6/10/11- Highways suck

We ended the bike trail in Wilmer and stopped for food and some other essentials. After that we got a little lost and ended up 2 miles farther in the wrong direction. This wouldnt be that big of a deal if for the one simple fact that the only road we could take was the highway... this took the rest of our day and brought our moods pretty low and are stress high. It was only 18 miles but it took forever. it sucked. Just as we near the end a storm came. With louder thunder then i have ever heard. It shook the surrounding area. We asked the local officials to sleep in the park in clara and they let us. We spend the rest of the day in a little cafe talking with the locals and eating some good food. A good end to a stressful day.

6/9/11- We're OFF!!!.... again...

We spent most of the morning throwing out gear that we didnt need, cutting down on clothes(we are now down to one shirt, one par of pants/rainpants, two shorts, three pairs of socks, one fleece, one rainjacket, and one set of long underware per person. That includes what we are wearing. Plus some girl stuff for the girl. after living a very sizable portion at her grandpas, we can now pick up are bikes with one hand, and even when full with water and food they dont wiegh but 40pounds each including the bike. A great improvement. We didnt leave her grandpas until 2 and only then after a sizable lunch of grilled chesse and other amazing food. We biked all day until again we were blessed with a bike trail and found a little nich where we could set up a tent. Equiped with all functions. Had a wonderful soup with some organic quinoa that we got from a friend. And fell wondefully aching into sleep.

6/8/11-Grandpa

Biked from Leanns house to her grandpas on the other side of saint cloud. Easy day, ran a bunch of errands. Getting ready to leave the known. Also picked up saddle bags/rear panniers for LeAnn and shoes for her. I refucse to get rid of my trusty 10 sandles in exchange for biking shoes.

6/4/11-6/7/11-Parties and good stuff

We enjoyed LeAnns grad party and lots of bad for you good tasting food. Thats all that need be said. Aside from us dropping another 20 pounds of weight from are packs.

6/3/11-Race

I woke up after a restless night picking ticks off me and then fell promtly back to sleep. LeAnn had woken up earlier and went swimming, and pumping water letting me great fully catch a few more moments of sleep. She came back exhausted after pumping for an half an hour to get a few water bottles full. Then since i was still sleeping continued to make me breakfast wary of last nights mishap she did everything to make this the perfect meal for a boy who was so troubled. I woke up to a wonderful smell. And came out just in time to see her putting the Cinnamon, the finishing touch on a wonderful bowl of out meal. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I yelled and raced toward her. But it was to late, i had put curry powder in the Cinnamon bottle to save on space. I guess recycling isn't always the best option. We biked the rest of the day and hard at that. We realized we could get to LeAnn's house in Foley tonight if we raced, then for some reason 8 pm decided to be are goal. It was 7pm and we were 15 miles out and there was a dirt road ahead of us. But we raced each other home. She won. dang gear (of which i was carrying most i might add).

6/2/11 Of chainsaws and first time cooking(second)

 We woke up to the sound of screaming chainsaws and men's voices. We we're surrounded! I leaned out of the tent flap to see what was up.There were four men with chainsaws cutting down trees around us.
 No worries though it was just the conservation core doing tree trimming, and though we were quite a bit closer to the trail then i thought last night they didn't seem to care. we packed up our gear and started off down the trail. We stopped for lunch along side of the road and made some tomato soup with noodles in it and i got a few ticks. Though these incidents may seem trivial it was the beginning of a terrible turn of events. We road on for much of the rest of the day, only stopping briefly to smell the flowers.
We eventually got to willow river and decided to make camp at a little designated campsite. This is where it all began. Within the first few min i had picked off 8 ticks and there wasn't even tall grass it was just dirt. LeAnn decided to make spaghetti and i after the tomato soup tasting so good suggested she put some sauce in with the water. I who started freaking out about all the ticks and pulling off each one as they crawled up on me was then quite preoccupied. Until the smell of burning wafted through the air. 

LeAnn was over the stove trying to scrape the contents in a stirring motion. She had unwittingly added a double large can to half the normal spaghetti that you would use with a normal sized can. This left little to no room for any water, and instead of boiling and making the spaghetti wonderfully tender it decided to burn and make the spaghetti kinda floppy. We dutifully tried to eat at least some, and dumped the rest for the bears (thousands of feet away from our campsite). We then went to bed and i fell asleep (this whole time constantly picking ticks off, did i mention i really don't like ticks?).


I also forgot to mention that every bridge was under construction on the Munger trail so a large part of the day was hauling the outrageously heavy bikes up and down the sides where the path crossed the road. We also had to do it one at a time since we couldn't make it up with our own bike.

6/1/11-We're off!

We woke up early, and realized we would not be leaving at 5 am by some miracle and we would spend the day working our butts off trying to get ready. We went through the gear 4 times each time getting rid of a coat a double of something, a few band aids or some odd piece of food. Slowly we whittled down our gear till it was a slightly smaller gigantic pile in the middle of the living room. we were down to 150 pounds not including water. This was for two people we reasoned and though 150 pounds of gear sounded like a lot 75 per person sounded less and if you added that we would be away from home for 6 months at most it seemed trivial. After settling the gear issue for now we had to make panniers. I ended up taking two children's suitcases and strapping them over the back rack, and borrowing two tidy cat litter containers from the bike cave. Leann having to go without. After a few other errands and gear runs we were ready to go. It was 8pm a few hours later then we had hoped. And we we're off!

We pedaled for a few miles until it started getting dark. Slowly are spirit's fell as the long day finally took a toll on us. Just as all seemed lost fire works started going off in front of us. Huge displays of sound light rocketed toward the sky, we pulled off right by wade stadium and watched with the supposed hundreds of wide eyed fans.

Our spirits much higher and minds lighter we pressed on until we got to the head of the Munger trail. It was pretty late so we decided to make camp a little off the trail. We ate a late dinner of rice and beans over our new stove, and two slightly crabby people fell asleep after the long 19 hour day.