Day 32, Chester, Illinois to Farmington, Missouri.

This sign caught my attention. Either the guy in charge of this project had problems in the past on another project, or he is planning on running for election. Either way, he's got my vote.

Some of the roads seem to go on for ever. I always wanted to ride my bike thousands of miles and not see the same thing twice. But does seeing nothing for miles on end count as not seeing the same thing?

I stopped here to do my thing. Such a beautiful and tranquil place, we decided to have lunch here also.

Every time we come to a substantial hill, I take off for the top and wait for Lisa. It doesn't take her long to show up. I snapped this shot just as she summited.

Wheat, grain, barley, oats, rye, bran..........................., It's one of those, I'm sure of it.

More wheat fields and farms.

Wheat and more wheat. The stuff is everywhere.

Check out this church. It's so cool. The thing is massive in the front, but the rest of it is small. It is located in the town of Ozora, Missouri. A town so small, that the interstate truck stop is the main source of lively hood.

The infamous bridge across the Mississippi. Notice, they don't recommend walking across it.

That's the statue of Popeye. The one on the left.

Another barn. No matter where we go on our journey, we see barns of all shapes and sizes. This one is in pretty good shape, and it had a horse in it.

Welcome to Missouri. State number 4. Six more to go.
Crossing the Mississippi on our way to Missouri. This crossing was supposed to be one of the scariest experiences of our trip. God came to our rescue and made it one of the safest bicycle crossings in history.


Day 32, Chester, Illinois to Farmington, Missouri. “Welcome to Missouri”. 53.64 miles

We left the Eagles Lodge under hazy skies, and stopped at McDonalds for breakfast. I had my usual biscuits and gravy. A great deal at only $1.89. But of course with my appetite, I ended up ordering a full breakfast on top of that. Don’t worry, I burn the stuff off. I don’t know if I told you this before, but I actually had to by me a belt, because my shorts won’t stay up any more. Anyway, getting back on subject…………….., we headed west, where we posed next to the Popeye Statue for a couple of shots. Chester, Illinois is the official home of Popeye.

The Popeye Statue is right next to the Mississippi River, right next to the bridge we had to cross to get to Missouri. Everyone was telling us about the bridge. How narrow it was, how dangerous it was, how old and unstable it was. Watch out for those coal trucks, don’t look down, make sure you don’t stop on the bridge………………… After hearing all of that, I didn’t even want to chance it. However, the only other option was to try to get a ride with someone. That however was impossible, because no one was stopping. The traffic is kind of heavy from both sides. We parked our bikes on the side of the road to look at what we were in for. I took a couple of pictures, took a deep breath, and we were off. Our timing couldn’t have been better. There were no big trucks in our lane the whole time we were on the bridge, and very few cars. It was no different than driving through down town Kaunakakai on a Sunday afternoon. I had so much fun, I tried to get Lisa to go back and do it again. Just kidding of course. I know The Lord had a hand in this, and made it safe for us. I believe the prayers of family and friends play a big part in how things turn out. You can only get lucky so many times, and then it happens.

Once into Missouri, we were home free. The road on the Missouri side was nice and wide. It had a shoulder the width of a regular car lane, and was straight as an arrow. The first twelve miles were flat, running through low lying farm land and flood zone areas. We made good time, covering those first few miles in les than an hour. However, remember I mentioned earlier about hills? Funny thing, 41 miles of hills greeted us like old friends. Not bad hills, in fact, I kind of enjoyed them. I asked Lisa if the rest of Missouri was going to be like this? She said it was worse. I think she really meant, Better. Hills are good, they break the monotony and boredom of riding the same terrain for hours on end. It also gives you a chance to use different muscles, and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. Once on top, you can ease off the gas and coast for a while.

We stopped at a gas station to pick up some fuel since there would be nothing for the next 30 miles. While gulping on a bottled of Arizona Iced Tea, a gentleman and his wife pulled up, and asked where we were headed. “Oregon”, I said. “Oregon, that’s where I’m headed in a couple of days. Only I’m doing it in a semi.”. We both laughed, and talked for a while. They were both very intrigued by what we were doing, and wished us the best, and honked for us as they drove by. At about 1:30PM, while in the middle of a climb, we came across a nice place to you know what. You can’t just stop anywhere to do you thing, you could get arrested from what I was told……………….. Since we were there, we decided to have lunch. Cheddar potato chips, rice crispy bars, gator aide, and a strawberry yogurt bar for desert.

We continued on, and encountered more hills. I hardly noticed them, but was reminded when the perspiration starts pouring from my head. The closer we got to Farmington, the better we felt, and pretty soon we were picking up our pace just so that we could be there for that hot shower and wifi.

Tonight we are at the Super 8 motel, on the second floor, room 232. Lisa’s mom and dad are here to meet us. They drove down just to see Lisa and I. We’re going out to dinner in a bit.

Aloha everyone, hope all is well with you. Good night, Ted.

Day 31, Carbondale to Cheste, Illinois.

Inside the Master bedroom. All the comforts of home, and less.

This is the Eagles Lodge where they let us camp. We had all the needs of comfort.

Lisa was grouchy cause she couldn't find a restroom. But I managed to get her to smile for this one.

This is me. I'm always vmy pleasant self. Just ask me, I'll tell you.

Guess what the mane of this river is? That's right, "The Muddy River". Seriously, I'm not making it up.

This coal dump was located on the Mississippi levee. The coal gets transported via a conveyor system that delivers it to a waiting barge. That train, is easily over a mile long.

Transfering the coal from the train to the stock pile, then to the barge.

What is this you ask? Well, I guess you had to be there. But those are them buzard looking things that were circling this pond that was formed by the spillway of the levee where there were some kind of fish jumping. Lots of um. I tried to get pictures, but my DSLR's battery died, and all I had was my point and shoot.

d In places there was nothing. Nothing, with a capital N. I could have laid in the road for an hour, and still have all my guts in tact.

This vold barn looks like it suffered some storm damage. Some we saw were completely destroyed.

This is the Post Mistress in Gorham. I can't remember her name, but she refilled our water bottles and gave us candy. People we meet along the way have been so nice to us where ever we go.

My little point and shoot does not do this scene justice. We had just come off a scenic route that horseshoes around almost 180% from right to left. Why? When you find out, tell me.

This was one of the few times we had a shoulder as wide as a full lane of traffic. If only it were like this all the way. We could probably even camp on it.

This is the low lying flood plain area. The roads are ellevated, and the levee keeps the flood waters from damaging the farm land. At least it is supposed to.


Day 31, Carbondale to Chester, Illinois. The Mississippi Levee. 51.59 miles.

Rest days are always good. It gives us a break from the daily grind of pedaling our bikes for days on end. I look forward to these breaks, and wish that we could have more of them so I can really get to know these new found places. Our stay at Carbondale was both good and bad. The good part was that we had our bikes serviced, was able to eat good, and catch up on e-mails and our blogs. The bad part was that we weren’t able to stay at the Super 8 like we had planned because they didn’t have room. The Motel 6 was a disappointment since it was in the bad part of town. Run down, and not safe to be out at night. I guess sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad.

We left Carbondale late. We had anticipated bad weather in the morning, and late afternoon. We didn’t want to ride in the rain unless we absolutely had too. Our bikes were like new now, I could really feel the difference. ………… We rode on the side walks till we got out of town. The roads were pretty busy at this time, and cars were flowing steadily in both lanes. Once on the back roads, the traffic fell off dramatically, and we were once again rolling along at our usual pace. It was mostly flat today, the land scape consisted mostly of low flood prone wet land, some still filled with standing water from the previous rains from the past few days. Our route took us onto the levee that holds back the over flow from the Mississippi River. These levees are pretty high. I would saw 20 to 30 feet. Riding on them gives us a good view of the surrounding farm lands. The land around here lacks character. Not good for photographing. But I did take pictures along the way just so I can have a record of all the places we’ve been. We didn’t bother to get snacks in Carbondale, because Murphysboro, another large town was only 8 or 10 miles away along our route. What we didn’t know, was that our route would by pass Murphysboro completely, and there would be nothing for the next 28 miles. It was sunny and hot, but we had a breeze blowing from the north west, slightly into our face. We both were low on water as we entered the town of Gorham. The town was so small, that all there was nothing but a Post office. We stopped in so Lisa could mail a post card. The Post Mistress was kind enough to fill our water bottles, and give us a hand full of candy. It was funny, because she thought that Hawaii was an international destination, and was going to charge Lisa accordingly. She told us that there was a town four miles down the road that had a restaurant. So we headed there for lunch. Once we reached Neunart, we found the restaurant. It was the only establishment in town, but well worth the stop. The special of the day was home made vegetable and beef soup with grilled cheese sandwiches for five bucks. I must say, that was one of the best meals I’ve had for the money.

We continued on with almost no traffic. These roads are very straight for the most part, so you can see cars coming from miles in either direction. We rode side by side for miles on end. Once we reached the levee, we climbed up a short distance, and was able to see the Mississippi River just a few hundred yards away. On one side, Illinois, and the other, Missouri. The Illinois side was low lying farm lands, and the Missouri side thickly forested swamp land. I expected to see alligators swimming around. But Lisa reminded me that there were none this far north. We came to this large coal dump. A place where the trains bring coal to be loaded on to barges that would take it down south. There were mountains of coal. There was only one train there at the time. It was quitting time when we arrived, as we saw the workers leaving for the day. The train was the longest I’ve ever seen. It was more than a mile long. Way more. Since the battery for my DSLR had died, I was only able to shoot with my little point and shoot camera. So don’t be disappointed when you see these shots.

Once we left the levee, we got on to HWY 3 which was a main artery for the large coal trucks headed for the port. The road has no shoulder, and the coal truck haul ass. We found ourselves getting off the road when ever one of these would fly by. Not a good feeling to say the least. For 11 miles we played this game. Once we reached Chester, the roads widened up, and we were able to ride on the side walks again. It was almost 5 in the afternoon by now, and all we wanted to do was find our camp site for the night.

Tonight we are at the Eagles head quarters in Chester. They are something line the lions Club., and they let touring cyclist stay for free. They have showers, and rest rooms, and a restaurant and bar. Once settled in, we showered and had dinner there. The food was really good, and reasonably priced. We met friendly people there, and spent the evening engaged in conversation. Lisa did most of the talking, since she communicates well with drinking people. It was all good, I enjoyed myself.

Thank you all for giving us strength, your moral support is much appreciated. And thank you Lord for all things good, for a safe journey, and for family and friend like you. Aloha to you all, Ted.

Day 30, Rest Day in Carbondale

Click the map to enlarge and you can see where we are.

Carbondale Cycles, one of three bike shops. All with in a stone throw of each other.

Phoenix Cycles, this was the one we went to with the recommendation of Andy.

Illinois Central, now a educational display, was once the back bone of coal and freight in years past.

We were able to climb up on the train and check it out. It's a lot bigger than it looks, I was impressed.

The pavilion where we saw the "Fish Skins".

Here they are playing one of their hits.

These flowers were in front of the Civic Center. We went in, in search of a rest room. We were in luck, they had two of um.

That's Doug with Lisa, the owner of Phoenix Cycles. Great bike shop, they cater mostly to TransAm cyclists and collage students.


Day 30, Carbondale. 2.16 miles.

Today is Wednesday, it is a rest day for Lisa and I. I hadn't gotten much sleep last night. The bed was way too soft, and I could not get comfortable no matter how i tried. Since Lisa and I share the same room, I can't just take off all my cloths like I would at home. So I suffered. Eventually I fell asleep, and everything turned out all right. At least we were in a comfortable and dry place for the night. This morning i got up late. 7:00AM. Usually I'm up at 4:30 or 5:00. I guess the sleepless night had a lot to do with it. My first order of business was to try to touch bases with friends and family. I wanted to take advantage of the wifi we have. Since the time difference is still 5 hours, everyone at home would still be in bed, and it would be unforgivable to call at such an obscene hour. So e-mail communication is the order of the day. I did catch up with Krystal though. It has been a while since I last talked to her. She has a new number, and I hadn't put it into the address book of my phone yet, and today she called. Good to know that she is doing well after her operation. She spent a few days in the hospital, and just returned to work a few days ago. I also talked to my mom. Only the second time since I've been gone. Every time I call, either she is out of the house, or gone somewhere. Great talking to her also, she sounds like shes doing very well. I also e-mailed Fern, and I got one back from her a little while ago. Pokahu, (My dog) is doing well. i miss him a lot. He is one good doggie. I also heard from Vanessa, she's stand up paddling now. Dave Dilberg is giving her lessons, and she loves it. I wish I could e-mail all of you guys individually, but time just won't allow it. even on our rest day, there is so much to do, that we just run out of time.

After breakfast at Sonics. They were the closest place from here, we returned to the Motel 6 to get our bikes and rode it down to the Phoenix Bike Shop a little over a mile away. Doug, the owner of the shop, greeted us as we entered. He knew we were TransAm riders by just looking at us. He said he gets a lot of them this time of the year. I told him I wanted a complete servicing, and gave him full discrepancy on what needed to be done. Lisa did the same. While we were waiting for the bikes to be readied. Lisa and I walked around the general area to see what was there. We walked over to an Internet cafe where I had me a mocha smoothly. I never knew such a thing existed, I wasn't disappointed. It hit the spot, and I was ready for more sight seeing. We walked a couple of blocks and found a book store. We were actually looking for a Library, but a book store would do. It was a huge place, and we spent over a half hour there. I had myself a soft serve cone from A really old Dairy Queen. I could kick myself, cause i didn't even take a picture of the place. The soft serve cone was the best I ever had, and filled me so much, i didn't even eat lunch. As we were walking around, we saw a bunch of people gathered at a pavilion. So we wandered over to see what was going on. There was a blue grass band playing country rock music, and a crowd had gathered for the free concert. At first, it sounded a little red neck to me. But as we listened for a while. It actually sounded pretty good. These guys were in sync, obviously they've been playing together for a while. The group's name was "The Fish Skins". I have a short video clip of their stuff.

Lisa then got a call from Andy. The Adventure Cycling guide. He was back in Carbondale because of bike problems, he and two of his guests, John and Kami were having mechanical problems, and since Carbondale is the only town with in miles, they came back. We actually met up with them last night as we pulled into town. They had their rest day yesterday, and was on their way to Chester, home of Popeye The Sailor, where we will be tomorrow afternoon for the night. We met with Andy folks at a little deli called Boobies. They were having lunch. We talked about the ride ahead, and found out that the terrain is fairly flat. I'm not holding my breath though, we heard that before.

At about 4 o'clock, we headed over to the bike shop just as Lisa's bike was being rolled off the repair stand. It looked good, they even cleaned it. my bike wasn't to be ready for another half hour, so we hung around talking with the people there. I had them install a touring handle bar bag since the one I was using was a piece of *&%#. I struggled with that thing long enough. The mechanic came out and went over the work done, I was very pleased. These guys are real pros, I went in the work area when they were working on my bike, and they had two mechanics working on it. They installed new cables, housing, chain, cleaned and lube everything, and even adjusted the brakes. My bill was $159.00, but being a bike mechanic myself, I wasn't complaining. Good work don't come cheap.

We rode back to the Motel 6, where I am right now updating my blog. We still need to do laundry, eat dinner, and hopefully, will have time to take in a movie. Thank you everyone for your continued support. It has been great so far. The weather for the next week sounds kind of sketchy, but we are just happy that it's been in our favor so far. Even the worst of it came when we were off of the highway.

Below, The Fish Skins in action. Aloha, Ted.

Day 29. Eddyville to Carbondale. 'After The Storm".

These geese were at The Grassy Lake in the Shawnee national forest. They looked so neat just cruising along.

Tacoma Road. The way point on my GPS says we go down there.

I have no idea what these are. I wouldn't have believe it if i hadn't seen them for myself. They almost look fake, don't they?

Leaving Goreville, we go under that bridge, and turn right.

At a pit stop (You know what I mean), I composed this shot of nature and tranquility at it's finest.

Where i parked my bike while I was doing my thing.

The place with all the thunder and lightnig I'm going to tell you about.

Cute, I wanted to pet um.

This white tail doe was actually in someone yard. It wasn't afraid of anybody and allowed me to shoot her. With my camera of course.

This is a wild daisy. About t5he size of a dime. They are all over the side of the roads.

Lisa cruising through the Shawnee National Forest.

Barbara and Joan. They were fun to talk too. They wanted to have lunch with us, but we were already running late.

I wonder how much soup one of these guys would make? Hungry anyone?


Day 29, Eddyville to Carbondale. 58.9 miles.

Aloha everybody, We made it to Carbondale. This is a good sized town of over 20,000. It has everything. But before I get started, let me take you back to last night........... Ahhhhh, last night. It was one of the most incredible nights of my life. It was as close to a near death experience that I can remember. Lisa and I had set up our tents, and took our showers and everything. So we decided to go up to the office area where there was wifi, and catch up on e-mail and update our blogs. While there, we checked the weather forecast like we always do to see how the coming days would be like. The prognosis was not good. There was a severe storm warning out that included four states, Illinois included. They predicted thunder, lightning, hail, and 60 mile an hour wind. And it was arriving as we were looking at it. The lightning lit up the sky non stop, and thunder echoed through the sky. The rain did not hit yet, but it was coming. I tried to get my stuff done so that I could go back to the tent to button things up. And go seek shelter in a real building. As I got to my tent, the rain started. lightly at first, then harder and harder. I decided to ride the storm out. So I stayed. Lisa had already gone to the shelter before the rain started, so she was already gone. I put all the things I didn't want to get wet such as my camera, dry cloths, cell phone, etc. into the dry bag, and put on my rain gear. Then it got bad. Real bad. The lightning and the thunder increased infrequency and intensity. I started praying like I've never done before. There were a couple of lightning bolts that hit so close, that I heard the thunder the instant I saw the flash. The ground shook and i was in the middle of the worse storm imaginable, and all hell was breaking loose. I decided right then and there to get the hell out of there and made a dash for the shelter. The road was like a river, and I was running up stream. I didn't need a flash light cause the whole sky was lit up from the lightning. I expected to get struck at any moment right in my tracks. I was just as scared then, as I was when that shark was fallowing me across the channel at the warf when I was surfing with Brian.

Anyway, to make a long story short. I survived. In the morning, I asked the camp manager what he thought about all that. He said that this was normal, that they get the stuff all the time, about three to four times a year. So, who are you going to believe? me, or some stranger you never met?

Okay, now........ We left Hayes Canyon Camp at 8:30 in the morning, and headed for a place that one of the campers told us about that served really geed breakfast. It was a little over a mile away, and it took for ever to get our food. But it was great, I was even tempted to lick the plate. By 10 o'clock, we were on our way. We knew we had a long day ahead of us, and wasn't quite sure about the weather. But we did want to make it to Carbondale for the rest day, so we could stay at a motel, and have our bikes serviced. It's been over 1200 miles with no service performed. As we rode along, we felt good. As good as one can feel with everything that went on last night that is. We encountered gentle low grade hills, and plenty of flat land for the first 8 or 10 miles. We saw a few of those turtles by the side of the road, and I even picked up one to check him out. We went through The Shawnee National forest where we stopped at the Grassy lake to check out some geese that had babies. The road through the forest was in pretty bad shape, but our mountain bikes ate that stuff up. There was absolutely no traffic. I made the ride that much more enjoyable.

We went through Goreville, a small town that had tame foxes and deer running around the neighborhood like it was a normal thing. If they did that on Molokai, they would get shot. We stopped at a park to fill our water bottles and use the rest room. There we met Barbara and Joan. Two sisters in their 70's traveling from Missouri to a place called Lake Egypt. I think they said they owned a cabin there or something. We got talking with them and found out that they, or at least one of them is from the town that Lisa is from. They also have been to Hawaii, but not Molokai. They said if they every go back, they'll visit Molokai.

By this time it was 2 o'clock, and we still had 30 miles to go. I figured we'd get to Carbondale about 7:30 or so, if we didn't stop too often. However, the hills were getting more and more frequent, and steeper. There was even a sign that read, "Hilly Area Ahead". This was just what I was looking for. More hills! Yes, bring it on....... Actually, I didn't really say that. But I knew that complaining about it wouldn't make them go away. So I hammered the big ones just so that I could get to the top and have it behind me. Just as I was starting to have fun, we reach Carbondale, where we are right now. We pulled into the Supper 8 Motel, only to have them tell us that they had no more rooms available. So we rode around and found a Motel 6 for $47.00 a night. But no Continental breakfast.

Tonight, it's Chinese food at The Hunan Resteraunt right next door. We thank all of you for wishing us the best. your prayers really did save me last night, and i know that you will continue praying for us. Good night, Ted.

Day 28. Marion to Eddyville.

This is a beaver dam. I waited for the beavers to show up. but I think they were camera shy.

Me and Lisa at the Louise and Clark sign. We;re pointing west.

This sign explains it better that I ever could.

The cave in the rock entrance.

Inside the cave in the rock.

The cave in the rock again.

That's Lisa, this shows you how big this thing is.

Aboard the ferry to Illinois.

Waiting our turn for the crossing.

Off loading vehicles coming from Illinois.

I thought this snake was alive. After this shot, I poked it with a stick. It was dead.

Lisa, I had to make sure she was alright.

There whe is again. She was like that all night.

That's us, we were the only tourist in the whole town.

This sign was right across our camp for tonight.

This is it. Home sweet home.

We made it out of Kentucky alive. So long you miserable dogs.

The road is long. Isn't there a song like that?

Our cabin at the Meyers B3d & Breakfast.

Down town Marion.




Day 28, Marion to Eddyville. Illinois Her We Come! 48.17 miles.

This morning, I went to thank Mr. Meyers again for his most gracious hospitality. I can not begin to tell you what a relief it was to have a place to stay for the night, let alone one so nice as The Meyers B & B. I met his wife for the first time as I offered to help her unload the trunk of the car which had a few large items in it. I would say the Meyers were both in their mid to late 70’s, and I could tell just by talking to them, that they just loved helping people. Molokai has yet to see better people than these.

We went over to McDonalds for breakfast, and noticed that there were only old people in there. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but Lisa has an eye for these things. She notices people, and what they are doing. From now on I’d better be careful, or I might blow my cover………… We walked back over to the B & B. While doing so, I had my I-touch on, to see if I could get and unlocked wifi signal so I could check my e-mail. There were a few locked ones that showed up, but no unlocked. Bummer, I’ll have to wait at least till tomorrow.

We loaded up our stuff, and headed down the road. We are only 10 or 12 miles from the Ohio River which separates Kentucky from Illinois. We were doing pretty good, but then it started raining. It didn’t look good. The sky was dark, and the roads were wet. We expected the worse. A lady passing by saw us on the side of the road studying our map and stopped. “You all ready to get wet?” She asked. “It’s supposed to be like this all week.” She said. “Good luck, and stay dry.” And she was on her way. This didn’t help our spirit at all, but we continued on, knowing we didn’t have any other option anyway. We reached the river just as the ferry approached with a load of vehicles from the other side. We waited till the boat man signaled us to come aboard. Lisa and I was the only two passengers aboard for the crossing. Josh, the boat man. Offered to take our picture as we were crossing. We talked for a few minutes, and found out that he was relatives with most of the folks in the town of Cave In Rock The town just on the Illinois side of the Ohio River. Cave In Rock got it’s name from this huge cave on the river’s edge that pirates used to hide out in, and ambush people crossing the river back in the old days. Louise & Clark actually had an encounter with these low life’s and taught them a lesson or two. We stopped at the cave and went inside. It is huge, and Lisa said that bats live in there.

Since it was a short day today as far as mileage goes, we dallied around a bit, not realizing that the Illinois side of the river was the hilliest since Virginia. There were hills. Lots of them. Big ones, small ones, and medium sized ones. Some of them steep. I didn’t let that bother me, since most of my training for this trip was centered in hilly country anyway. I looked at those hills and new they couldn’t hurt me. In fact, I think I laughed at a couple of um. We stopped for lunch at Elizabethtown. A small community that hosts an event called Hog Madness. Or something like that. In two days (Wednesday), there will be more than ten thousand motorcycle riders from all over the country converging on this little town. Am I glad I’m not going to be here for that one. Can you imagine thousands of beer drinking, tattoo toting, drug educing vagrants all communing in the same place at the same time? There’s also some big cult rock band that I never heard of that is going to be playing there with body piercing groupies and devil music galore blasting through the air. They would probably hang the both of us for wearing lycra……….. After lunch, we noticed that the roads were dry, and the sky even looked brighter. By mid afternoon, it was sunny and hot. The humidity was at least a hundred and fifty per cent. I was sweating liquid as fast as I could take it in.

We pulled into Eddyville at a little after 4:00PM. The camp site was still another 2 miles or so down in the valley. As we were headed there, Lisa noticed a sign that read, “Hays Canyon Camp Ground. 1 mile. On a different road. “Wanna go there?” She asked. “Sure, why not?” I replied. So that how we ended up here. The manager was not in, so we made our selves at home in one of the camp sites, hoping they are not going to kick us out when they get back. We’ve had good luck so far, The Lord takes good care of us. Hopefully tonight won’t rain, and that we get a good nights rest. We do over 60 miles tomorrow, and take a rest day in Carbondale. A town of about 20,000 people. They have three bike shops there, and we are hoping to have our bikes serviced there.

Thank you all for your support. Your prayers are working, and The Good Lord is watching over us every day. Aloha, Ted.