Posting from Route 2

Hello! We've now crossed over into North Dakota! Not many pictures this time around, but I'm sure there will be plenty once we're in Minot.


I will admit that it does get repetitive at times to be on the same route (Route 2) for miles upon miles at a time, but one nice sight to see is the occasional field of yellow flowers. And these are huge fields.



This was a nice change of scenery as we had been on flats for hours and hours. There's Jeremy biking.


There's Angel and Ali biking around.


So this place has the "geographical center of North America", so I took a picture.


Well, to be honest, being on the same remote route for miles and miles doesn't give many opportunities for interesting photos, but I'm sure the road holds a few surprises up ahead.

Oh if I could photograph the wind, that would be something. Or if I could photograph the people who we meet on the road and talk with about the cause (but it'd be kinda weird if I just started snapping pictures of them)

Gonna be on this route til Idaho!

Twin Cities

Hello everyone! I am currently at the home of a host who has so graciously offered up his Internet and computer for my use as much as I'd like. I have spent a lot of time backing up my pictures and videos and such.

Today's ride from Pepin to St. Paul began as a toughie.

A resident of St. Paul biked down to Pepin yesterday to meet us and guide us into St. Paul. From this picture, you see him (Mark) drafting behind Jay. You can also see some heavy clouds which would later just lay down some serious rain. With the inclines and the water, today was one of the hardest days. After lunch however, things brightened up in the sky and it was great biking weather.

We even saw a bald eagle. Perhaps even you could if my camera had some stronger zoomage. But in person, I could see it real clearly. Wow. This picture might be better.


This is on our ride into St. Paul. Another excellent biking city, with many beautiful bike paths.


Same city, this time with ME!



There was a lot of art just laying around in the city, including this statue.


There was also a huge hill (you can see in the background) which I could definitely not traverse on bike had this been before the trip.


But we finished it! (And these photos greatly understate how steep I perceived the incline to be..)


And what a view!


Finishing off our route, we had to wait for some geese to cross the road.


So, not much to write in this post, as it's been only a day. Tomorrow, we have our very first free day to explore the Twin Cities. Perhaps I'll have more to tell next time!

Today, I'll leave you with a video I'd mentioned before, the marshmallow dance party:

Through Wisconsin

Hello! Time for another installment :D


So as we set forth for a hundred miler out of Madison into Gays Mills, I was particularly overwhelmed (as I so often am) with the views we got. From the beginning, there was Julia being greeted by a long stretch through some cow-heavy farmland.

Very cow-heavy at times.

Oh, and corn-heavy. (As well as alfalfa and grain.)


This ride was surprisingly hilly. It reminded me our rides in Vermont, although this area had much more livestock milling about. There exist mountains in the Midwest! They really are there!



Oh hey! What's this? A truck pull, you say? Maybe you know what this is, but I had no idea what people were talking about. Judging from the crowds, it looked to be a huge deal. Well. I was not particularly impressed, and I felt quite out of place.


So Gays Mills is a small town (about 300 residents) in a valley. We had a fun downhill slope into the town, and the next morning, we had a nice climb out of the town. The town itself has seen a lot of hardship, as it has experienced floods in the past two years and a lot of people have been moving out. It's a huge expression of compassion that people who are still feeling the consequences of natural disasters open their churches and offer us generous hospitality. There's Jay getting ready to ride out in the morning.


This area has a lot of bales of hay, some lining the roads, and we passed by a few bikers taking a short hay-stack-break. (Julia, Kelsey, and Sidney)


Our ride that day hugged the Mississippi River, and here, we finally caught up with it.


We crossed a bridge over and went into Iowaaa for a bit.


This picture was a bit blurry, but I'm including it anyway.


We were only in Iowaaa for a little bit, and we met up with Minnesota for a few miles, as well. There's Cydney (whose mom I hear reads my blog! Hello!) in the background and Wade's feet on top.


The Mississippi is just huge. Scenic overlooks dotted our path as we traced the river, and here, we took a small break. There's Cydney, Ashley, Wade, and Nick.


We crossed over Wisconsin state lines again, and saw this sweet sign.


At the church in La Cross, we were greeted with some amazing bratwursts and other foods, as well as a local news reporter. There's Physnick, Wade, and Nick.


At dinner, we did one of our presentations where we talk about who we are and what we're doing. That day, it was Ally, Jocelyn, Ashley, Matt, and Physnick's turn to present. They did an excellent job.


Today, we headed out of La Cross into Pepin, where we are at now. There's Jocelyn, Jon, Jeremy(?), Physnick, Jason, and Jay, and some other folks I can't make out.



Jay and I took a detour into a wildlife refuge where we saw an eagle, turkeys (they're huge), and a lot of waterfowl we saw with those telescope things (and they were free yay).


There's one of the waterfowl through the telescope lens. It stood there the whole time.


There we are going next to some tracks. There's Nick and Julia.


There were some more bales of hay. We decided to go bale-riding. There's Wade, Jay, Nick, and me.


Don't worry, I'm sure Jay deserved it. (Wade and Julia on right.)



There's Nick and Wade hard at work fixing a flat...


...while Julia, Wade, and Angel are posing with the mountains.


And as for how I get pictures of myself, well sometimes, if I find a nice ledge or something, I do a self timer and run into the view, and other times, I bug other biker/builders to take photos of me.

And cuz I want one more picture of me, here ya go:

We're heading to St. Paul tomorrow, so I'm going to go sleep. Good night!

A Week of Firsts

Man, it's been a while since I've been on a computer!

So where did I leave you guys. Ah yes, we were at the church in Michigan. And we had a build day there in Edwardsburg.

The work we did was on a full house. All 30 of us did various jobs, ranging from insulation to building the garage (me!). There I am cutting something to put in the spaces between the roof and the walls of said garage. It was a super hot day, but the progress we made during our work was very apparent and quite satisfying.


There's Laura, Eileen, and Jason working on the house front, which, might I add, looks fabulous now.


There was a lunch break in there somewhere, and the organization we were working with provided some great food.


Afterwards, a few of us had the brilliant idea to go swim in the lake. For some reason, only three of us ended up going. Jeremy talked with one of the guys who was interested in what we were do ing, and he ended up offering each of us a ride on his jet ski! My first time! There's video of this, and I'll post it up sometime.


The lake was just beautiful. It was lined with waterfront houses and there were some people out just lounging, swimming, or boating. There was a patch of waterlilies (?) out there. I've never swam (or is it swum) in a lake so pretty!


We later headed to dinner, where Alicia, Jason, and Angel were deep in thought. Well, they were trying to tie cherry stems.


Even later that day, there were a couple guitars lying around (one of which was a twelve-string!) and so we got to do some songs and listen to each other sing and play. Perhaps my favorite time this week.

When we set out to go to Chicago, I was just so excited to get back to my city (Frank you better be reading my blog now). Early on, there were some golden fields lining our way.


As it was a long day (112 miles?) we had two lunches, each of which were generously provided by two families. Here we are at our first lunch stop, enjoying some sandwiches at a museum park.


There's Jeremy riding towards a cooling tower. I've never seen one of these before, so I was particularly thrilled to ride up by it.


And here we are in Chicago! On the lakefront path, to be exact. When the skyline came into view, it was quite exciting. As we pedaled down the lakefront path I know so well...

...this was not the icy-cold Chicago I knew. She had changed so much! Haha, there were people packing the beaches and even SWIMMING in Lake Michigan. Who knew Chicago had it in her all along. Not me.

The next day, on our way to Wildwood (Grayslake, if you look at the website), we decided to go back into the city a bit. There's video of this, too. We had a great view. My favorite part of this was hearing a jogger say to her running partner "Oh! I saw these bikers on Michiana!" Michiana is a road (a beautiful beachfront road) we biked along earlier the day before.


We paid the Bean in Millenium Park a visit, and took about a bajillion pictures.


So, on our way to Janesville, we took this picture at the Wisconsin border.


In Janesville, I got to meet Ali's parents, among others. (Hello! and thanks for everything.) Janesville has a very successful waterskiing team, and we ate dinner at the riverside park, so we got to see them practice for their show. Wow, it looked awesome, and I wanted to try.


Well guess what! Ali's father took a bunch of us out on his boat and we all got the chance to try! There's Will doing some wakeboarding. He's really good. Me, not so much (at waterskiing). There's a video of my attempt out there somewhere, perhaps I'll get it posted one day.


The next day, we all woke up and went to Mocha Moment, where the owners provided a fantastic breakfast for all of us. A great coffeeshop.


That day was a build day in Janesville, and I did some work at the House of Mercy. Later, we went on to work with Community Action in demolishing a house. (Is that Kelsey and Wade?)


More demolishing.


Later that day, we went to the Boys and Girls Club to give a short bike clinic.


It just so happens that I was in charge of writing the trip journal for this day, so I feel like this would be a great time to plug our journal. Just click on that pencil. Specific to me, I put some more detail about this particular day on that journal.

This morning, the paper had an article mentioning us.


This is a couple of us on a ride in Madison.

Met some cool people in Madison, including Marcus (hey Marcus! Hope you consider joining up some time).

Well, I gotta go. We have a build day tomorrow here in Madison, and I'm pretty excited to look around the city!