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OSCAR!!!

7/29/2007

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July 27 – Day 28

Oscar!!!

After an excellent sweaty nights sleep in humid Toronto Lake State park, we got off to an early start to get some breakfast at the bustling town of Toronto. Basically there is only one place to get any food in town, which is the convenience store, where we filled up on honey buns, six packs of powdered donuts, and coffee; all the nutrition we needed for a full day of biking. A common theme of all the breakfast joints we end up going to is all of the farmers gather early in the morning and sit around a table or chairs to get their day started. One of the farmers that we met this morning was Clay Payne, who at 90 years old is still managing his farm with 80 head of cattle. Pretty amazing and we can only hope to still be around and not drooling on ourselves by that point, let alone working. He gave us his address so we can send him a picture of when we reach San Francisco.

As for the biking, the towns are starting to become more spread out with very little in between. The hills are becoming fewer and further between, longer with much milder inclines and this will very quickly lead to the flat as a pancake Kansas that we have heard about and think we look forward to.

We ended up going slightly over 100 miles to get to Newton and meet with Liz who works at the Prairie Harvest Health Store downtown. We had heard from the East bounder, Mike, a few days prior that Liz was putting cyclists up in her place for the summer. She had completed the trip last year and was nice enough to put us up for the night as a fellow Trans-American cyclist. She said that having the bikers stay with her this summer was similar to her experience last year on the trail, meeting all these people, but without the actual biking part. Liz was actually house-sitting for a few weeks and gave us the address of the place, but would not be able to meet us there until she got out of work at 10. The one catch was that this family’s dog, Oscar, was there and was not too fond of males so she said to let him out in the backyard if he was causing any problems. Once we get to the house, Lee walks into the house while I am fiddling with the bike trying to find a parking space for it. Immediately I hear a yappy little bark going to town, with a muffled, “heeeeyyyy Oscar, why don’t you go outside”. That is just what Oscar did, but not the door that Lee was holding open to the backyard. I see this little black blur shoot out of the house and run to driveway, pause, look at me for a split second with a knowing glance of, ‘your going to regret this sucker…’. He then bolts towards neighborhoods that we are both obviously very unfamiliar with. We immediately run out and start chasing this little guy, but our 100+ mile biking legs are no match for the little black flash that has been cooped up in the house all day. We start scouring the neighborhoods on foot and a terrible realization starts to come set in after 15 minutes of not seeing a trace of this guy, ‘a couple of strangers may have just lost a family’s’ beloved dog that was being house-sat by a trusted friend’. We run back to the house to grab the bikes without the trailers to comb the neighborhood better. Very angry Oscar chants were being shouted around the neighborhood with us chasing down anything that resembled a bark. We asked anyone we saw if they had seen a little black dog on the loose. I asked one man playing catch with his son about the dog and he took my information in case he turned up. After about 40 minutes of searching and our fear that we lost this family’s dog getting stronger, we really lucked out. The man playing catch with his son, who turned out to be a vet, had gotten in his car and joined the search. He had spotted the dog a couple of blocks away and we followed him there. We spotted Oscar, who immediately spotted us and turned the other way and ran as fast as his little legs would take him, which also turned out to be about as fast as our bikes would go. We started a Dukes of Hazard style chase of this dog through the neighborhood, front yards, sidewalks, and a little park. Fortunately for us, little Oscar did not have too much gas in the tank and petered out almost right back where we started. We put the little guy in the FENCED IN backyard and breathed a sigh of relief, then started cussing the little guy out for putting us through his chase.

We spent some time with Liz once she returned from work and thanked her again for the place to stay. We told her about our chase of Oscar, which she found very humorous and who she thinks is the cutest little dog ever. From our experience with Oscar, we have to disagree…

-Brent


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The first century ride

7/29/2007

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We did our first official century ride today, completing about 102 miles. 

On the way we ran into another Mike who was coming west to east and Llyod Guy came out to greet us as we chatted in the middle of the road.  Llyod had some icecream sandwiches for us, and told us all about his life as a farmer for the past 50 years.  It was interesting to hear him talk about current farming processes and costs vs. when he started.  We had a nice visit with him and his wife Josephine, they have lived in Walnut, KS since 1942. 

We stopped for lunch in Chanute, KS at Benchwarmers, Mike was there, it was good to catch up with him a bit. 

While eating lunch we heard about the death of Skip Prosser , the Wake Forest basketball coach.  Very sad, our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and families.  He did an excellent job coaching at Wake and was always thought of as a great man not just a great coach. 

After lunch we debated about staying in Chanute but decided to continue on and get some more miles in.  We pumped about 45 more miles out to arrive in Toronto Lake, Kansas.  We weren't sure what we would get when we arrived.  Several people said the campgrounds were still under water from the flooding but we called the park ranger ahead of time and she said some were open.  We got into the campground literally as the sun was going down, we had to set up camp quickly and get some dinner going.  It was a really long day of riding but we had the camp ground to ourselves.  We had heard that some of the water had been "contaminated" a few weeks ago, so it felt kind of risky to be chugging the water.  We figured they would have a sign up if the water system wasn't back in order.  That's not to say that we weren't nervous about waking up sick in the middle of the night.  Turned out to be fine but what a bummer that would have been on the trip. 

It was hot sleeping, using the sleeping bag is not even an option until about 3-4am when the temps are way down.  Brent said he was up sweating all over the place a lot of night.  I didn't know it was possible for Brent to have a bad night's sleep. 


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Follow the Yellow Brick Road...to Kansas

7/29/2007

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July 24th and 25th Day 25 and 26- Day Off- Pittsburg, KS

We had a pretty good ride in to Kansas, namely Pittsburg Kansas, about 5 miles from the Missouri border.  We biked through some beautiful farm country, all the farmers working wave like they’re happy to see you.  At a gas station I chatted with a woman that worked there and she told us a route to take that would cut off some miles.  Turns out that little short cut saved us about 12 miles, so instead of doing about 102 miles we only did 90, but that made a huge difference!

We stopped in Golden City, Missouri to eat at Cooky’s café.  We’d been hearing about Cooky’s from all the other cyclists and locals for days.  They had a big book that all the cyclists sign that come through Cooky’s.  Cooky’s is famous for it’s pie, Brent and I gladly sampled two different pieces each and concluded that Cooky’s should continue to be known for it’s pie.  People that work in all the eating establishments we go to love to watch us eat, they think it’s hilarious.  In Cooky’s we met three British men biking west to east and talked with them for a bit.  We almost fell out of our booth when they told us their ages: 64, 65, and 72!!!  Unreal.  

We finished the ride off into Kansas with another broken spoke, there’s just more annoying now than anything because right there is 20-30 minutes lost when you hear that little pop.  
 
On the 25th we had another rest day and it felt so good.  Brent and I are glad we built some rest days in, we’ve run into a lot of people that just seem so exhausted and they say “I haven’t had a rest day in 30 days” or something ridiculous like that.

We’re in Kansas and looking to really haul it through the state, it’s definitely flat, but strangely eastern Kansas has long gradual hills.  The name of the game in Kansas is wind.  It you have it with you the day is good, if you don’t, the day is bad, very bad.  We are trying to crank out between 90-100 miles a day in Kansas just looking forward to being in Colorado and “the west.”  Apparently there are some stretches in Western Kansas into Colorado where water and “services” is an issue.  We will have to carry enough water for the entire day, or about 80 miles.  As of now we stop in just about every gas station we see and fill up on ice and water, the ice melts in about 5 minutes, we’ve gotten used to drinking the hot water though.  The heat in Kansas is very hot but it’s starting to transition from a humid heat to a dry heat the further west we go.  You don’t sweat quite as much but riding with your mouth open dries your throat out pretty quick.  

Today we just worked on the blog, took it easy and oh yea went to see some serious destruction in “Live Free or Die Hard.”  Great movie, as summer blockbusters go, Bruce still has it as John McClain, and of course he has some great one-liners.  Sitting in the cool air-conditioned movie theater is half the reason we went to the movie. 

We had dinner at Jim's Steakhouse and felt like we'd put Flux Capacitors on our bikes and gone back to 1985.

Pittsburg is a fairly large town in Kansas and is home to Pittsburg State University, the Gorillas.  Super 8 motels did the job and helped us get the rest we’ll need for the next couple days.  After our stay in Pittsburg we headed to Toronto Kansas where they had high flooding a couple weeks ago, several roads have been closed since and we’ve had to keep our ears to the ground for detours.  If you hear about a detour too late in Kansas you’re looking to add about 50 miles to your day as all the roads are on a huge grid like system.     


Day 25 July 24th Pictures

Day 26 July 25th Pictures

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Into the Unknown

7/26/2007

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We're headed into the heart of Kansas over the next couple days and don't know what our service will be like so bear with us on the blog.  We will post whenever we can.  In the mean time check out all the most recent posts, videos, and pictures below.

Stay Tuned!

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Cliff Jump Video

7/26/2007

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It was fun

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Fair Grove, MO

7/26/2007

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July 23rd Day 24

We left Houston, MO at 10AM, a little later than expected.  Not 10 miles out of Houston we ran into the Biers-Ariel family from David California.  The family of four is biking across the country with a petition to take to Washington, DC with some proposals for the government regarding Global Warming.  Unfortunately we didn't have the chance to speak very long with them as they had not eaten yet that morning and as they said "we usually yack more, but we're hungry and all yacked out after talking with Mike.  (the English guy from Boston that has been riding before and after us for over a week now)  Mikes usually gets out before we do but we always catch him before lunch.  

Maybe 20 miles later we ran into Jeff who was biking from Oregon to Virginia.  Jeff had biked the first 3,000 miles of his journey with his sister but she has just recently left because of obligations somewhere else.  Jeff is a graduate of the University of Maryland and is doing a tree study during his trek.  He basically takes a sampling of trees every so often and as he said "does a lot of technical nerdy science stuff on them."  It was good running in to him as he said he was going to stay at the Horse Creek Inn at Houston and 10 miles back I found I still had the key from our room in my pocket.  Jeff said he would take it back to Pony and Eya.  Check out his site here.  

We had a great lunch in Walnut Grove, MO at "Mom's Family Cafe".  We were the only people there and I had a huge stack of pancakes, Brent, Chicken fingers and fries and both of us had a piece of cherry pie.  "Mom" was definitely in the back cooking and Mike also joined us for a bit at lunch.

Big day of running into people biking the other way.  We ran into Daniel and Nisse, a father and son from Sweden doing the trek from West to East.  They were really nice guys and seemed to be having a great time on their trek.  They warned us that the hills further west in Missouri were pretty rough.  

We huffed it on the last 15 miles to Fair Grove and along the way we ran into "Wiry Mike."  Mike just graduated from college and was on a severe deadline to finish his trip to start his new job as a trauma nurse in Harrisburg, Virginia.  Because of his deadline Mike was averaging between 130-160 miles a day.  WHICH IS INSANE.  He confirmed that the hills got rough further west, and when a guy that's averaging that much mileage in a day said that our ears really perked up.  

We arrived in Fair Grove, MO where we were scheduled to stay at the Historical Society, which we'd heard was a great place to camp.  It was a historical society with 18th century buildings and the society lets cyclists camp there and they unlock the bathrooms (which had a shower) for use.  We had a great dinner at Hill Top Pizza, literally the one restaurant in town.  Cheesecake on a stick finished the meal and then we called it a night.  We had a race to see who could set up their tent fastest at the sun was going down and believe it or not we tied.  Overall, it was an excellent day of riding and the weather was beautiful and cool.   


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Houston Missouri, not Texas

7/26/2007

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July 22nd Day 23

Ellington, MO to Houston, MO

Well after a seriously lacking night of sleep for me, Brent could sleep through World War III, I was not really looking forward to what is supposed to be the most difficult section of riding in Missouri through the Ozarks.  We had read people's accounts of the ride between "Ellington and Houston" and they struck fear into our hearts.  Turns out it was all a big facade.  There were definitely some hills and some challenging climbs but nothing like what we faced in North Carolina and Tennessee.  We lucked out big time on the weather while riding through Missouri, we had temps only reaching 88 or so with about 50-60% humidity.  Apparently the humidity and heat in the Ozarks is vicious and the most difficult thing about the ride.  Riding through the mountains was great, the scenery was great, the breeze felt good and it was nice to see some charming mountain towns, like Eminence, especially after our bleak impression of Ellington.  

We stopped for lunch in Eminence at Whitleys which had an old soda fountain feel to it.  Also, something that is really big in the Ozarks is people drinking and tubing down rivers.  We saw countless people going into convenience stores to stock up on beer for their trips down the rivers.

We found a great spot in the Jacks Fork River to take a swim, the water felt great but after such a relaxing break like that it's tough to get on the bike and finish out 35 miles.  There was a fire tower at the top of the Ozarks, so of course we had to climb it.  The view was great, you can see it in the video.  We ran into Tim a little bit down the road, he was biking West to East alone.  Tim lives in Monterey California and has his own accounting business, he has flown back twice on his journey for business, he was a really nice guy and tough too, he was biking in wool hiking socks and sandals!

We hauled it in to Houston to the Houston Motel, which had been changed to the Horse Creek Inn.  We had heard all sorts of great things about this Inn from several different people coming the opposite direction, so we were excited to get there.  We had heard about the "Swimming Hole" we went there with the owner of the motel.  He was a really cool guy, he is full blood native american from Bryson City, North Carolina and is one of the biggest horse whisperers in the world.  It was pretty amazing to hear him talk about some of his experiences.  The truck he drove was an old diesel Ford that had been converted to run on Vegetable Oil.  He said the modifications only cost $3,000 dollars and that he goes to a couple of the local fast food type establishments and collects their used vegetable oil for his fuel.  He told us that diesel trucks were originally developed to run on Peanut Oil for farmers.  These type modifications aren't possible on newer model diesel trucks because apparently the auto/oil industry caught on.  He said that their is a diesel take in the truck that is only used to briefly heat the engine to a certain temperature and then the vegetable oil takes over as the source of fuel.  

The owner of the motel then took us to the swimming hole about 3 miles away and it had the best cliff jump imaginable.  The highest one we jumped off was probably 40 feet.  It was a great thing to end the day with, somehow, some way I have to get something like that in or near my backyard.  See the video here.  

That night the cool owners of the motel made a pasta dinner for us, Art and Ben, a father and son riding east from San Francisco.  The pasta hit the spot as did the $35 dollar room.  We had a great stay at the Horse Creek Inn and want to thank the owners for making the trip through Houston so enjoyable. 


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The Twilight Zone

7/26/2007

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Day 22 – July 21

A very unique day…

The actual ride from Farmington to Ellington was not too memorable. But our night spent in Ellington was one that Lee and I will remember for a long time.

After a full day of riding, we rolled into Ellington looking for the park to set up shop for the night. We found out where it was and took a mile and a half detour to the back of town and found our Brawley Park. We thought that being towards the back of the town and tucked away, we would not have much company, but we were not alone. There was a family celebrating a couple of their kids’ birthdays together. We had plopped ourselves down by some benches away from their party, which was at some picnic tables under a covering, which we decided we were going to sleep on after they left.

They very graciously offered us some of the food that they had cooked up, which included hamburgers on sliced bread, pork, and crunchy cooked potatoes. A few things that struck both of us right off the bat were the 1) quantity of kids that this family had 2) how dirty the kids were and 3) how little control they had over their kids. The kids greeted us with cake smeared all over their faces and arms, which is cute for a little while when they are eating, but most parents usually clean it up after they are done eating. Not them…they just let the kids be kids along with their dirty feet and diapers. I would say there were at least seven kids between two mothers of 20 and 23. During the two hours we spent with them, I don’t think either one of them ever really sat down because they were busy chasing the kids down and trying to wrangle them in the picnic area, especially TJ, who had one heck of a mullet going for only being a couple of years old. Pretty much from the minute we got there to the minute the family left there was non-stop chaos, yelling, and baby-wrangling.

This family also just found four puppies that were abandoned in some nearby bushes, dehydrated and underfed. So they ended up taking these dogs home with them in addition to the two dogs they already had.  

It is tough to describe the entire situation because it was just so bizarre and I am sure that the description doesn’t really sound that strange, but it was an experience that Lee and I had never encountered.

Once the family left, we set up our beds on the picnic tables and held our fingers crossed that not too many animals would visit during the night due to the large amounts of food that all the kids had thrown and left around the area. Once it got dark, we quickly realized that through this secluded park was a very busy throughway (gravel road) going to some park land behind us which had traffic throughout the night. This was according to Lee since I basically go into a coma at night. Lee tells me the next morning that he had a horrible night sleep due to all the locals driving by to check out the bikers, his fear of a re-enactment of ‘Deliverance’, and the critters visiting to scavenge the food.


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DAY OFF #3

7/25/2007

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July 19 – Day 20

Carbondale, IL

It was time for a rest day again and coordinated it to be in one of the biggest towns we’d been to since Lexington, which was Carbondale, IL. Carbondale is the home of the Salukis, which is the University of Southern Illinois. Of course we had to go to the local bike shop to pick up some more parts, which hopefully will come to an end now that I think we have every possible bike tool and spare part possible to build another complete bike. We visited Carbondale Cycles where the mechanic there worked his magic on Lee’s bike and had it purring like a cat. After the bike maintenance, Booby’s subs, and giant Dairy Queen Blizzards we were enjoying the day off and not biking in the scorching heat again. Thankfully we heard that the heat and humidity were supposed to break the following day so our rest day sounded like we had perfectly coordinated our schedules with Mother Nature.

We got a tour of the Southern Illinois campus, met Christian, who is a writer for their campus newspaper, the Daily Egyptian, and now she will be writing a story for their paper to be published July 24th. If anybody knows why the Southern Illinois area has Egyptian ties, please let us know. Christian did not know the exact roots of it, but the whole area is tied to Egypt somehow and now I am reallycurious.

Once we had some of the work done for the day, we went off and saw a movie for the first time of the trip, Transformers. After watching the movie, I am convinced that my bike is actually now a hiding robot and will come to life on one of these big hills and charge me up to the top. That could have just been the heat getting to me but I am going to hold my fingers crossed…

See the The Daily Egyptian Article here. 

-Brent


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E-Town Play Rehearsal

7/23/2007

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Play rehearsal for the annual play in Elizabethtown, Illinois. 

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    eLIFELIST.com BIKING ACROSS THE COUNTRY: DONE

    Sept 5th 2007

    Days 68
    (including an 11day stint off)

    $ Raised for LAF:
    $11,500

    Final Miles: 3820.61

    Final Hours: 275.25

    Equals: 11.42 Days Straight Biking

    Average MPH: 13.88

    Daily Calories In: ~6000-7000
     
    Daily Calories Burned:
    Alot

    Total Calories In:
    408,000-467,000 each

    Friendly People Met:
    Countless

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    "Bicycle Across the Country raising funds for Livestrong"

    We will be updating this Blog the entire time we are biking Across the US.  Check in regularly to see where we are.  Click About above to learn more about why we are doing this trip and how you can donate money towards Cancer Research.  Cheers!

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