Like I said when I mentioned how we got lost *leaving* Minneapolis - when you’re biking in a big city, get yourself a detailed map. Our map for the way in was Bjorn. And Bjorn is an example of why Twitter is not as useless as I thought it was going to be when I signed up.

Minneapolis was the first city we were coming across since Portland. There are buildings there over 10 stories tall! A bunch of ‘em! And there’s a metropolitan area of the Twin Cities that takes up a huge chunk of the state. According to our host, Katie Behrens (an ex-courier from Philadelphia), Minnesota is a traditionally democratic state in the middle of red country. They even voted for Mondale back in 1984, when no one voted for Mondale. I tweeted a plea for someone to ride us into this metropolis. Within an hour, Rick Reinhart called me up (always lookin’ out, Rick) and said he knew someone who could guide us in by motorcycle but not until 6pm. A bit too late for us. Within the next few hours, I got calls from some Minneapolis Bike Polo heads who hooked us up with Bjorn, who gave us directions and met us in the fancy suburb of Wayzata. Getting there was some of our first extended times on dedicated bike trails, and Minnesota & Wisconsin are full of ‘em. The rail system here was sprawling at one point, and with the advent of other methods of freight, a lot of these tracks were left abandoned. Many of them have been converted to a web of bike trails.

Our rest day in the city took root at Katie’s place. Bjorn from Portland (a completely different Bjorn) was in town for a wedding, so we all met up, barhopped, and ended up at a place called “Dusty’s Dagos”. It took me a minute to get comfortable saying that. Turns out a “Dago” is a delicious sandwich that we’d be remiss if we didn’t try. Unfortunately, Andy and I had *just * had burgers before we were told this. Fortunately, we can eat just about whatever we want, so we ordered Dagos. And you know what? They were amazing. Molten explosions of sausage patty with greasy sauteed veggies and greasy grease bomb. Good thing we work all this horrible food off within a day.

We got a few more examples of “Minnesota Nice” when we were there. The owner of Grumpy’s, our first bar hop, approached our table and pointed out the buffet he’d cooked up a few tables over. Our insatiable appetites must’ve been slightly satiated by the pot pie Katie had just cooked for us though, and we ignored the buffet until all that was left was banana chips and mango salsa. Still delicious. Then on Sunday morning as we were caffienating ourselves & trying to figure out how to get out of town, a stranger came up with some suggestions. After his advice, he said “would you be terribly offended if I gave you guys $20 for a decent breakfast?” We kinda stared blankly…not offended, but not entirely comfortable taking handouts like that. “Tell you what. I’ll just leave the $20 on the table, and if you want to do something else with it, feel free.” I asked the baristas who that guy was, and as far as they knew, he was just a regular.

It’s important to note that we went bowling again.

Andy must’ve been thinking about his form since South Dakota, because he was throwing rocks out there. But not as many as the boy on the teenage date in the next lane. He started his game with 5 strikes in a row! He had a 143 in the 6th frame! And his date wasn’t too bad either. She may have been showing a bit too much skin through her torn black jeans than her mother would’ve approved of, but she probably left the house with a tank top on underneath. Katie could’ve sworn she saw the same boy a few days ago on his bmx, riding down the street with the same girl on the pegs in the back, drinking a huge Slurpee.

Before we left, we made sure to watch Revenge of the Nerds and have a pizza party. Words cannot describe this.

Oh, I also played polo. Minneapolis’s court was huge! I played on my touring bike until I started knocking things loose, then realized that was a horrible idea. Sven loaned me his bike (too big, freewheel) for a few matches. It was good to know I’ve still got the polo legs, since it’s only a few short days until the COG tournament in Milwaukee.

Rick Reinhart used to get in the kind of trouble kids used to get into, and would always be there when we did things we had no intention of telling our Mom’s about. We’re not talking bad trouble here, just stupid little kid trouble. He was fun. Half way through High School, he transferred to a different school and more or less disappeared for a decade. He was much younger than me (by a year, which is a HUGE ratio of your life when you’re ten years old), so was always much tighter with the 6th graders than the 7th graders. A few years back, he resurfaced (as far as we’re concerned) got married, moved out west, continued being an outdoorsy-type kid, and just recenly had a baby. (Congratulations!) His wife’s parents live in Spirit Lake, Iowa, on the shores of Lake Okoboji. That is the extremely short biography of Rick Reinhart.

When I sent out a “hey I’m doing this trip, does anyone know anyone that lives along this line that goes through the middle of nowhere” note, Rick was the only person who wrote back “yeah…actually I do”.

When we left Sioux Falls, the winds were punching us in the face again. It was the third straight day of riding into the winds, and we had roughly 85 miles of it. Then we took a detour, to take us off the highly traveled route 9 which has no shoulder. It added 10 miles or so, but was worth it, according to everyone who knew anything about the ride. Then we got a bit turned around near the town of Ashton, adding a couple more miles on. What started out as an 85 mile day ended up being closer to 110 miles. Into the winds. And Quinn’s knee was hurting. It was rough.

No one believed me when I said there was a lake in the middle of Iowa when all we could see was farmlands and all we could smell were cows. I promised them it was there, but I apologized that it was further away then I planned. Once we saw the ring of trees and the glimmer of water, we knew we were close, and they knew I wasn’t a liar. Once we rolled into the neighborhood of Ann & Rick Barry and pulled up to their home, we knew we were going to have a great night. We would’ve had to endure a LOT more brutality for it to be not worth it to get to Lake Okoboji. The Barry’s live 15 feet from the water and put us up in the spare house their parents used to live in. Yeah. Spare HOUSE. Their son Sean and his wife Caroline were there for the weekend, and their friends Tim & Max came over for the night too. Sean made a brilliant enchilada casserole, and Ann told us we were welcome to spend the next day there.

There was only one crappy reason not to take another rest day here and a whole bunch of reasons in favor of it. The one crappy reason was that we had to keep going. But, if you refer back to point A: Quintessential Awesomeness, you’ll remember that we’re way ahead of schedule, so an extra rest day completely fit into our schedule. As it turns out, that rest day fell on Memorial Day, and the Barry’s were planning a huge barbecue.

We’ve got to give a lot of credit to Ann & Rick. Originally, I had told them we were going to get to Spirit Lake five days later. Then we got ourselves way ahead of schedule and couldn’t waste too much time in South Dakota (although we’d love to…fantastic state) because Quinn’s Dad was already on his way to Sioux Falls. I apologize for only having a few short days notice on our new arrival date, but Ann got things together in the spare house in spectacular fashion. Sitting here by the lake, being with this wonderful family, celebrating this holiday has been one of the most relaxing rest days yet. Thank you again. The lake, out of nowhere in Iowa, is a gorgeous oasis that almost no-one knows about and is difficult to get to unless you live within driving distance. Rick drove us all across the lake in his boat to party on the other side. We drank Templeton Rye (allegedly one of Al Capone’s faves) and danced at the Grass Gardens. It was like going out on a Saturday night with your best friends from home except that your best friends live on an lake and drive motorboats.

Rick Reinhart, thanks for pulling through. Of all the people I know, I knew you’d be the one to know someone in the middle of the country. Your inlaws and all of their friends are wonderful people.

Oh, and a big shout out to Annie’s fourth grade class! We hope you enjoy our stories & photos. Have a great summer!

It’s recommended common sense to take a day off every once in a while when you’re traveling by bike, pushing your mental & physical endurance for days in a row. We here at twoarmparty have easily strained mental endurances, and our physical endurances (while we might claim otherwise) need the rest. It’s like cabbage soup for the legs or Cotton Swabs for the soul or whatever they call it. We prefer to take our rest days where we’ve got abundantly generous warmshowers contacts or one of Quinn’s parents to put us up for the night and treat us all like we’re their own kids. Either that, or we sit in motel rooms during May snow squalls and watch Will Smith movie marathons. Either way, gratuitous action flicks are a highly relaxing part of our rest days. In Pierre, where we stayed with Sol across the street from the Capitol Building, shot clay pigeons, went kayaking, and ate dinner with the sister of the governor, we saw “Wolverine”. It’s only fair that Andy write more about Pierre since he’s the one who capsized the kayak attempting some kind of “maneuver”. Saturday night in Sioux Falls, Mr. Shamlian flew out and treated us to “Terminator 4″ among a bevy of other generosities. (Thank you, Quinn’s Dad!). I personally preferred Terminator to Wolverine, but I’ll spare you my unneccessary and unqualified review becuase, you know, that’s not what this blog is about. There seems to be a trend to our methods of mental stress relief though. From now on, we’re only going to see movies starring men that are half metal and cameos by completely computer generated famous actors. What I liked more about Terminator is that when the robot with the human heart (and soul!) escaped through the woods on a motorcycle, he fell off when he ran over something. Reality! Not like it really matters when our primary objective is staring slackjawed at things exploding for two hours, shoveling popcorn, twizzlers, raisinets and cherry Coke into our mouths. That’s roughin’ it.

Sioux Falls seemed disappointing until we finally made our way out of Malltopia. I’m pretty sure there’s more than one Applebee’s here, and something like 5 different mall complexes. There may only be three or four freestanding Starbucks, but there’s likely one in the Home Depot, Barnes & Noble and Sam’s Club. It took a little advice from a highly generous and effective massage therapist for us to find a real restaurant in the real downtown of Sioux Falls. Main Street was being freshly cobblestoned, and live music piped from several of the spots across the street from the flashing marquee of the State Theater.

Oh wait, did I say Massage Therapist? That’s Carol Mellema. We met her in line at the coffeeshop in Rapid City (on the other side of the state) on Monday morning after coming out of the Black Hills. She was quick to realize we were on a long distance bike trek, (it’s pretty obvious) and instantly chatted us up about it. “I did that when I was 17! When are you going to be in Sioux Falls? Stay at my place.” It wasn’t quite so much of an offer as it was a demand. I hadn’t had my coffee yet, and wasn’t quite on the ball, so I just sort of stared at her as slackjawed as the kid who served us popcorn for Terminator. We’d already had plans to meet Quinn’s dad in Sioux Falls, so I had to turn her down on her offer. “Well I’m a massage therapist. When you’re in Sioux Falls, look me up - I’ll give you free massages!”

I looked at her like she was crazy, probably, but that’s the way everyone always looks at us unless they’ve done something like this before. Thirty-some years ago, Carol took off from New York City on bikes with two guys when they were teenagers. She ran out of money near Sioux Falls, and stayed here for the rest of her life. She’s got six kids, two grandkids, used to be a schoolteacher, and has a growing massage practice. She doesn’t have a website yet, but that’s only because I haven’t gotten back to New York to build it for her yet. She even massaged the kink out of Quinn’s Dad’s hamstring. We left, piles of jello, and spooned ourselves back into the rental car to further live off the land at the 14 theater multiplex. If you’re in Sioux Falls, look up “Massage Thyme” and tell Carol that twoarmparty sent you.

I really want Ken to write about this, but I just wanted to write quickly from my perspective and put up some photos from today.

we left sioux falls yesterday..a beautiful day, feeling great after resting and headed into Iowa.  We were given directions to stay off one of the more major roads and so we took them, extending our trip 5 or 10 miles but making for a nicer ride.  it was beautiful.. so many pig farms, beautiful trees.  so nice.  well, my left knee has been bothering me for some reason and i felt great until about noon when it started to hurt.  i took 4 advil and it didnt help.  by 2pm, i was in so much pain.  no stopping tho, i mean not more than a few minutes here and there.  we had a long way to go, so i just used my right leg a lot and tried not to think about it.

well, it turned out not to be an 85 or 95 mile ride - no fault of anyones, it was just longer than expected.  but it was 109 miles INTO the wind, with my knee in so much pain.  my god, pretty or not, it was a looong day.  and we were headed for a lake.  a lake, in iowa… ummmm all we’ve seen are farms.  Ken, are you sure there’s a lake??  okay, i believed him, but could barely see straight by the time we got a mile from our destination and actually saw the trees surrounding the lake.  we arrive and the wonderful people that we stay with have an entire house for us to stay in!  holy crap.  and they’ve cooked us dinner and have a fully stocked fridge with beer.  i felt much better about the long day now.

they took us across the lake,  to the bars where we all stayed out till 2am, dancing and well, drinking more with the locals.   the next day we slept in the latest yet on this trip and had an awesome day on the lake.  i fell asleep on the dock. andy went out kayaking and later in the day, more of the family came and we ate enough food for 12 people.  thank you!!!

ken will write about who this amazing family is and how he knows them..

a good life out here.

this was the house that we had to ourselves

ahem... distracting

Caroline, Sean's wife, joined us for the first 20 miles of our ride into Minnesota.

first of all - we haven’t forgotten about our rest day in Pierre.  It was spectular.  So much so  - Andy stillll isnt finished writing about it becuase there is so much to tell.  That will be coming soon.  In the meantime, I’ll do some updating.

After leaving Mitchell, hungover and moving slow, we made our way to Sioux Falls.  It was a really long day into the wind.  We had no help from mother nature and were fighting it the whole way at about 12 mph.  Ugh.  My dad flew in from Syracuse to meet us in South Dakota.  He put us up in a great hotel with a pool and hot tub and lots of free breakfast to take for our trip.  He was getting in around 5pm, so we were really trying to get there when he did, and we nearly made it.. about 45 minutes late.  We arrived, soaking wet (or at least I was because it was too warm for rain gear) and covered in mud from all the cars driving by and ken riding in front of me.  Again, mostly me here, i dont think the guys were that muddy, and I was trying to keep my distance too.   We were greeted by my dad and soon a hot shower.  It was perfect. 

It turns out that Sioux Falls has beautiful neighborhoods, awesome giant trees and a very cute downtown area.  BUT, the rest of it is (i mean this in the best way possible)horrible, disgusting urban sprawl.  Everywhere you look, walmart, target, bestbuy, restaurant chain after restaurant chain and lots of creepy windowless casinos.  We had to search out the healthy good food..

My dad was not only nice enough to fly out to South Dakota and put us up in a hotel, but he also took us to eat a number of times, bought us bike stuff, and to see Terminator 4.  (So bad!  They all looked really good, but so damn cheesy, come on!)  It was a great rest day.

Going back to rapid city, in a little cafe…. we met the most wonderful woman that at the age of 17 had done this same trip.  But from east to west.  And she ran out of money in sioux falls and that’s where she’s been since.  (she also toured with two guys)  Well, this amazing woman, Carol, came over to us and started asking us about our trip and insisted that we stay with her in Sioux Falls where she lives.  We were all set with my Dad, so instead she insisted that we visit her and get free massages!  oh. my. god.  yes.  Carol was a kindergarten/first grade (one of those) teacher for 18 years and then decided to become a yoga teacher and a masseuse.  …and a damn good one!  We went to her house in a cute Sioux Falls neighborhood and took time out of her Saturday with family…she absolutely insisted.  So generous.  She even talked my dad into letting her work on his pulled hamstring.  Carol, Thank you so much!  best massage e v e  r.

It was a perfect rest day, another one.  So awesome of my dad to fly out to the middle of nowhere to hang out and talk for a day.  He even had to get up at 3am to catch a super early flight sunday morning.  He took such good care of us.  Thanks Dad!

This trip has tought me many things, but some of the main ones are… people are great!  So much more great than you’d ever expect (esp in nyc).  and so are family… I really miss them and really, really appreciate the visits from my parents.

Off to Spirit Lake, IOWA

Wyoming, generally no less elevated than 4,000 ft above sea level (the lowest spot is 3,100 ft at Belle Forche River), is geologically astounding. Places with names like “Fossil Butte” are everywhere, and digging for fossil remnants in ancient ocean beds is a family activity. Kids can keep whatever they find unless they find something extremely rare. Not like the kid would know it’s really rare, but I’m sure if little Bobby showed up with an example of Amiiformes Ammiidae, the guides would totally freak out and probably get promoted or something.

In the morning when we woke up next to the Creek that runs through Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge, I commented to Andy that next time I do this, I want to have a geologist with me, so they can explain to me why the earth is the way it is everywhere that we go.

Mountain ranges, once buried beneath collossal glaciers which have receded only because of harmful industrial pollutants over the past 10,000 years, now peek above masses of rollign land, scoured and sculpted by the movement of the prehistoric ice. As it moved north, it took earth with it, and dumped it between the rock it couldn’t take along the way. We rode along this level part, and up and over the remaining mountains. From those peaks, spectacular ranges and intense color changes surrounded us. Native Americans have lived here since the ice began to move north.

We passed the Continental Divide through the Wind River Mountains. Misleading maps led me to declare “nothing but downhills” for the rest of the way to Lander. I’d like to describe the reality of the next 30 miles, but I think Quinn has already done it in a comment in a previous post: “oh my god. so far from all downhill. it was a lot of uphill with 30 mile winds at our side, pushing us off the road. THEN it was GIANT up and down hills, not enough speed gained going down to get half way up without a lot of work. and with the crazy winds coming from various directions, i didnt feel comfortable coasting 40mph down hill. and then it was pedaling HARD downhill to go 15mph with headwinds pushing me backwards. all downhill is quite a myth as far as i can tell. but it was pretty and we made it eventually.”

It was indeed pretty. All the suffering of an hours long climb is wiped away when you see something like this.

The Red Canyon

In Lander, we found the geologist who could tell us everything we wanted to know about the earth. Juan, who regularly hosts people from warmshowers.com and couchsurfing.com, put us up in a friend’s house because his was too cluttered. Actually, cluttered doesn’t begin to describe it. Juan’s a fine arts photographer. Or, at least that’s part of what he does. He’s a self-admitted pack-rat, and each time he would try to explain why he has a dozen empty tin olive oil cans, he’d come up with a new profession. “Oh, of course I have 600 feet of copper tubing. I’m a plumber.” “I’m a spelunker, so I keep all of my caving equipment in one of my 11 Volvos”. Juan, you should be proud to be the first person to have a post on twoarmparty classified under “crazy people”. Here are a few other things Juan had at least 10 of:

Disney Princess “make your own outfit” refrigerator magnets
Espresso Machines
Trucks
Stainless steel thermoses
License plates for EACH STATE
Plastic dinosaurs
Coffee socks
Toasters (didn’t see ‘em, but I bet he does)
Jars

Anyway, there’s a lot more. Everyone in town seemed to know him. And at dinner at the Gannet Grill (Gannett Mountain is the highest peak in the state. The bike shop is also named after it), he explained a lot of geologic things I didn’t understand. Since beginning to ride, a lot of people out here have seemed to know a lot about what glaciers have done to their land. I didn’t even know what a glacier was, technically. Juan helped me out with that (it’s snow that’s at least 150 feet deep. The ice, under so much pressure, changes consistency at the bottom, becoming almost plastic-like. That’s the short, dumbed-down version.) He also explained how weather systems from the west crash into the mountain peaks, cool down quickly, dump horrible weather all over the place, then warm up slower on the other side & whip up serious warm “Chinook” winds (or “Snow Eater). I probably got that part wrong too…but I’ll look it up later.

Since Juan’s place was filled up with everything, he put us up at a friend’s place, who was more than willing to accomodate us. Actually, he wasn’t even around…but later on, he said it was totally cool. Then Quinn fell ill and we stayed at the Holiday Lodge where she could rest rest rest and get all high on Codiene. The Holiday Lodge had an awesome neon sign and a hot-tub, which I lounged in while doing laundry.

I'm serious, why didn't I start taking photos of motels sooner?!

While in Lander, I wandered through the park & ran into a pretty girl on a bike who invited me to the Catholic Girl’s College for dinner. Was it a terrible mistake and a tremendously missed opportunity for Andy & me to decline this offer? Keep in mind that at one point she did mention that “she fell in love with God again.”

We are now in the town of Jeffery City (pop 30-40), where we seem to be missing the inimitable “Byron Seeley”. Everyone in Lander not only knew Juan, but also knew Byron. Even the Catholic College girl. Byron’s pottery (monkingbirdpottery.com) was all over the Folklore coffeeshop (where Andy & I spent most of our time). Shane told us “this might sound weird, but there’s nothing to be creeped out about by Byron. He’s a really sweet guy. Really.” We were really looking forward to meeting him, but it seems like we might be out of luck. Jeffery City is definitely a ghost town, and we’ll show some photos eventually. It’s not nearly as much of a ghost town as Strevell, Idaho (there IS wifi here), but since the Uranium mining trade dried up (apparently), everyone has moved away.

Late last week i started feeling like i was getting sick.  I was taking dayquil and nyquil and vitamin c and drinking as much water as p0ssible, but after 110 miles to lander, my body wasnt happy and i woke up the next day feeling like crap.  Ken and Andy were understanding and agreed to a day or two of rest so i could get better and not worse after more riding days.  Man did this suck, i really hate to slow us down (more than i already do up hills) and it also just sucks to be sick.  I called my mom for advice on what to take and she proceeded to research doctors in lander, made me an appointment, made reservations at a hotel and made friends in lander.  This was all in about 15 minutes (i did lots of holding).  Amazing, thanks mom.  She even paid for two hotel rooms so the guys wouldnt get sick and i could just sleep all day undisturbed.  oh, and she also offered/threatened to come out here and take care of me if i didnt do it myself.

I went to the doctor and they tested me for the flu and strep and thankfully i dont have either of those, i’m just sick.  They gave me antibiotics just in case and some cough medication with codeine.  Azithromycin and prometh with codeine.  The codeine puts me right to sleep and after two days of laying in bed and sleeping, im feeling a lot better.  but man does it suck to be inside when its so nice out and i know the guys are out exploring.  ugh. so boring.  but better than getting worse.  and as its such a small town here in lander, they came back tonight telling me that everybody in town wishes me the best.  ha!  and this is the biggest wyoming town we’ve seen yet.

tomorrow we’re gonna take it easy and ride 60 miles to another town and then the next day to casper.  im excited to get back on my bike and i hope my body is too!  i know we’re ahead of schedule,  but its no fun to be sick and i sure hope the guys dont get it!

Today, we went to salt lake city and park city with my mom. We saw the giant Mormon Temple, and we spent a few hours searching our family histories in the family history database library thing. (i forget the actual name). Then we drove out to Park city… way out in the mountains.. oh my god, the climbs!.. and had an incredible dinner. My mom took us out to so many great meals, and really took care of us. Thanks MOM!! Youre the best!

Andy has photos of the dinner we ate tonight. Amazing! I ate the elk, mom had salmon, ken had fancy meat (i forget this too) and andy ate a volcano of ribs, mashed potatoes and onion rings. oh man - you have to see the photos.

Anyway, here are a few from today, including the beautiful sunset on the drive back to town. Another awesome rest day! back on the road tomorrow morning to climb and climb and climb.. off to WYOMING. woo hoo.

the gate to heaven. believe it.

ken and andy, walking on water.

The Hugens didnt have any regular candles, so we used a house candle and ken held it in place. THIS is an ice cream potato!