more pictures later
(kentucky is sweet)

sorry we're so bad at posting. since we last wrote we've finished (somehow) the missouri mountains, passed through a strip of illinois, and are now making our way through kentucky. one of our favorite spots was in houston, missouri, where we took a sweeet yellow school bus with a guy named pony boy to a swimming hole and jumped off a nutso cliff. most bicyclists hate missouri cause it feels like going up and down a roller coaster but we tried to make the most of it, stopping in every lookout tower and swimming hole, canoeing down and riding a 4-wheeler around the jacks fork river, and hanging out in state parks with our surrogate mother Jeannie. as we passed over the mississippi river into illinois we entered the land of vineyards and wineries (and the home of popeye, too!), passed through amish farms and dodged scary coal trucks.

its a bit crazy that our scariest experience so far has been entering "superwalmart". we expected to encounter situations that felt unsafe but this trip has really taught us about the real goodness of people. people continue to let us into their homes and offer us everything under the sun (one woman said "don't come into my house, i'll keep you forever!" which was, in retrospect, a little creepy). one couple gave us money even after we emphatically refused, although that might just be because we do tend to look homeless. and smell. every night is a little adventure as we scout plcaes to sleep, and have ended up in some of the weirder spots. so far we've spent the night mostly in parks, some courthouse lawns, fire stations, RV parks, a camper van, a boat parked on the street (very comfortable bed-- who knew!), and a few churches and some really lovely homes.

we've also been doing a whole lot of wildlife watching-- mostly roadkill, but also tons of deer and some wild turkey, too. armadillo fact we've learned: they're fast, but armadillos are roadkill targets because they have sensitive hairs on the top of their bodies that, when agitated, cause the armadillo to jump straight up in the air a few feet. so cars pass over them and they jump up and go splat. it's horrible to ride pass so many dead coats of armor, but we are learning lots.



we get asked nearly everywhere we go why we chose to do this trip. we learned, as we entered kentucky, what was perhaps our real reason-- we had come JUST in time for one of the biggest motorcycles parties of the year, called little sturgis. we spent a day hanging out with hundreds-- actually thousands-- of hardcore bikers, feeling a bit shabby but also very proud of our hardy bicycles. library closing, more later!

love, c+s

we're in missouri, and we've officially entered the ozark mountain range! egads! definitely feeling these roller coaster hills in our legs, butts, minds, etc.. but it's also exciting to have entered a new state and to see some new landscape. the last few days have been great, we've been waking up even earlier (this morning got up at 5!) and sometimes riding as the sun sets. today is our 2nd week anniversary and we seem to be getting into a groove, feeling more at home on our bikes and in our tent. plus, we sent home 11 pounds yesterday (as soon as we hit the hills) and so we're feeling grand.

some highlights: arrived at a lovely lutheran church in hepler, kansas just in time for vacation bible school and to get a tuba lesson from pastor john... ate the best pie we've ever had in golden city (for free!)... and got hit by swarms of mosquitos in recently-flooded toronto so dense and hungry we dropped everything and set up camp in less than a minute. hi to the firemen we met in chanute and to doug in ash grove (the detour to marshfield was a great success). more later...

hi again! it's thunderstorming in rosalia, kansas, but we got invited into a home for some strawberry shortcake and a bed, so we're happy as clams. we've been riding through some breathtaking parts of kansas--- fields of sunflowers, sunsets, and even an exotic animal farm. it flooded here last week so there are hundreds of frogs on the roads and we spend our days frog-dodging and trying to identify birds. talk about multi-tasking. on one part of our route the road had collapsed from the floods and we ended up carrying our bikes/bags over a thin wooden plank. it felt ridiculously hardcore. had our longest day-- 76 miles!-- followed by our sweetest day, in which we slept for about 15 hours and ate mountains of delicious food with the lilyhorns in hutchinson. we only have 2 more days or so in kansas so we're soaking it all up. more later!

hi from dighton, kansas!

it's been a while since we've posted so we'll just give some highlights. crossed our first state-border and time zone a few days ago, and have seen some really lovely and mostly tiny towns along the way. the best thing so far has been the overwhelming hospitality of nearly everyone we meet-- one guy handed us gatorade out of his truck while driving past (we had actually daydreamed about that happening the day before), a cool girl from haswell, colorado gave us some of her mom's homeade banana bread and her grandma's pumpkin cookies, and just this morning a group of farmers refused to let us pay for breakfast. (if you can't tell, we're hungry all the time and eat about 6 meals a day.) we've been meeting a steady stream of cyclists heading the opposite direction, and the other day had dinner with two women both riding solo-- yahoo! we spent the 4th of july in scott city, sitting on bleachers at a football stadium watching fireworks from every direction. it was a nice holiday to take part in as we're seeing new parts of the country and thinking so much about where we fit into this larger picture.

we're here at the perfect time-- the wheat is ready, and loads of harvesters are travelling across the country following the harvest. we're learning an incredible amount about the process of harvesting and getting a really personal look at where so much of the food we eat comes from. we can't help but get into long, winding conversations with nearly everyone we meet-- so much for making it all the way home. people are really patient with how little we know (and generally find us pretty amusing, maybe stupid?) and everyone seems to want to help us out or take care of us along the way. we're endlessly floored.

we're also tired, sore, burned, and blistered. the wind out here is heavy and each day feels really long, but we're gaining muscle and confidence (and mileage!). trying to ride for this long, we've realized, is a lot about learning to define our own limits-- when to push them, and when to surrender to them. most people we meet tell us we're nutty and sometimes it feels that way, but mostly we feel grateful to be out in the sun and feeling so self-reliant. we probably could use a shower.

it's hard to predict how much internet access we'll have but we'll do our best to keep updating.
sending love!
c+s