30:00.001-05:00

Day 49, Next Interview in 5 Minutes

2008-09-19T22:13:00.004-05:00

We write from Hanksville, which the few that have been to this town know that there is not much here. But it has been quite accommodating--for one thing, it has cold beverages, which is pretty exciting when for the past couple of days you haven't seen a single town or home. Nothing but canyons means no refrigerators, which means warm water and Gatorade to drink. Mmmm not so much the babe style!

We had a gorgeous morning of cycling, but lots of climbing which means lots of time to ponder the many rocks you see. We did see some petroglyphs and some cave art of a princess from 10,000 - 15,000 years ago. The princess art was in an amphitheater-like cave about a football field tall and a football field and a half wide. It was a good place to yell ECHO and also to imagine having been cavewomen, although unlike the grunting cavewomen, we two babes would have been much more Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble.

Dinner this evening after our somehow very long 52 miles was chock full of events. We met a couple who is going to give us a private tour of the late "Ernie the Rock Guy"'s Rock Shop here in Hanksville tomorrow morning. We met two German women who we recognized seeing at a Salida, CO convenience store about a week and a half ago. We met two other Western-bound bikers headed to San Francisco. That's about as much excitement as you could ask for in Hanksville! We also were asked probably ten million times just today (in addition to the four billion times we have been asked along the trip) what we are doing and where we are going. We're thinking of concocting a "FAQ" sheet for all question-askers. It would look something like this:

We are coming from Boston.
We are headed to San Francisco.
We are taking 9 weeks in total.
We have been on the road for (insert total time here).
We plan on being in San Fran beginning of October.
We left Boston beginning of August.
We camp mostly, but have stayed in some motels.
4,000 miles total.
Yes, we went over the Rockies.
No, we do not take interstate highways.
No, we are not biking back home.
No, you may not have our phone numbers!

Day 48, Near one of the darkest night skies in the US

2008-09-19T22:06:00.002-05:00

We are writing from underneath the brilliant stars at Hite Recreation Area on Lake Powell. We are miles and miles from anything remotely resembling civilization, and decided to sleep outside under a blanket of stars.

We dropped into the canyons today, and had quite a day of climbing, descending, and everything in between with huge rocky cliff walls as our views, stretching endlessly before us and endlessly behind us.

It's nice being away from everything, as long as it doesn't make you crazy wearing aviator sunglasses and sporting a mustache where one side goes straight up and the other goes straight down, like one s-c biker we saw today!

Twinkle, twinkle.

Day 47, From pinto beans to canyons

2008-09-17T21:58:00.000-05:00

Before we entered the great state of Utah today, we had quite an exciting event occurrance--we entered Dove Creek, CO, the pinto bean capital of the world! Fans of the beloved pinto bean flock from all around the globe to admire this pinto bean haven. Much to our delight (or chagrin), the pinto bean crop looks exactly like soybeans, and we haven't seen too many of those on our trip...

We crossed into Utah and the stateline pic will be posted whenever we find a computer in southern Utah, so basically, never. Apparently we are very popular in Utah, it being our home and all. We had a guy we had briefly met in Telluride slow down in his car and talk with us on the side of the road-we must be memorable! Then not 10 minutes later, we flagged down a guy in a pick-up truck because we didn't know what to do with the dog who had followed us for three miles and kept running out in front of cars. The guy promised to take the dog back home and in the meantime asked us, 'Hey, was it you two girls who were in the pub last night in Dolores?' Why yes, it was. Our fame precedes us!

We are in Blanding, UT tonight tenting in a very nice couple's backyard. We saw Mark biking along our same route and he offered to have us stay here. We thank Mark and Carla for giving us a safe place to stay, especially with their three enormous mastiffs guarding the house!

Don't be alarmed if the blog is not posted for the next couple of days as we are headed out into some remote canyons. And we had thought Indiana was the middle of nowhere.

Day 46, Rocked Rockies

2008-09-17T10:48:00.000-05:00

We are done, fini, finito with the Rockies! Our last climb was up Lizard Head, which had an elevation of a mere 10,222 feet considering we started in Telluride at about 9,000 feet. Sounds easy and short, right? Well, we probably climbed a total of 4,000 feet to get the total elevation gain of 1200 feet since we rollercoasted down and then pedaled up over and over again (I wish I could say we rollercoasted back UP but no dice). We are psyched to have climbed so well the past couple of days. However, if anyone has perchance looked at a topographical map of southern Utah recently, you will know that our climbing is far from done!

We had quite the international flair today. We met a motorcycling Danish couple, rode a bit on the bikes with a fun French couple cycling from Denver to Vegas, ca faisait du bien de parler francais un petit peu! Then we fell in love with Dolores Food Market in the town we are staying at since we found such rare items as Greek yogurt and Thai curry sauce. But we stayed local with our beer and got a 'growler' of Dolores Brewpub Pale Ale-a growler is a half-gallon take-home jug of beer which fits perfectly underneath bungee cords on bicycle trailers, incidentally.

Our last night in CO-we have both absolutely loved this state. Onto the gorgeous canyons of Utah. Luckily southern Utah is indeed beautiful which makes up for its serious dearth of culture. We have horded up reading material and NYT crosswords so as not to go brain-dead in the desert! And how we have missed 3.2% beer.

Lizard Pass - final pass in the Rockies

2008-09-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

Day 45, Picture Perfect

2008-09-15T23:22:00.002-05:00

Telluride just may be the most idyllic mountain town to live in. Sunshine (well, for us anyway!), snow, cute shops, good restaurants, steep skiing, mountain biking, pink cruiser bikes parked along the streets, what more could mountain girls ask for?

Lazing around this gorgeous town on a bright, sunny day was the best medicine we could have asked for on this rest day.

And what isn't a great day when new skis for a certain babe member were purchased??? This babe in question even bought the exact same skis that the other babe had already purchased at the end of the season last year...as if we needed more things in common...! Watch for the two babes on bikes to morph into the two (matching) babes on skis come December.

Jack DC will be happy to know that a bar made especially for him is on Main Street here in Telluride. One co-owner of Brown Dog Pizza played football at Michigan and is also an avid Lions and Tigers fan, and the other co-owner comes from New England and is a Pats/Sox fan, and the bar is decorated with memorabilia from all of these important teams. Tom Brady signed a Patriots jersey hanging in the bar "To Brown Dog Pizza, GO BLUE!" Though one babe in particular is mourning the loss of Tommy, perhaps Belichick can save the season after all...but alas, Jack, there seems to be no hope for Michigan this season. There's always next year!

Our two-person team is headed up Lizard Head Pass tomorrow for our last climb in the Rockies. We're getting closer to Utah--will we resist the pull north towards Park City? Stay tuned.

Day 44, Blues, Brews, and Nudes

2008-09-15T00:08:00.005-05:00

So the pictures can probably speak for themselves today. We had 65 miles of riding today, 13 of which were downhill and all the rest were uphill.

Sunrise view from the campsite...it's hard to get out of your sleeping bag when it's near freezing outside! But not a bad view to have breakfast with.

We took a mini-detour today and went to the Orvis Hot Springs near Ridgway, CO. Hot springs are pretty great when you've been climbing for days! And the people-watching is...interesting...especially when the place is "clothing-optional". We optioned FOR the clothing, thankyouverymuch.

We climbed a mini-pass today, Dallas Divide at a mere 8,500 feet, but the scenery was not too bad:

Riding to the sky:

We write from Telluride, where we have a rest day tomorrow! We were fortunate enough to experience part of the town's Blues and Brews festival this evening. Both the Blues and Brews were much appreciated after our long climbs today. We got through the climbs by intermittently feasting on crackers and Brie. There are only so many granola bars you can eat before haute cuisine becomes the meal of choice on the bikes! More brews and potential massages tomorrow to revitalize us.

The longer we're on the bike the more tempting the water becomes...trying hard to wait for the Pacific.

2008-09-13T22:22:00.000-05:00

Blue Mesa in Colorado

2008-09-13T22:13:00.000-05:00

Day 43, Mother Nature's Apology

2008-09-13T22:12:00.001-05:00

What a day of riding! We think the weather today was perhaps Mother Nature's way of apologizing to us for what she put us through yesterday. This morning it was brisk but clear blue skies with abounding sunshine and a noticeable absence of any clouds or more importantly, wind. It turns out that its actually pretty easy to ride on fairly flat lands when you haven't got hurricane force winds trying to knock you over or demoralize you so completely that you give up and nap on the warm pavement (hmm wouldn't know anything about that...)

We rode by the Blue Mesa Reservoirs this morning, which are manmade via the Gunnison River and stretch for miles through an enormous canyon with walls formed by volcanic ash. One of the rock formations is called Dillon Pinnacles, named after Molly and Doug, obviously. We then had some climbing after the reservoirs, made competely worth it by some of the glorious and fun descents afterwards. It was some of the most beautiful riding we've had.

Our lunch was in a town, if you can call it that, with 6 whole inhabitants, called Cimarron. We met three of these inhabitants, one of whom happens to be quite a famous rock climber called Jim Newberry. We heard his stories about first ascents in the precarious Black Canyon back in the days when most people had never heard of rock climbing.

We are in a city called Montrose tonight, which is not only very bike-friendly but also boasts an amazing view of the San Juan Mountains where we are headed tomorrow. Forgive the reference, but in order for our readers to understand, these mountains are the Coors Light Rockies exactly how they are in the ads. Can't go around them, gotta go over them, we really ARE tapping the Rockies, but with better beer!

45 mile headwinds?! Say it isn't so!

2008-09-12T23:29:00.001-05:00

It's all down hill from here right?

2008-09-12T23:25:00.000-05:00

Day 42, Rocky Mountain High

2008-09-12T22:43:00.000-05:00

See the two babes.
See the two babes on bikes.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each going uphill.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each going uphill in 35 degree weather.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each going uphill in 35 degree weather in driving rain.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each going uphill in 35 degree weather in driving rain with headwinds.

Thus went the Dick and Jane version of our first grueling 15 miles of the day, which was essentially climbing to our climb. We stumbled into a mountain lodge after these miserable couple of hours and thankfully downed hot coffee while our clothes dried in a dryer. Our day was going a lot better than this poor college kid in the lobby, though. He was driving home from college to be with his mom for his birthday. He was on the pass (we had seen the cop cars but nothing else) and swerved to avoid hitting a deer, lost control of his car and went tumbling down a 100 foot ravine. He landed upside-down and kicked his way out the window. Luckily he was wearing his seatbelt and was unhurt but shaken up with a totaled car. The cop told him a woman had done a similar thing in the same place without her seatbelt on and they found her body 50 feet from the car. Always, ALWAYS, wear your seatbelt! Our hearts go out to him.

Anyway once we were warmed up, we started out on the mountain pass and by some strange miracle the sun was now shining! We rocked the climb and reached the Continental Divide at the top of Monarch Pass, 11,312 feet. We dressed ourselves in all of the clothes that we own on this trip for the descent. We wear less clothes to go skiing! But at least we were warm.

When we got down, we still had 30 miles to go to Gunnison, and we were pretty surprised at the headwinds. Going downhill at 5 miles an hour pedaling in granny gear is never a fun situation, especially when it lasts for 20 miles. We later discovered that we were biking in headwinds of FORTY FIVE mph. That is not gusts. That is winds, with gusts up to 60 mph. Its pretty demoralizing, and neither of us are sure exactly how we did it! A day of extremes, to be sure.

Day 41, Laughing Ladies Lunching

2008-09-11T22:05:00.000-05:00

Having changed our plans, we took it easy today. A rare leisurely morning in camp (waking up to river sounds is quite pleasant) led to 25 miles of flat river riding in the canyon. The ride was really easy on our legs, which is good since we have the over-11,000 foot Monarch Pass tomorrow. A very dear, sage woman said: 'Monarch? As in the butterflies? If they can go over it, so can you girls!'

We rode to the cute mountain town of Salida (pronounced Sal-eye-duh), which is nestled in the Collegiate Range of 14,000 foot mountains so-named for eastern Ivy League schools. There is the big, egotistical Mt. Harvard, the majestic and clearly the best Mt. Yale, and also Mt. Princeton, which hardly matters at all. We spent a nice afternoon in Salida, lunching at the Laughing Ladies restaurant, shopping (it turns out that it's really easy to send purchases home!) and enjoying the mountain-town atmosphere.

If only we become as light as butterflies tomorrow...

Day 40, Where the deer and the antelope play

2008-09-11T16:47:00.006-05:00

We got up nice and early in order to be at the Clarion Inn for their all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (yessss to make-your-own waffles) since we knew we'd have a long day ahead of us, but I don't think we knew quite how long...

We saw our buddy Aaron camping in the Pueblo City Park as we were leaving in the morning and caught up on all the goss on the TransAm trail. Although I doubt the x-c biker community will get it's own OK! or People magazine story anytime soon, when these are the people you meet along the way, they become quite fascinating. We heard the updates on Charlie, the Forrest-Gump-esque maniac who the day we met him was still 40 miles away from being done on a 167 mile day, and the sun was already setting. We also heard that a pair of Swedish girls would be doing the Western Express Route (that we are now on) so perhaps we will meet up with our Swedish babe counterparts along the way.

It was definitely a zoo-like day, since we saw so many animals! We started off rather tamely and played with some horses as we ascended towards the mountains. Apparently they thought Stephanie was pretty funny (looking?):

As we approached the mountains, the animals got a little wilder--antelopes roaming the plains and mule deer jumping across the road. We also loved the wild sunflowers lining the roads, waving in the wind as if they were our cheering, adoring fans. We had lunch about 1,000 feet up into our 4,000-foot climb in the Wet Mountains. The view from lunch:

The scenery was breath-taking. Quite literally, actually, as Stephanie suffered from a severe asthma attack that she couldn't get rid of on the climb. With Molly's encouragements and a little mind-over-matter, we successfully completed the climb, hailstorms and all!

The riding post-climb was some of the most magnificent views either of us have seen. The openness of the mountains and 360 degree mountain views were stunning. We were riding just until the sun set, and finally made it to a campground right on the Arkansas River, further than we had expected to go, with a total of 82 miles with some serious climbing and headwinds.

Hot showers, a campfire, and a rising moon over the river gorge rocks made for the perfect evening after our challenging but spectacular day. We have changed up our schedule for Colorado to enjoy some of the scenic mountain towns and to break up the climbing, but are still right on track for our October 4th finish. We can't wait to see what more Colorado has to offer...but it will require some serious work on our part to see it. Any massage therapists out there who want to join us for a bit??

Day 39, Pike, Capt. Powell, Kit Carson, Molly, Stephanie

2008-09-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

It really does the mind and body good to immerse yourself once in awhile in that concept called civilization. Not that we don't appreciate the beauty of the prairieland we just crossed, but my oh my things like bike stores and book stores and Target are hugely appreciated when you haven't seen them in, oh, say, 1,000 miles.

The two babes were highly productive even though it was our day off. We had warm clothing to purchase, chains to be degreased, travel-sized products to buy, extraneous items to mail home, sodas to be purchased at drive-thru convenience stores while on bicycles, tarps to be cut down one inch to save weight, etc.

We are mountain-ready! And even more excited for them after talking to some true mountain men who indicated that our route is going to be pretty spectacular. We start off the mountains tomorrow with a mere 4,000 foot ascent to warm us up! The flatlands gave us the endurance boost we'll need to tackle these puppies, and the half-moon cookies in Mom's care package will help shoot us up and over (we can also pray for 30 mph tailwinds to do the same thing!).

Days 37 & 38, Finally, something to look at

2008-09-08T23:34:00.000-05:00

Due to lack of cellphone coverage most likely due to a combination of remote location and extreme weather conditions, we did not post yesterday but today write from Pueblo where we'll take a rest day tomorrow! And well-earned after 12 days of riding straight.

The pictures of nothingness best describe yesterday's riding. Nothing to look at allll day long. When all you have to look at is nothing, your eyes constantly scan the horizon in hopes that the nothing might turn in to something. But the most that ever happens is that you get pretty excited about far-off clumps of trees.

We rode the past couple of days with a fellow x-c-er called Aaron, who has dubbed us the 'wind fairies' because as soon as we met up with him, he had his first days of tailwinds. We're pretty psyched ourselves to have such an honorable nickname especially since it works in our favor! We pulled out 80 miles yesterday and 92 today with relative ease and speed.

We stayed last night in Haswell, so named because back in the day it was the town that 'has a well'. Haswell, besides being endowed with the wonder of water, also is home to the nation's smallest jail. As jails go, its pretty cute and comes equipped with such necessities as a wood stove and a copy of the book 'The Oil Lamps of China.' The jail might have been better accomodations than our tent in the town park last night. I doubt the jail toilets had spiders so large they could be used as Broadway props, and at least the jail had walls tough enough to stand up to 50-mile an hour winds unlike our poor tent in the thunderstorms.

But those winds (minus the t-storms) are quite nice when they're at your back on a bike, as they were this morning. The stark nothingness of the prairie this morning was haunting. The only noise for 40 miles was the whistling of the wind. We slowly came back into civilization as the day ended, as well as into sight of the mountains! They appeared faintly on the flat horizon at first, and seem more of a reality now that we've had lots of miles to ponder them and our imminent ascent of them. But for now, a lovely rest day tomorrow as we prep for going up and over these awesome Rockies. We got a 'warm clothing' package from Carrie Mumma today (thanks Mom!) and are ready to face the cold and climbs with our usual two babes gusto.

Day 37, mile 75 afternoon view

2008-09-08T20:44:00.000-05:00

Day 37, mile 50 lunch time view...

2008-09-08T20:41:00.000-05:00

Day 37, Our Morning View...

2008-09-08T20:38:00.000-05:00

Colorado!! Score!!

2008-09-07T21:27:00.000-05:00

Day 36, Looking for the end of nowhere

2008-09-06T21:40:00.000-05:00

Our trip is going so well between the two of us babes that we are now thinking that perhaps we should stage a huge fight (a la terrible reality shows) just to make the last day of Kansas and the days in Eastern Colorado (which resembles Kansas) go by quicker. But then we were stumped about what we could fight over--tire pressure? Mis-lubed chains? Never-ending caloric consumption? Water-bottle colors? If anyone has any ideas, let us know, as this landscape is rather mind-numbing and a good fight just might make the miles go by more quickly as we seethe over, maybe, who sets the tent up better?

We are spending our last night in Kansas tonight in the tiny town of Tribune. We stopped for lunch in a town called Liota and it's funny how quickly you adapt to small-town life where anything and everything becomes fascinatingly interesting. While eating fluffernutters, we found ourselves (and everybody else in the town) intently staring at four oversize load trucks carrying wind turbine material attempting to navigate a tricky turn at an intersection. A lady informed us that the town joke is that the intersection, which has been poorly designed for trucks to pass through, must have been designed by someone from Kansas U, as a Kansas-Stater would never have done such a thing!

We write from Mountain Time Zone, although nothing around here could even remotely be described as a mountain. But passing into CO tomorrow means one more state done and in a few days, the 'Mountain' in Mountain Time Zone will take on a whole new meaning!

Day 35, Back to the two babes

2008-09-05T22:58:00.001-05:00

Having pancake breakfast at a Catholic elementay school is a pretty awesome way to start the day, especially when its thunderstorming out and Connie gives you a ride to and from the school to wait the rain out! Thank you Connie-your hospitality was amazing.

Andy left us today and thus ends our brief stint as three babes on bikes...oh wait. We will miss you Andy and we hope you manage to convince the Amtrak conductor late this evening to accept your bike on the train even though it is not packaged as a 28 x 22 x 14 carry on.

Pool, jacuzzi, Chinese food, Joe Blow Red Wine, and TBS friday night movie all do the body right. We are staying in the lounge of an athletic club where Stephanie taught the young 10 year old Alexis how to dive (Alexis was fearless!) and Molly sadly (although perhaps smartly, post-wine) refrained from showing her stuff on the uneven bars. We were quite disappointed that the high school football game opener was away as we were planning on taking in the Friday Night Lights but go Scott City Beavers!

We are on the same road for four days straight without a single turn, so its pretty hard to get lost at this point. Colorado is getting closer and we are a long way from Boston--more than halfway done yeeeeeeeehaw!

Talking to a man about a horse in the milo field

2008-09-04T22:23:00.000-05:00

Day 34, Going to see about a cow standing in the road

2008-09-04T22:18:00.000-05:00

Today was one of the most beautiful days-a brisk day with not a cloud in the sky and wide open prairies where the horizon stretches on forever.

We started off our day biking through town, which was a better start to a day then others had. We passed this crying teenage girl outside of her car getting talked to by a cop with an entire fence smashed in beside her-hey, backing up is hard! We then visited Fort Larned, where the park ranger Betsy gave us a brief history lesson of the nearby Santa Fe trail, which was primarily used for international commercial trading purposes. Once sufficiently sated with cultural knowledge, we continued our trek through the milo fields and ate lunch at the only joint around for miles. We knew we'd like it when the menu stated: 'we are not responsible for the flavor of any meat cooked medium well or well done.'

Our penchant for ice cream at the end of the biking day certainly led us in the right direction today. We stopped in small Ness City at the Frigid Creme to enjoy our shakes, and wouldn't you know it but Connie at the window offered to let us camp in her backyard and use her showers! This was a much better option than the showerless City Park where we would face a stinky night together. We palled around with the sheriff while eating ice cream with him, until he was called away to go see about some cows standing in the road. Evidently, putting the police siren on from behind while honking is the tried and true method of getting the cows to move. Connie has been so lovely and hospitable-cherry pie this evening and pancakes tomorrow morning! Score!

Food for thought as we leave you this evening: is the real test of friendship hucking a loogie huge enough to name (Louie the Loogie) and spitting it onto your bob trailer where it stays frozen for miles and then being able to laugh about it all together?

Day 33, A Jealous Mother's Son...or The kid is not my son

2008-09-03T19:20:00.003-05:00

Of all people, Michael Jackson helped us get through some mighty flat lands today. A days-long-standing argument of the words to "Billie Jean" may finally have been put to rest after a fellow cross-countrier named Sarah that we biked with today agreed with the two babes that the words do not even remotely resemble "a jealous mother's son." We told her she could keep biking with us for as long as she wanted! And Andy felt even more outnumbered than usual.

A highly "Center Stage"-worthy move by Molly Ray to the MJ tune of "Black or White", accompanied by the appropriate vocals "owwww!":

We covered 70 miles today. Two turns in the whole day, winds from the northeast (!), and zero hills. Not even one single elevation gain or loss. The xc biker Sarah hung with us the whole day, which was good to add to our posse! We are in the remote town of Larned, which appears to contain a Scouting museum and another museum about the Santa Fe Trail, as well as several fast food joints and one very comfortable motel. As we roll on through Kansas, we have now started passing the feed yards for the cattle herds. Those who have ever had the distinct displeasure of the olfactory experience of a feed yard in their lives know that you've gotta pray you won't be downwind from it. So may the winds stay the same, and may all the feed yards be on the left side of the road.

Newton fire station - best hosts in Kansas!

2008-09-02T21:44:00.000-05:00

Day 32, Milo Plains and Spy Planes

2008-09-02T21:05:00.000-05:00

Our easy day today was only 42 miles, which we would love to say we cruised through but changes of the winds slowed us down a bit. The slightly off-route bike shop here in the Hutch, as this town is affectionately called by its residents, is the only bike shop anywhere near where we pass in the entire state of Kansas, so we stopped in. A few fixed squeaks later, we set up indoor camping again in the basement of another Lutheran church (we miss the fire station!) and went to the movies! But not just any movie. We visited the Kansas Cosmosphere, which houses the country's largest collection of space memorabilia outside of the Smithsonian in Washington. Stephanie remarked that she had never actually been to a cosmosphere, upon which it was noted that none of the three in our small party are even sure if any other cosmospheres actually exist. So we may, in fact, have seen an imax movie today in the only cosmosphere known to mankind.

We ambled around downtown, which may have seen better days as we were discouraged by locals from bringing our bikes unless we had some really strong, sturdy locks. But there are some pockets of charm to be had in the Hutch. We ate dinner at a good, family-run mexican restaurant where we chatted with the owner. We were walking down Main Street Monkee-style and passed a tiny theater, where Andy peered in the window and promptly we were all invited in by a tech working while the cast was rehearsing for an upcoming play. This tiny Family Children's theater is a converted movie house and runs 8 shows a year. Murals on the wall depict all of the huge movie and theater characters ranging from Little Orphan Annie to Julius Caesar to Frankenstein to James Cagney to Mark Twain. The hundreds of characters lining the walls ensure that 'our cast always has an audience.' What a gem of a place to see-we wish we could see one of their productions.

Services in Kansas will become, shall we say, somewhat limited with no services for 60 miles tomorrow. This will be a good primer for the desert of Nevada but without the UFOs.

Day 31, Andy is a Big "S"

2008-09-01T21:21:00.006-05:00

Finally, the long-awaited post from the Kansas stateline. We think it is quite the masterpiece!

Also, in order to preserve the "two babes on a bike" theme, the following picture of the two babes has been included. Sorry Andy, you are not a babe.

We write from the comfort of the Newton, Kansas fire station! The novelties of staying in a fire station do not cease. Yes, they do really have the poles that they slide down (three, even!) which Andy tried out just to make sure they really work. The fire fighters are all extremely nice and funny, and they make each other dinner and hang out in some really comfortable arm chairs. We haven't experienced a call yet, but we have been told that it may get noisy tonight if there's an alarm. They also have a washer and dryer! Which we think is pretty exciting after an uncountable number of days of handwashing clothes in the showers. You start to get a little gamey even after your best efforts of washing smelly bike clothes with shampoo.

We started off this morning by leaving camp and heading straight for the inventively-named "The Cafe", where we experienced the world's BEST biscuit in the form of sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches. The biscuit was airy, light, and delicious. We cannot sing its praises enough. We bicycled today through the Flint Hills, open pasture land that continues for miles, and miles, and miles. It was pretty to bike through, with cows leisurely grazing over open, green fields. The best way to describe the biking for the past couple of days is "lulling monotony". It's not quite boring, because it's scenic, but it stretches on for what seems like forever. By the eighth day of Kansas, it will definitely have seemed like forever! We had exactly three turns on our route today, each of which we anticipated for miles ahead. We totaled 97 miles today, and passed through the grand total of three towns, including the most exciting town of Cassoday, the world capital of prairie chickens. These prairie chickens look like they're wearing fur boots, but we're not sure how it is the world capital when we saw just a single, solitary example of this prairie chicken. In other Kansas news, we also were passed by some farming combines on the road that are bigger than most people's houses.

We've been running into fellow adventurers cycling cross-country going west to east, since we are currently on a well-traveled route called the TransAmerica Trail that goes from Astoria, Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia. All of the cyclists headed the other way have been complaining about the headwinds--not us! Our forays east to west have recently been treating us quite well...roll on winds from the southeast. We've got an easy day planned for tomorrow, no more than 45 miles into the bustling community of Hutchinson. They have over 40,000 inhabitants--we may go see a movie AND go bowling if we can handle all of the excitement!

Post pizza party at Courtney's Place in Toronto, Kansas

2008-08-31T20:34:00.000-05:00

Day 30, Blazing Hot Saddles

2008-08-31T20:32:00.000-05:00

We write while being sweetly lulled to sleep by a guy who is jammin and twangin out some country music and some southern rock with an electric guitar and an amp at an adjoining campsite. It fits with the whole picture of Cross Timbers State Park here in Toronto, KS. Gimme two steps, gimme two steps good!

We muscled out 72 miles in some blazing heat, which according to locals is not at all hot for this time of year. Unfortunately the winds blew from the south today but we are hopeful they will change for tomorrow--we saw a flag blowing westward tonight!

Among today's events include an insect the size of a bird landing on Andy's back while riding. Stephanie heroically rode as fast as she could away from Andy in order to save herself. The insect cawed like a bird, I kid you not, brrrrkaw brrrrkaw. Guess they grow 'em big in Kansas. We had a lively game of categories (anybody who has spent extended time with Stephanie will have played this game). Category was 'Names of Songs' with the rule being you had to sing it loud. We had some good double-pointers with 'Witchy Woman' and 'Rockin Robin' along with Andy's imaginary 'Zulu Fight Song' (he couldn't think of a 'z') that went something like boom chucka chucka chucka boom chucka chucka chucka to the rhythm of his pedaling. Quite inventive.
We didn't know how far we'd get today, and when we got to this small town of Toronto, nothing was open and none of the soda machines even worked. We were starving and hot, and napped in the only shade for miles. Some of the townspeople took pity on us and told us that if we waited half an hour, we'd have some of the best pizza in Kansas and wouldn't you know, Courtney's Place opened and we have to say it was indeed amazing pizza and especially good malt shakes, served by Courtney herself. With our current serenade of 'Jeremiah was a Bullfrog' we are most definitely in Kansas, Toto!

Lake front property - Chateau Velo

2008-08-31T17:47:00.000-05:00

Day 29, The states get fewer and farther between...

2008-08-30T20:53:00.000-05:00

What a day-we blasted through 86 miles with little to no effort--tailwinds into Kansas, who knew??! We'd post the state line pic (this one's a good one, enhanced by the third person addition) but we'll have to keep you all in utter suspense until we find a computer to upload it.

We had the distinct feeling of going away from civilization today. The small towns we stopped in were quite pleasant, although the cockroach count has increased substantially in all of the supermarkets. We have found a wonderful haven tonight in the fellowship hall of Immanuel Lutheran Church. Pastor John and his wife Darla have been so welcoming and also forthcoming with garden vegetables! Their beagle Disco was quite a hit as well. It was a treat to cook in a real kitchen and the AC will certainly be appreciated tonight sleeping! The kindness of people continues to impress.

Cross your fingers for us for more tailwinds tomorrow (and the next day, and the next...) and Andy will continue to hope for a bigger trailer flag.

Day 28, Ozark, aux arcs!

2008-08-29T21:58:00.001-05:00

Our stay at Pomme de Terre State Park (yes, why would anyone name a
state park after a french potato?) was very pleasant on our lakeside
property. I wouldn't say we had a great night's sleep though. It was
hot as anything last night, and our foray back into the world of
camping and away from the world of AC was tough. We even took a late
night dip in the lake to cool off and luckily the thunderstorms came
not far after to cool us off even more (after a mad scramble to secure
our belongings from the crazy wind). But neither heat nor
thunderstorms are conducive to sleeping, so we took a leisurely
morning to ease ourselves back onto the bike.

The riding today was quite pleasant if remote. We were definitely out
there on the country roads, and had some more good, steep hills. We've
left the hard part of the Ozarks by now though-Ozark is an
'Americanization' of the French 'aux arcs', interestingly. We again
increased our farming knowledge by learning about a new crop called
milo. If you ever see something that looks like stunted corn with a
large, fuzzy poofball on top, well, that's milo, a grain used to feed
barnyard animals that takes dry weather better than corn. Yes, we are
getting quite the farming education but have no immediate plans to
become farmgirls post-trip. Perhaps Kansas steer- raising will tempt
us more.

Our karma is up after today since we helped many turtles cross the
road. We did not want them to have the same fate as the armadillos. In
other animal news, we have caused many stampedes recently, whether of
the cow or horse variety. Hopefully one of these days a raging llama
or goat stampede will break out upon our passing.

The eminent and enigmatic Andy arrived today to join us biking for a
couple of days in Kansas. Anyone crazy enough to join us for the
headwinds is more than welcome!!

Day 27, Things we learned today

2008-08-28T20:38:00.001-05:00

1. Armadillos live in Missouri. We know this because we are roadkill
naturalists, and have seen multiple specimens of flattened armadillos
in this fine state.

2. All flavors of Gatorade taste exactly the same. Except Strawberry,
which tastes like a medicinal Jolly Rancher, and thus is not something
you want to taste while riding a bicycle, or maybe ever.

3. Sitting for an extended period of time in an air conditioned
convenience store is not conducive to motivating to go outside and
bike when it is over 90 degrees outside. In fact, the effects of the
air conditioner are detrimental to any such exercising initiatives.

4. Popsicle stick jokes can be amusing when its too hot to care.
(Example: what animal doesn't like to do laundry? The leopard, because
it has so many spots.)

5. Beers taste really, really good while enjoyed IN a lake. Swimming
with one hand while trying to hold said beer is not recommended,
however.

Days 25 and 26, MO Wine-fueled century, and beer-fueled rest day

2008-08-27T21:13:00.000-05:00

From the comfort of a real bed and fueled by Oreos, we finally have amassed enough energy from the rest day to post for the past two days.

Yesterday Molly and Stephanie rocked (even we ourselves recognize this) by bicycling 101 miles! The first 40 were on the Katy Trail again, which we learned was named for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, or MKT for short and shortened even further to KT. We took turns performing the rather unusual task of leading in order to combat spider webs that had sprung up overnight. Nothing can quite explain the feeling of a spider web completely covering your face, especially when you're not sure where the owner of the web actually IS. Right before Jefferson City, we walked our bikes over a highway bridge onto oncoming traffic (the only way to have a shoulder) and once we survived that, we entered into the Missouri that is completely baffled by the existence of bicycles. To be fair, in Jefferson City we did meet one of the men that helps run the Tour of Missouri (George Hincapie's foaming mouth and face are plastered on posters advertising the upcoming event) but most people are rather surprised to see cyclists. One woman even asked us why we weren't biking on the highway, because wouldn't that be less dangerous? Clearly she has never experienced the pure terror of being in the air rush of a semi barreling down mere feet from you at 70 mph.

Several rolling hills later, we arrived at the Lake of the Ozarks and a magical place appeared before our eyes--a relatively inexpensive hotel, with an indoor and outdoor pool, a hot tub, and the best part of all, a DENNYS. We impressively downed a serious quantity of breakfast food for dinner. There might have been on our table two large chocolate milks, six large pancakes, bacon, sausage, english muffins, biscuits, eggs overeasy, hash browns, and enough syrup and butter for it all to be doused in. 101 miles!!! Our tummies deserved it.

Today at any given point in the day, we were either sitting by the pool, or lying in bed watching TV. We did make one shopping excursion on our bikes in our street clothes (read: skirts). In a mere three minutes, we got four separate honks, one whistle, and one 'all right baby!' We evidently are popular here although perhaps will refrain from wearing the miniskirts on the bike again.

We've eliminated some more weight by cutting out the tags from our clothing. With rested legs and a whole 2 ounces less weight, we'll fly on the bikes tomorrow!

Blog cut short...only 13mi to Cali (MO)

2008-08-26T23:08:00.000-05:00

Bike Manager extraordinaire!! Thanks Mom!!!

2008-08-25T22:02:00.000-05:00

Day 24, Napa Valley, Sonoma, Oregon, Washington, the Finger Lakes, and...Missouri?

2008-08-25T21:35:00.000-05:00

We started today off on Main Street in St. Charles, MO next to the largest statue of Lewis and Clark in existence. Unfortunately, Lewis (or was it Clark?) was not wearing his signature raccoon tail hat but instead they were joined by their faithful dog, a Great Pyrenees. This was a fitting starting point as we made our way down the Missouri River just like those two old explorers did back in the day. We traveled along the Katy Trail, a rails to trails path beautifully done and kept up. We whizzed along enjoying the much-changed scenery. Instead of dealing with honking cars, we were able to watch people exercising along the trail. Instead of never ending fields, we got to see some more never ending fields BUT also intermingled with river views, cliffs, cranes, jungle-like canopies (shade!!) and the occasional beaver or deer leisurely crossing our path. It was really a nice change of pace to hop along for 70 miles without any cars at all.

We were rewarded for our efforts by winery visits (yes, you read that right) with Priscilla in the town of Hermann. Missouri has wine, you ask? Missouri has pretty decent wine, even! All of the German immigrants to this area in the 1800s compared the fertile soil with that of the Rhine Valley and this region was a top-producing wine region. The region even helped out France in the 1870s by sending over thousands of strong, resistant vineroots when much of France's vines were destroyed by a phylloxera epidemic. We learned such other tidbits of useless information such as the state grape of MO is the Norton grape, which makes a very tasty red wine if we may say so ourselves.

Back to reality tomorrow as our faithful manager and sagwagon driver Priscilla/Mom leaves us-our trailers will be back on our bikes and memories of B&Bs and her smiles in our minds.

Day 23, Explorers in Raccoon Tail Hats

2008-08-24T21:24:00.004-05:00

Quite an eventful day. We went 70 miles today, rode on historic Route 66, crossed the Mississippi River, entered Missouri, and rode on the Lewis and Clark Trail.

Route 66 on a Sunday morning was quite deserted but we could imagine how it would've been back in the day, with Cadillacs cruising down the highway topping out at 40 mph. We ourselves did not quite hit 40 mph but with a tailwind (!!) for extended periods of time, we were cruising along ourselves.

We crossed the river in Alton, IL and although we appear to be only 34.7698% done, it feels like we've truly made some good progress as the Mississippi marks the dividing line between the East and the West. Of course, the western portion of this grand country does happen to be a little bit bigger and longer than the eastern portion. We now have formidable states such as Kansas to tackle! More Kansas grumbling to come we are sure, but for now we are going to try and enjoy redneck Missouri as much as we can before the painful, neverending, neverchanging stretch of land known as Kansas.

We had much inspiration from the DC family for how to do these stateline letters, and it was a great idea but we didn't pull out the execution so well. Yes, it does look like Stephanie's pulling her pants down (LOOKS like) and the O is indeed much, much higher than the M. mO?

We finished off our eventful day with a brewhouse tour of our national beer, Budweiser (oops wait, are we all Belgians now?), which was a lot of fun. We saw the Clydesdale horses of course at the stables on the property, and learned that a full-grown Clydesdale stands over 6 feet tall, weighs 2000 lbs, can pull twice its own body weight, and drinks 30 gallons of water per day and eats 50 lbs of hay per day and as much as 10 lbs of grain. Is it odd that we sympathize with the Clydesdales with how much they have to eat in order to pull so much weight?

Fun fact: we saw 4 of the enormous tanks where they ferment the beer (there are 3600 on site). One tank holds 200,000 six-packs of beer. If a person tried to drink all of that beer by drinking one beer per hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would take that one person 137 years to drink ONE whole tank of beer. We got started with two free beers courtesy of Anheuser-Busch.

We were relieved to hear that in the Budweiser storage facility in St. Louis, they keep about a half million cases of beer. If production were to stop, that amount of cases would keep the Midwest distributors going for a whole eighteen hours before it would run out. Turns out our own beer consumption is not so far off the mark!

Day 22, Will Illinois ever end?

2008-08-23T21:36:00.003-05:00

Southern Illinois continues. It continues to be quite devoid of activity, and certainly culture as well, unless you consider an enormous building-sized mural of a biker babe (as in, motorcycle babe, NOT like these two biker babes) on a Harley holding a beer in hand with an American flag waving behind. That is the closest thing that we have seen to "art". We imagine that the reference to consumption of alcohol while operating a motor vehicle is clearly artistic liberty at hand.

We had 55 miles of spinning it out while Molly's mom Priscilla took our stuff in the car. Little to no headwinds, uneventful biking, by now you all are well aware of the sights we see on a daily basis, which include (surprise surprise), corn and, you guessed it, soybean. Our post-ride stop at "The Ice Cream Man" in Litchfield, IL was highly appreciated by both, although we refrained from attempting the "Headache." The Headache consists of 12 scoops of ice cream, various candy toppings, whipped cream and cherries, all of which must be consumed by one person in under a half an hour unless you want to pay the $22 for the concoction. If you succeed in under a half hour, it's on the house. One brave soul this year actually managed to scarf it all down in a mere 15 minutes (a record), which is proudly noted on the wall.

Hot tubs and freshly repainted toenails later, we were ready to try the Ariston Cafe here in Litchfield, considered the first restaurant on the old Route 66. This lovely piece of Americana was quaint and everything it promised to be, although its houseflies apparently have a penchant for alcoholic drinks. It's not every day that Molly (or anyone, really) utters the phrase, "So as I was saying before the fly drowned in my wine..."

Another state completed tomorrow! We move onto Missouri tomorrow and will cross the mighty Mississippi River near St. Louis, a la Lewis and Clark, but with better-looking legs!

May just be our best stateline pic yet...we've had some practice now!

2008-08-23T17:04:00.002-05:00

Day 21, Drowning by 18 Wheelers

2008-08-23T06:55:00.000-05:00

We have both started out days a little more dignified than today in our lives. While breaking down camp, a thunderstorm hit and we had no shelter from the rain. After Molly determined that underneath the picnic table was a) uncomfortable and b) not big enough for two, we huddled miserably under our tarp while sitting on top of (and not under) the picnic table.

The rain let up. For a whole 2 miles on the bike. And then it began raining again. And it continued. A lot. The spray from semi trucks doesn't necessarily get you any drier, either.We were headed to Arcola to visit the medical clinic as Molly had woken up the day before with what looked like boxer ear. Stephanie swears that unlike how it may seem, she did not punch Molly in her sleep. Dr. Doug (Molly's husband) said we needed to get antibiotics for it hence our stop at the clinic. We walked in looking like drowned rats and you think that would've gotten us some sympathy so they would see her right away, but no. We risked further injury via pneumonia as we shivered, wet and cold, waiting for two hours in the waiting room with their AC naturally on full blast. Drugs in hand as we left,luckily the sun chose to shine and warm us up (maybe the beer and hamburgers for lunch helped too).

We rode through a full-on Amish settlement today. The houses wereeasily identifiable, either by the different sizing of their windows,a telltale buggy parked outside, or laundry flapping and drying ontheclotheslines. We think it is pretty remarkable that a culture like theirs has thrived in the face of (or perhaps because of?)overwhelming American materialism. We learned that the Amish adoptsome modern technology when it is for the good of their community, but that they do not value individual ownership, so a single tractormightbe used by many. Community vales certainly were evident as werode byan entire group of men working to reroof one barn.

We got further along west today than we thought thanks to the early arrival of Molly's mom! We are excited to have her with us to support us and sag us for the next couple of days. Having her around will certainly add excitement to our lives, as today we found ourselves enthralled by a field of zucchini and squash. Hey, it wasn't corn or soybeans!

Day 21, Drowning by 18 Wheelers

2008-08-23T06:49:00.000-05:00

We were headed to Arcola to visit the medical clinic as Molly had
woken up the day before with what looked like boxer ear. Stephanie
swears that unlike how it may seem, she did not punch Molly in her
sleep. Dr. Doug (Molly's husband) said we needed to get antibiotics
for it hence our stop at the clinic. We walked in looking like drowned
rats and you think that would've gotten us some sympathy so they would
see her right away, but no. We risked further injury via pneumonia as
we shivered, wet and cold, waiting for two hours in the waiting room
with their AC naturally on full blast. Drugs in hand as we left,
luckily the sun chose to shine and warm us up (maybe the beer and
hamburgers for lunch helped too).

We rode through a full-on Amish settlement today. The houses were
easily identifiable, either by the different sizing of their windows,a
telltale buggy parked outside, or laundry flapping and drying on
theclotheslines. We think it is pretty remarkable that a culture like
theirs has thrived in the face of (or perhaps because of?)
overwhelming American materialism. We learned that the Amish adopt
some modern technology when it is for the good of their community, but
that they do not value individual ownership, so a single tractor
mightbe used by many. Community vales certainly were evident as we
rode byan entire group of men working to reroof one barn.

We got further along west today than we thought thanks to the
earlyarrival of Molly's mom! We are excited to have her with us for
the next couple of days while she sags us and supports us. Having her
around will definitely add some excitement to our lives, as today we
found ourselves entranced by a field of zucchini and squash. Hey, it
wasn't corn or soybeans!

Day 21, Drowning by 18-wheelers

2008-08-22T22:27:00.000-05:00

The rain let up. For a whole 2 miles on the bike. And then it began
raining again. And it continued. A lot. The spray from semi trucks
doesn't necessarily get you any drier, either. We were headed to
Arcola to visit the medical clinic as Molly had woken up the day
before with what looked like boxer ear. Stephanie swears that unlike
how it may seem, she did not punch Molly in her sleep. Dr. Doug
(Molly's husband) said we needed to get antibiotics for it hence our
stop at the clinic. We walked in looking like drowned rats and you
think that would've gotten us some sympathy so they would see her
right away, but no. We risked further injury via pneumonia as we
shivered, wet and cold, waiting for two hours in the waiting room with
their AC naturally on full blast. Drugs in hand as we left, luckily
the sun chose to shine and warm us up (maybe the beer and hamburgers
for lunch helped too).

We rode through a full-on Amish settlement today. The houses were
easily identifiable, either by the different sizing of their windows,
a telltale buggy parked outside, or laundry flapping and drying on the
clotheslines. We think it is pretty remarkable that a culture like
theirs has thrived in the face of (or perhaps because of?)
overwhelming American materialism. We learned that the Amish adopt
some modern technology when it is for the good of their community, but
that they do not value individual ownership, so a single tractor might
be used by many. Community vales certainly were evident as we rode by
an entire group of men working to reroof one barn.

We got further along west today than we thought thanks to the early
arrival of Molly's mom! We are excited to have her with us for the
next couple of days while she sags us and supports us. Having her
around will definitely add some excitement to our lives, as today we
found ourselves entranced by a field of zucchini and squash. Hey, it
wasn't corn or soybeans!

Day 20, Kamikaze Coons!

2008-08-21T21:16:00.000-05:00

Last night's brush with wildlife added excitement (perhaps more than
we'd have liked) to our otherwise predictable corn and soybean-filled
existences. We discovered shortly after retiring to our tent that the
very tree we had chosen to camp underneath was home to not one but an
entire family of raccoons. These large rats with opposable thumbs
chattered all night long (raccoon talk is severely unsettling when it
sounds like rabid hisses), kicked over all our kitchenware on the
picnic table, and were completely unfazed by our attempts to scare
them away whether at 10 pm or 5 am. But wildlife encounters are indeed
a part of camping and raccoons are a far cry from charging bears or
stampedes of cattle at night, both of which Molly has experienced
before in the great outdoors and we would like not to be repeated on
our own trip.

On the road, at a bleary-eyed 7:30 am, we rather unbelievingly passed
by a horse and buggy on the road with a smiling, cheerful bonneted
woman. Welcome to Amish country! They don't zip along too fast in
those contraptions as we went whizzing by the buggies. Outside the
grocery store this morning, while parked near but not too near the
'horse and buggy parking ONLY' sign, we met the one man in existence
who has been all over the world and has found nowhere as charming as
Rockville, Indiana. Go figure. Our experience at the grocery store was
a little disconcerting to us both, after which we realized that we had
actually been enthralled by a 'real' sized store that had a ladies
room NOT located in the stockroom and had not one but TWO stalls. Oh,
the thrills of life.

We crossed into Illinois today, which proclaims itself as the Land of
Lincoln. Faithful readers may remember that Indiana is Lincoln's
childhood home; clearly a mini-brawl between the states is afoot.
Central Illinois has not thus far produced any scintillating events,
but when it most surely will, never fear that our exploits will be
recounted with gusto.

Day 19, Fish Tailing in the Dirt and Gravel of Indiana

2008-08-20T20:29:00.001-05:00

When someone says 'the middle of nowhere', where exactly are they
referring to? They might well be talking about Marshall, Indiana. We
heave-hoed our way over gravel roads and passed by junkyards (oh no,
wait, that was just the lawn of Mr. and Mrs. Redneck) to get to our
current location. And to think that this morning we left civilization
(and Starbucks) to come...here. We had a beautiful tailwind for
exactly 3.2 miles, as naturally the only day of our trip that we
headed mostly south, the tailwinds happened to be in our primary
direction of west. Sadly there is nothing else interesting to report
from the middle of nowhere and we fear that tomorrow might be exactly
the same. Apologies to our readers for the ennui of Indiana. Perhaps
eastern Illinois tomorrow will end up proving more scintillating.

Look Mom more corn!!

2008-08-19T20:15:00.001-05:00

Day 18, O'Dark Thirty

2008-08-19T20:11:00.001-05:00

In the military, that means really stupidly early, which is when we
were up this morning. We drank our tea and coffee in the dark, and
were out of camp at sunrise. The mist and colors from the sun made the
normally tiring cornfields peaceful and compelling. Which quickly
changed with the full light of day, but for the first 30 miles we
hardly noticed as time flew by while chatting about religion and
politics (you think I jest?) The corn lined the roads so high it was
like riding in a garden hedge maze with only the occasional car to
break up the view.

On the next 25 miles, we escaped multiple near deaths by semis, those
atrocious beings that are a cyclist's nightmare, especially when they
pass so close you actually feel your bones shaking. I suppose on the
bright side, we had a tailwind at that point, which got us off of the
shoulderless road sooner.

We were done EARLY and are in the cute college town of West Lafayette,
IN, home of Purdue University. We got to feel like real people for an
afternoon, by doing normal things like walking to an ice cream shop
and perusing a bookstore. This was a nice change from walking to, say,
the water spigot at the campground or perusing, say, your handlebar
bag to see if there's any more trail mix.

Day 17, Ski Season!

2008-08-19T06:43:00.001-05:00

Today started great, middled monotonously, and ended far better than
we could have expected. Had breakfast (buffet! Means ALL YOU CAN EAT
so the holiday inn lost money on us today) with Stephanie's aunt and
uncle who then kindly took our stuff via car to our destination this
evening-woohoo to less weight! A big thank you to them and then we saw
them on the road a bit later to brighten our day.

The middle of our day went something like this: Corn, corn. Soybean,
corn, headwind. Headwind sneeze sneeze (Stephanie is allergic to
indiana apparently) corn corn soybean. Headwind, headwind, corn.
Headwind.

The lack of services forced us to go foraging for food in the
soybeans, although actually it was just wading through poison ivy and
soybeans on foot in order to get to a grocery mart that would have
been much, much easier to bike to, but where's the adventure in that?

In camp 80 miles and many headwinds later, our new friend Bart took us
waterskiing with another guy Thomas on the huge Mississinewa Reservoir
at sunset. Beers and skis! Its like winter but without the snow!

Day 16, In Defiance of Headwinds

2008-08-17T21:52:00.006-05:00

As the left sides of our bodies get tanner and tanner (ok, or sun poisoning) as a result of going from east to west constantly, we understand more and more why people use zinc though it makes you look pasty white and odd.

Today from a biking standpoint consisted of very little interesting news as we only passed through one real town, called Defiance. Also, we experienced insane headwinds and we crossed the 1000 mile threshold (only 3000 to go!) and are thus one-quarter of the way done. We also crossed into Indiana today and therefore have one-third of our state count done.

Indiana may be the crossroads of America but they don't have signage proclaiming any sort of grand entrance into their state, and thus we rode on a four-lane highway to get to this sign in order to commemorate our entrance into Lincoln's boyhood home state.

Post-bike, we are so lucky to have had Stephanie's Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Jim drive down from Michigan to greet us in Monroeville, IN (try to find THAT on a map) and were so sweet to put us up for the night in a hotel and take us out to dinner! We went to Mad Anthony's Brewhouse in Fort Wayne--Mad Anthony is the nickname of Anthony Wayne, a general with a 'fiery personality' in the American Revolution, and whom Fort Wayne is named after. He also happens to have some pretty fine brews named in his honor, which we were grateful to taste after a long day of dry mouth from the headwinds.

Tomorrow we are trailer-free as Auntie M and Uncle Jimmy will be taking our stuff to our next destination for us! This is the ultimate way to make the endless cornfields and blowing winds bearable and we are blessed to have so many friends and family support us on our journey.

Here's to hoping tomorrow brings less decomposing animals on the side of the road than usual.

Day 15, WhooEeee Dog, It's Fair Day!

2008-08-16T22:20:00.001-05:00

Today was full of pleasant surprises from beginning to end. While
breaking down camp this morning, the Boy Scouts next to us (bless
them) offered to share their breakfast of pancakes, sausage patties
and bacon with us! We gladly took firsts, and seconds, but didn't dare
take thirds as much as would have liked to for fear of overstaying our
welcome (and because one kid started giving us strange but impressed
looks with how much we were eating).

On our route, we wondered what kind of crops we'd been staring at for
10 miles straight, and had the good fortune of asking a woman named
Gloria who ended up telling us the surprisingly interesting process of
growing soybeans. Gloria helped to expand our limited farming
vocabulary to include tillable acreage and harvesting combines, which
incidently with a price tag of $200K each makes farming subsidies a
lot more understandable.

We bet that you readers have been asking yourselves for quite some
time, 'now where was our fine 19th president of the United States,
Rutherford B. Hayes, born?' Wonder no more. 'Rudy', as we'll call him,
was born in Fremont, Ohio, which we had the good fortune to pass
through today. Judging by the size of his estate, like many US
presidents, Rudy was not strapped for cash.

We passed through Pemberville that though only boasts a population of
1,365 puts on a pretty amazing little fair. While slurping on
strawberry lemonade slushies, we looked at some Margaritaville-themed
flower arrangements, played Skee-Ball, and saw the country's
preeminent (there can't be many) youth fiddle bands. We missed the
parade by a hair, but saw the baton-twirling aftermath along with Miss
Oak County Apple Festival 2007.

We got into camp rather late due to the fiasco of buying our third
stove of the trip. While I have been sworn to secrecy to not divulge
the location of our camping spot this evening for fear of others
making a run on the camp, we were given a free cabin by the ranger in
another stroke of good luck today which meant no setting up our tent
and that we have real beds for this evening! The 'ohio state parks jr
officer' plastic badge we both received is pretty cool too and we wear
it with pride.

Top Thrill Dragster, $25M manmade fear

2008-08-15T22:34:00.001-05:00

Day 14, Three, Two, One, Go...

2008-08-15T22:29:00.001-05:00

And thus we were off on the highest and fastest inverted
rollercoaster, the Wicked Twister at Cedar Point amusement park. And
that was after we had done a couple of other terrifying and highly
entertaining ones (see photo to follow, which includes 120 mph up and
down 90 degree angles). We also partook in the water park, most
notably at the swim-up bar with margaritas and long island iced teas.
A highly entertaining way to spend our rest day, especially when the
people-watching in lines was so amusing (think: swim trunks that say
'I wish I were an oscar mayer weiner' on the rear).

Day 13, Race to the Rollercoasters

2008-08-14T22:35:00.001-05:00

This morning, Molly's comment that summed it all up: 'blue skies to
the left, blue skies to the right, and we're riding in the rain
corridor in the middle.' We rode through quite a mixture of the
US-from the comfort and idyllic setting of Chagrin Falls to the
endless suburban sprawl to the diverse and struggling neighborhoods of
southern Cleveland and back to the beautiful houses on Lake Erie, we
had it all today.

Fun facts of the day: did you know that if you took all of the water
in the Great Lakes
You could cover the 48 contiguous United States under 9.5 feet of
water? Or that the surface area of the Great Lakes is roughly the same
size as the entire United Kingdom or the states of CT, NY, MA, VT, RI,
and NH combined?

We stocked up on beer tonight to fete our day off tomorrow and also on
cookies to complement the beer. We flew on the bikes this afternoon
and whether the motivation was towards rollercoasters or beer we'll
never know but vive our rest day!

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Day 12, Beware too much sugar

2008-08-13T20:20:00.003-05:00

We write from the comfort of a REAL home (not, of course, that I would insinuate that a mat in a tent on the side of a highway in a trailer park is not considered a real home like we experienced last night) but this real home happens to be Molly's neighbor Kate's parents' home (got that?) in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. The town is lovely with its waterfalls in the center of town, and lest I forget the beer here happens to be very good as well (and the chicken and shrimp and hamburgers and fries and salad at Rick's Cafe also).

A little update from yesterday, lo and behold our TWO state crossings yesterday, PA and OH. Our letter-making skills are out-of-control good as you can witness from the artistry below:

Here you need to use your imagination a little to find the letters O and H.

We had 80 miles to do today and it seemed long, especially considering that in the end, eating the entire tub of cake frosting with pretzels is actually a bad idea for your stomach, who knew? We should stick to things that we know will be good for us, such as: Snickers ice cream bars, SnakPak puddings, fig Newtons, Kudos bars (the peanut butter kind), apples with either peanut butter or Nutella, bananas, oranges, orange juice, iced tea, Doritos, Pringles, Ruffles, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, peanut M&Ms, trail mix. This is but a mere sampling of what we have consumed--we continue to impress even ourselves with how much we eat.

We like the Midwest--people are nice and more importantly, the land is FLAT. We ride back to Lake Erie tomorrow to Sandusky, OH, and will be partaking in many, many rollercoasters on our day off the following day at Cedar Point Amusement Park. Here's to a better day tomorrow as we ride 86 miles frosting-free!

Salade n Sun on the beach on Lake Eerie

2008-08-12T21:24:00.000-05:00

Day 11, The Generosity of Others

2008-08-12T21:21:00.001-05:00

-hot water heated up in a golf course club microwave for my tea
-free cookies from a six year old
-yard sale man turned bicycle repair man on the sidewalk
-directions from passersby when you look a little lost
-encouragement from golfers in the middle of their game
-golf cart rides from fellow campers when the campsite is far and the
load of firewood is heavy

Day 10, Motel Luxe

2008-08-11T21:02:00.000-05:00

92 miles today to Lake Erie! We are both excited to have made it this
far, and are ready to change states especially if it means changing
weather. For the fourth day in a row we packed up a wet tent (which I
will have you know makes it much heavier to lug!) and this morning we
left camp in the pouring rain smelling of mildew after attempting
(unsuccessfully) to dry our bike clothes in our sleeping bags while we
slept. To cheer our mood whilst being drenched, we warmed up on the
state forest's exercise parcours, with balance beam exercises and toe
touches. We aren't sure how such a fun exercise activity has fallen in
popularity since its heyday in the 70s. Back on the bikes, Stephanie
slalomed slugs on the road, which is better than the prior morning
where she had to flick ten slugs off of her flip flops before wearing.

The first 30 miles kicked both of our butts with hills, with a
particularly memorable moment occuring on a long, steep hill next to
fully whirring wind turbines. We stopped and ate half of a grocery
store full of food after the first 30 miles--we're pretty close to
rivaling Michael Phelps with his daily intake of 10,000 calories.
Rain, some flats, obviously more hills, and then the descent to the
lake!

We made a very strategic move in splurging on a motel this evening, as
warnings of t-storms with 60 mph winds and 5 inch diameter hail are in
full effect on lake erie this evening. Pizza delivered to our door and
dry clothes tomorrow morning both seem luxurious. Onward and westward
through PA and to Ohio tomorrow.

Day 9, will our stuff ever be dry?

2008-08-10T20:34:00.001-05:00

We are wet. All of our clothes are also wet. The tent is wet, and we
just ate cold hot dogs for dinner. Letchworth state park, the
professed 'grand canyon of the east' is not so grand. But new york
seems to have flattened out a bit, so we have that going for us...onto
lake erie tomorrow in search of better weather.

Arcadian Vineyards, Seneca Lake

2008-08-09T20:57:00.000-05:00

Day 8, Vineyard Haven

2008-08-09T20:52:00.001-05:00

Today was completely necessary in that we did it up molly and steph
style from sunup to sundown. Good wine, good food, good scenery, good
people. We completely shifted gears (so to speak) from nascar-heaven
to a more, shall we say, refined lifestyle. Seneca Lake turned out to
be unexpectedly beautiful in a relaxed and pastoral way. No more were
we surrounded by fried dough vendors peddling to racing fans, but
turned to farmlands and rolling fields of grape vines. We did three
vineyard stops, and our two favorites were Villa Bellangelo and Shaw
Vineyards, both on Seneca Lake.

We indulged mostly in dry to semi dry white wines while being regaled
with interesting stories by local winemakers. We stopped for a brief
visit in Penn Yan, NY, home of the world record holding buckwheat
pancake. And we made the most delicious dinner in our suburbia-like
campground (think wide open lawns and ambient music) while enjoying a
local gewurst that we picked up during our (many) tastings today.
Ahhh. Rested legs, happy tastebuds. We are ready for whatever New York
state has in store for us, which we're hoping is all downhill to Lake
Erie.

Day 7, Nascar 101

2008-08-08T21:08:00.001-05:00

America continues to thrill by its multi-faceted population. This
weekend here at Watkins Glen, NY happens to be the big Nascar weekend
at the racetrack. The troops are motivated-flags hung around
campsites, war whoops and car horns right until the 'quiet hour' of 10
pm, jesus music or country music blaring, decked out buses supporting
#88 dale jr (uhh we had to google that, didn't know his number off the
top of our heads...), and in general a mass of people that can really
only be described as nascar fans. A cultural experience for us both.

We also had a nice walk around the gorge, ithaca is indeed gorges like
the bumper sticker. We napped in the tent as dreams of tanning by the
pool were shattered by the fickle weather, and scored a ride up the
big hill after laundry and groceries by a nice park ranger who may or
may not have stopped because Stephanie was biking in a bikini top.

Our legs feel well rested and our stomachs well tuned for winery
explorations tomorrow (the tummies having been primed by an a propos
bottle of Red Bicyclette merlot this evening)!

Watkins Glen, 19 waterfall gorge

2008-08-08T20:59:00.000-05:00

Day 6, Podunk Road

2008-08-07T21:51:00.001-05:00

It took us over two hours to get out of camp this morning. We were
tripping over ourselves, forgetting everything, and in general we were
sloooooow. And getting back on the bike...painful. At a certain point,
your butt just says no to being on the saddle. You kind of have to
trick yourself into going again, like saying 'its only a short day, it
will be over soon, and tomorrow we have a rest day!' But our trek from
Chenango Valley State Park to outside
of Ithaca was anything but short--a long day of almost 70 miles with
many hills between point A and point B. We stopped in Ithaca and had a
nice two hours of walking (our butts thanked us for giving them a
break!) and window shopped to our hearts content. We learned on the
way out of town that Ithaca is in a large valley whcih of course meant
a big climb.

We passed Podunk Rd today, which explains a lot about where we were. A
sweet couple from MA stopped near us on the top of one of the many
hills, said they had seen us miles ago and wanted to know if they
could help in any way-even offered a bottle of wine! We thought the
extra weight wouldve killed us, but in retrospect maybe a little wine
in the water bottles would have been just the kick we needed!

We have a lovely rest day planned with hopes of sunning ourselves in
order to get rid of the gorgeous bike tan afoot. Laundry falls a
distant but important second on the to-do list. Lots of love from the
Finger Lakes!

Day 5, Jeepers, 92 miles!!

2008-08-06T19:57:00.001-05:00

Today was quite long. Understatement, understatement, understatement.
We started out in the misty fog overlooking a reservoir that is a
major water supply for NYC, so for the first 30 miles it was pretty
flat and cool. Our whole Catskill Park experience was thus not as
mountainous as feared. However, as soon as we exited the Catskills, we
apparently ran into the Catskills' evil stepsister hills to the west
that we slogged through for much of the day. Our thighs are currently
screaming in pain as a result. We did have about a 10 mile respite
(which is what going next to a river, a railroad AND a highway will
give you) but the hills reared their ugly head at the end of the day
so we cranked our ipod music (linkin park for molly, reo speedwagon
for stephanie) even louder and slogged up them again. A very nice man
mowing his lawn gave us some water and our encounter with him has made
us decide that the exclamation 'jeepers!' is highly underused these
days and merits a full-fledged comeback.

Neither of us can currently walk in a straight line after a day like
today, wonder what tomorrow we will look like on a bike!

Day 4, Girlz in the Catskillz

2008-08-05T20:21:00.005-05:00

77.9 miles, Kinderhook, NY to Margaretville, NY! Molly and I are very happy to say that we went THROUGH the Catskill Mountains today, instead of OVER them. Lenny told us that we had chosen wisely to go through the southern route instead of the northern route over, as the northern route would have involved switchback climbing. Instead, we found that the southern Catskill valleys made for very pleasant (and relatively flat) riding. We started off with Lenny as our tour guide all the way to the charming town of Hudson, where the main street offered a cool coffee break at the French-style Nolita Cafe while we waited for the bike store to open. One trued wheel later, we were off across the Hudson River on the Rip Van Winkle Bridge (the man storied to have slept 100 years...hence our photo):

We were on some very smooth and un-trafficky county roads this morning and were treated to some odd sights such as giant white-marble head sculptures in random fields. We would like to extend a very warm shout-out to Mary and Ray from Mezzaluna Cafe on Route 212 towards Woodstock, who offered a very colorful welcome in their modern and inviting cafe. We suggest that you all read local Ray Steiner's book "The Mountain", as we are two very proud new "nieces" of Ray's. Apparently he has many "nieces". We then passed through Woodstock (and neglected to treat ourselves to tie-dye t-shirts proclaiming "Jerry is Alive" although we did partake in some local ice cream) and continued our jaunt through the Catskills. The day seemed easy, as Molly's parents had taken our trailers, although we were confronted with a giant hill at the end of the day up towards the Country Club/Mountain Resort where we are staying this evening. Our valiant efforts up the hill were rewarded with free beers by the golfers here who could not believe that our legs carried us up that enormous hill without the help of a golf cart. You skiers out there will appreciate our efforts to recreate the movie "Aspen Extreme" powder 8 competition UP a hill on bikes. A hot tub (and more beers courtesy of Molly's dad!) has helped rejuvenate our spirits and we are very thankful that Molly's parents, Priscilla and Norman, have come for a bit to support us on our journey. We are both lucky to have such wonderful families!

Speaking of families, we are sending lots of love and thoughts to Stephanie's brother Scott as he is out in California competing in the U-23 Nationals in road cycling. GO Scotto and GO Team Metlife! Love you kiddo!

Day 3, One State Down, 11 to Go!

2008-08-04T16:45:00.005-05:00

58.5 miles, Plainfield, MA to Kinderhook, NY! This morning we experienced our first knuckle-gripping downhill dirt road better suited for mountain bikes which was a good wake-up at mile 3, and then had more hills going over the Berkshires. We realized that though these mountains may be old and not as high as newer mountains, that doesn't mean they aren't a bear to get over. Molly's young nephew Jeffrey had misheard the description of how we were carrying our stuff, and instead of in "pouches" he heard "couches" so he was expecting us to be carrying couches behind the bike. I swear, sometimes today on those hills it certainly felt like we were pulling couches behind us...

We crossed our very first state line, which caused much excitement. The photo took a couple tries to get right (think us creating the letters YN instead of NY) but here it is in its final glory:

Today we write from great comfort in Kinderhook, NY (better than last night, where Molly was standing on the picnic table at our campground attempting to get reception for just 20 seconds to send our blog post...). We are staying at the lovely home of the parents of a college friend of Stephanie's, Jamie. Lenny and Warren have been wonderful, and Lenny came out to ride with us for the last 10 miles. We rode with him through the scenic roads of Columbia County, New York, which have gorgeous old farmhouses on wooded lands.

Molly's parents are coming to join us for dinner, which should be quite a feast as Jamie's parents have an amazing kitchen garden with all kinds of vegetables. We feel like we've earned our dinner, and what a dinner it will be! We also got to see the new chicken coop at Jamie's parents' house, and we are honored to know that two of the 26 chickens will be named after us!

We did much better on the beer front today than yesterday (there were not so many services in Plainfield, MA, and certainly none of the package store variety...) and sampled some Adirondack-made Saranac beer in Lenny and Warren's garden while throwing sticks for their two labs, Sophie and Cutter, to fetch. Life is REALLY good, especially since Molly's parents are sagging us tomorrow and graciously picking up all of our luggage in their car while we bike through the Catskill Mountains! Two mountain ranges in two days. Our legs are going to be huge.

The real beginning (50 lbs heavier...each!)

2008-08-03T19:07:00.000-05:00

Day 2, trailers and all...

2008-08-03T18:54:00.000-05:00

We were excited to be off with our full gear...handlebar bags and
trailers...but just a mile down the road steph heard something
rubbing. After a lot of discussion, we finally came to the root of
the problem... Stephanie's front wheel and computer were installed
backwards.

Once the issue solved, the hills of western mass awaited...is it
really possible to do over 4000 feet of elevation in one day on the
east coast? Apparently so...

Special note: the orange creamsicle ultragen recovery drink tastes
even more like a creamsicle when mixed with orange fanta soda pop.
Try it sometime...it's awesome!

Now it's off to NY tomorrow where more hills await.

Day 1, Spinning it Out

2008-08-02T17:38:00.004-05:00

Crane Beach in Ipswich, MA to Princeton, MA -- 73 miles! The send-off this morning was perfect.

Walking up the steps along the boardwalk before seeing the ocean was indescribable--complete butterflies in the stomach--what are we doing??

The back wheels go in the Atlantic Ocean, and the front wheels will go in the Pacific Ocean...it seems a long way away.

We are westward bound! With no words of wisdom to share with each other, both of us are at a loss for words but not a loss for smiles.

Our energetic and faithful send-off crew: Frank, Judy, Carrie and Scott.

Further down the road, in Concord:

In downtown Concord, we met up with Chris, Lauren, Katie, Timmy and Jeffrey. Chris rode with us for awhile and regaled us with close bike encounters with flying deer. All I can say is that I hope we don't encounter four-legged wildlife careening through the air towards our heads!

We were treated to a guitar concert at a cafe for lunch, and the artist Stuart Ferguson sang us a "biking across the country song". In the words of Janis who can say it much better than I, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose..."

Cheers to freedom on the open road.

The Night Before...

2008-08-01T19:54:00.004-05:00

So as the moment draws closer and closer, we would like to thank all of the people who have helped us prepare for our trip and for all of the well wishes we have gotten...which have ranged from "you're doing WHAT??!!" to "May all of your hills be down" (we wish...). Other notable comments include:

--in reference to the name of our blog: "I will be keeping my eyes on the twobabesonbikes website as its a welcome change from the normal websites that i visit with two babes in them!"

--from a French friend: "bon voyage et on pensera fort a tes mollets" which means "bon voyage and we'll think a lot about your calf muscles..."

--"I'm glad you're a blogger and not a booger."

A wonderful, wonderful meal tonight prepared by the DC family will certainly help us along the road the next couple of days (and help us remember that real food exists out there as we eat camp food every night....gosh I think i might dream of that blueberry-peach cobbler with homemade peach ice cream for a LONG time) and we thank you and love you for our send-off meal!

Getting Our Act Together

2008-07-30T19:52:00.004-05:00

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Test Ride # 1, post Molly-arrival in Boston. And post-shopping excursions where we spent even more money at Bike Alley and EMS to fit lots of items into a small trailer while realizing that each item adds more and more weight that will be carried by our very own legs for, count them, 3,975 miles. Assuming we don't get lost. The 4,000 mile mark will surely be passed by the time all the beer runs are finished and all Garmin mixups have taken their toll!

Test Ride #1 was very well-received by all three participants (guest rider Scott Dolmat-Connell added some semi-pro flair, exhibiting top-notch wheelies and stunt moves), except when a skirmish took place at the top of Mount Wachusett. Scott was clearly upset that his sister trounced him up the hill...work on that wattage output, Scotto...

Some local Wachusett Brewery Green Monsta beer as a recovery drink started what we hope becomes a trend throughout the United States...roll on into camp and pop some local brew. It's a surefire way to get these two ladies across this vast land.

Special wishes and love to Molly and Doug on their third anniversary today!