7/18/98 Jonathan

We awoke at 7am to begin to sort out our mess. First we checked for busses but unfortunately it required and southern detour to Sioux Falls and the overnight stay---Julian didn't have time for that. There was a Hertz dealership in town that would rent locally and they had a pickup available. They came to the Days Inn with the vehicle and then the gentleman driving the vehicle quickly became concerned. He asked if any of us are over 25 years of age and unfortunately all of us are fresh out of college. There was nothing he could do except if any of us had our own insurance. It's too bad Hertz and so many of the car companies have these crazy policies--it is age discrimination. There must be some way that they can charge a higher rental rate to persons of legal age under 25. Oh well. It was 9am by now and we had to find some other solutions for us all.

All the other rental agencies were local as well and we tried 3 others and all had nothing available. Then as we were taking a taxi in town we spotted a Ryder rental place and then a Uhaul. Julian got a Uhaul, loaded it up and we went for lunch. Then he dropped Bryan and me at the edge of town with our couple of bags of clothing and took off. Our intentions were to hitchhike back to Pierre since there was no rental car we could find and we didn't want to spend $250 on a Uhaul just to transport ourselves. We started hitch-hiking and walking west along Route 251 and after about an hour and half we had no luck. Tons of cars and trucks went by but no one would pick us up. We looked like professional hitch-hikers and our fresh haircuts didn't help much either. We didn't have our bikes--we just looked like people wanting to go generally west. So we made our way back across town to a truck stop (this is 8 miles away, on the other side of town) where Bryan and I pestered everybody. We had lunch there and asked people as they came in, "I was wondering if by chance you happen to be going towards Pierre." Everyone was going east or north or south but not west. So after 3 hours of wasting time looking for a ride we broke down and went to the Uhaul to rent another truck one-way to Pierre. At the gas station a state trooper was filling up his tank so we hitched a ride from him into town. I got a picture of Bryan in the back seat. We'd like to put that picture on the website with the caption, "This is what happened to Bryan after trying to hitch-hike on rt. 251".

Anyway, we got the last truck and went to Pierre. It took us about 4 hours to drive and we arrived a little late at our hosts home for dinner. They had promised some walite that they had caught recently. We had walite fish steaks, salad, corn, fresh bread, and some awesome banana-pistachio desert. We crashed by 10PM since the next day was going to be an early riser and grueling.

7/19/98 Bryan

Our hosts woke us at 5:30AM. They served us a wonderful breakfast of cereal, fruit, fresh bread, cinnamon rolls, and egg casserole. We ate until we were stuffed, then left to turn in the U-Haul. Our bikes were still at the U-Haul station. We were moving pretty slow and didn't get away from the station until nearly 8AM.

We headed East on 14. The riding was pretty easy without the weight of the BOBs. Since we needed to cover more than 400 miles in three days in order to make it to Minneapolis on time, we decided to try to make it to Clark, SD, by evening.

We rode about 70 miles to Miller, SD, where we stopped for lunch in a cafe. Everyone turned their heads as we entered. From our dress, it was clear that we weren't locals. I felt like an alien. All the local farmers kept staring at us. We mentioned this to Smiley, the restaurant owner. He said that they don't see bikers very often in this town. Smiley was very friendly. He told us much about the farming communities in South Dakota. He also warned us against drinking any Miller water from the "Artesian Well". He assured us that it would make us very sick.

After lunch, we relaxed for a bit in the local (air conditioned) grocery store during the afternoon heat. Then, we hit the road again. It was about 55 miles from Miller to Redfield. There, we decided that it was getting late and we were tired. Clearly, we weren't going to make it another 40 miles to Clark. So, we stopped for the night.

7/20/98 Bryan

Our stay at the Wilson motel in Redfield was comfy. We woke up at 6:00AM. It was raining outside, so we took our time getting ready. When we finally left around 8:30AM, we faced a fierce headwind from the East. Drafting helped a little, but progress was generally slow.

We slowly pedaled the 40 miles to Clark, then continued on to Watertown. There, we searched in vain for a good milk shake. Finally, we went to a place called Zestys that served soft-serve milk shakes... not the real thing, but apparently the best you can find in Watertown, SD. We ate lunch at McDonald's.

We hung out in the city for a few hours waiting for the heat to pass. Around 4:00PM we left town. We were headed for Montevideo, MN, about 70 miles away. Fortunately, the wind had changed in our favor. We flew across the remainder of South Dakota and into Minnesota (after a border hack) with average speeds close to 25 mph.

We arrived in Montevideo around 9:00. We rode around town for a while, looking for a motel with a hot tub. After 145 miles, our muscles needed some soothing relaxation. Finally, we came to the Country Inn & Suites. They had a hot tub, but the temperature was way too hot. We couldn't even place our feet in the tub for more than a few seconds. Bummer! Oh well... we did get a good night of sleep.

7/21/98 Jonathan

We started out from the Country Inn in Montevideo bright and early. However, we had a somewhat disappointing breakfast. The Inn was all new and there appeared to be a sit down breakfast room. However, the breakfast was merely cereal and bad muffins and self-serve. We got out reasonably early and headed out. We went on Route 7 and just kept going and going. We stopped in Hutchinson for lunch at Rosie's. They had good burgers, real shakes (unlike South Dakota and Wyoming), and an awesome caramel turtle cheesecake for dessert. We pushed on and as we got closer to the twin cities the Route 7 became more like a highway and really not enjoyable to bike on. At least most of the way the shoulder was very wide and Minnesota had a local minima in the amount of roadkill.

We contacted my friend Andrew along the way to see if we could stay there. He lives in St. Louis Park which is to the west of Minneapolis. We got into St. Louis Park at 7PM, looked in the phone book for the closest Olive Garden, had a great meal. Andrew came and picked us up there and drove us to his place. We were able to shower, connect up to check e-mail via his local service provider and sleep well after having done 400 miles in 3 days. They were wonderful hosts and it was great to meet up with him.

7/22/98 Minh

Today we're about to embark on the real "meat and bones" part of my odyssey from Minneapolis to Detroit. I arrived in Minneapolis from Boston, on Tuesday, and in these past two days I've begun my research on the social impact of coast to coast bike tours. My true mission, though, is to spend most of my energy helping to prepare Julian, Bryan, and John for reintegration into normal civilized society.

So, far I've tried to become acquainted with biking and technological terminology. For example, the guys where very frustrated with their "Bobs," which are also referred to as "Coz," so we rode to the Kenwood Cyclery in Minneapolis, where we exchanged the "Coz" for the "Yak--"Bob." A very appropriate name for this particular trailer, because the guys couldn't stop "Yakking" about how spectacular the "Yaks" are.

We also stopped at a bookstore to trade in some books on tape, and to pick up some for the rode. Bryan picked out "Great American Poetry-- Three Centuries of Classics," which I'm thrilled about. I chose Margaret Atwood's "Alias Grace," about the life of a nineteenth century murderess, while Julian chose Anthony Robbins' "Awakening The Giant Within." He tells me that he hopes to be the have his own infomercial some day. Jon, did not get any books, because he does not have time to listen to books on tape while riding, he's too busy talking to his agent on his cell phone. I hear he's planning to write a tell-all expose when the trip ends.

Okay, Okay, I am impelled to talk about the photos on display. The "Welcome To Minnesota" sign, had great significance because Bryan and Jon rode 400 miles in 3 days to make it on schedule. The other pictures include me and Bryan, outside the bike shop, Julian, against the Minneapolis landscape, and Bryan in a taxi, on the way to his Grandmother's house.

Well, I'm being forced off the computer, so I will say fare well for now. Hello to Alyssa in LA, Karen in Boston, Heather from Ruth's Steakhouse in Minneapolis, Jezebel, from the Times, which is sadly being torn down for the erection of an office building, and to the friendly woman who works at Artzy Kidstuff on Upton Street, and of course to Kung, from Bloomington, Minnesota.

Peace, Minh

7/23/98 Jonathan

Today we all started from different locations. Bryan was up in Lindstrom (30-40 miles north of the Twin Cities) at his grandparents. Julian and Minh were in town and I was in St. Paul at my uncle's. Julian and Minh and myself met up in Como Park at the zoo at around 11am and headed to meet Bryan at Point Douglas which is were the Mississippi and St. Crioux rivers converge. Bryan had about a 50 mile ride down there while the rest of us had about a 30 mile ride out to the point. We crossed into Wisconsin and found a camping sight just outside Prescott. Bryan had an excellent ride since there were bike trails all along route 95. We had to go through downtown St. Paul and we were able to get a great glimpse of the state capitol. Then getting out of town was rather hectic since it was unclear how far some of the bike trails went and if we could get on the right road. For dinner we had soft tacos with fresh tomatoes and cheese. To top it off we had some guacamole courtesy of Bryan and some fresh rolls and Rice Krispies treats that Bryan's grandmother sent him off with it. To cap it off we listened to the last movement of Beethoven's 9th which we found on a local radio station. It was indeed a joyous dinner.

7/24/98 Jonathan

Today we awoke at 7am with a picturesque view of the Mississippi. We had some lemonade and granola which some people added half and half to while the more health conscious added half milk--half water (I.e. skim milk). It took us a while to get out of camp. Bryan and I took of at about 8am on Rt. 10 which will take us clear across Wisconsin on into Manitowoc where we can catch a ferry across Lake Michigan. We got into Ellsworth were we stopped at a cheese co-op. We bought some cheese to send to our wonderful hosts in Pierre, SD, and sampled the cheese curds. The governor had proclaimed Ellsworth the cheese curd capital of Wisconsin, which is quite a honor. We continued on into Durand where we stopped for lunch at the Durand Cafe. There we had malts which were outstanding--the best we have had on the trip thus far. There was none of this soft-serve-wanna-be-ice-cream. What else would one expect from Wisconsin. We biked on, finally reaching better terrain and set up camp in Strum doing a total of about 80. The terrain before Durand was quite hilly with some uphills that were unexpected.

We had been ahead of Julian and Minh the whole day and our intention was to get to camp ahead of time and do some computer work and fix my data collection box which was having problems with the GPS as well as Bryan's which needed some repairs with his speed and cadence sensors. However it was Minh's first day and quite difficult to keep up. Julian and Minh stopped in Plum City for dinner and we decided via cell phone that the best thing to do was split up for the next few days so that we can keep on schedule and so that Minh has the best experience while out here. Minh departs out of Detroit on Tuesday so Bryan and I are pushing ahead to keep on schedule while Julian and Minh will continue behind and go as far as they can. On Monday they will rent a Uhaul and drive the remainder and Julian will then meet up with us after taking Minh to the airport.