DONE!

Just a quick hello, but I finished my trip on Thursday July 26th in Yorktown, VA. My mom met me at the end! IT was awesome! We traveled back to TN to get my car on Friday and we're headed on a roadtrip home. I will update this on Monday or whenever I get home with picturse of the last two weeks. I'm so happy I finished and happy I'm done! Thanks for all the positive messages! And check again in a couple days!

Day 45, 7/13/07, Lesterville, MO to a bit past Graniteville, MO, 26.4 miles

Skip's back hurt him so much yesterday he told me he wouldn't be riding today. I'm decided to do a short ride by myself, just so I can ride at least a little and then we'll SAG the rest. This is the most we'll end up skipping on the trip (except for the 400 miles of Kentucky that Skip has already ridden), just to stay on schedule. I only road 26 miles, i was going to do 40, but there were several dogs and a bridge was out and I couldn't figure a quick way around it and I figured I might as well take more of a rest day.

I hope his back heals, otherwise, you'll all be seeing more sooner than planned...

Day 44, 7-12-07, Summersville to Centerville, MO, 61.8 miles

This is the steepest hardest part of the Ozarks yet! Now I know why people say Missouri loves company! We passed a family from Australia who are cycling from LA to NY. They had two boys about 9 and 12. I was glad that I'm "cheating" and not carrying my stuff. It was pretty, but I'm glad it's done. We found a nice place to eat food in Centerville after the ride. They're cheeseburgers were amazing and they had sassy sayings all over the wall.

Day 43, 7-11-07, Marshfield, MO to Summersville, MO, 89.4 miles

4040 feet of climbing, which is a conservative number. The weather was nice, it wasn't too muggy and stayed in the 80s for the first time in a while. The trees are nice to have for shade. More steep hills, we SAGed to Alley Spring which is in the Ozark National Park Scenic Riverways (or whatever the Ozarks are technically called). It was beautiful.

Day 42, 7/10/07, Pennsboro, MO to Marshfield, MO, 61.3 miles

Up and Down! I guess we're entering the Ozark region. Every cyclist heading west we've spoken to has described the Ozarks as very hard and hilly, with the hills too steep, too long and too spaced out to use the downs to help you up the next hill. It was the toughest riding we've faced in over three weeks. Several dogs ran out at us, and scared the bejesus out of me, they run right at you and all I can think to do is sprint away.

Day 41, 7/9/07, Fort Scott, KS to Pennsboro, Missouri, 90.4 miles

WE're not in Kansas anymore! We got back on route right outside Pittsburg, KS and stayed on the route to Pennsboro, Missouri. The farther east into Missouri we got the steeper the "rolling" hills became. It is definitely changing from Western Kansas. The day was hot and muggy, but it's nice to enter a new state, slowly but surely, we're moving east!

Day 40, 7/8/07, Eureka, KS to Fort Scott, KS, 81.7 miles

We ventured off route today due to some flooding of some areas of the route and eastern KS in general. This detour definitely added more miles to the day, but we avoided much of the flooding. I did smell plenty of sour corn that had been soured due to flooding. We saw lots of turtles crossing the road today, I wanted to help them not get squished but Skip told me I'd get Salmonella if I touched them...