June 22nd, day 21, finally a day off after six with out.

The day began at 8:15 when we woke up to the lion king soundtrack blasting from a small cd player. we went to breakfast at the Teton steakhouse, it was a delicious all you can eat buffet. i ate with Tim, a young man with down syndrome who has worked there for about 5 years and helped us get the meal donated. after breakfast we got to go to the snow king inn where we received lift tickets to go up to the scenic outlook as well as tickets to use the alpine slide, which basically is a water slide with a cart instead of water.

Brent, the 40 year old guy from London, also the oldest man to ever embark on the journey of hope was the only one who crashed. if you can imagine what it would be like to slide down a dry water slide at 20mph i am sure you would not think pleasant things. after the alpine slide we got to swim in the pool there until lunch, donated by subway. after lunch we had about 4 hours to hangout until out next event so some of the guys and i went downtown to look at the shops and such. after we walked around for 3 hours and bought nothing but postcards we decided to head back and get a nap in before our dinner show. dinner was at the bar j ranch, an all you can eat "authentic" chuck wagon meal. a little during and after dinner there was a concert/comedy show, the music was traditional western cowboy music with jokes thrown in all over the place. it started at 6 and ended at around 9:30, Jake was excited that he finished in time to get seconds, since that rarely happens, then after seconds he said that he couldn't enjoy the show as much as he wanted because every time he took a breath it hurt. we all just went back to lodging and went to bed after our huge dinner and long day.

June 21st, day 20, short and sweet to Jackson, WY.

so apparently its illegal to ride your bike out of Yellowstone so we were forced to rack up out of the park. which made the day only a 50 mile day. after a short climb in the morning is was straight and flat with a nice smooth downhill into Jackson. all morning the Tetons were on our right as we rode. they were soo huge they looked like they were only a few hundred yards away. when we arrived into Jackson at around 9:30 our sponsor Jill Quinlan met us at the church we were staying in and helped get us settled. she was a great sponsor for us and the teams in the past, she works very hard to get everything we do donated. lunch was donated by McDonald's, and after that we went white water rafting down the snake river. that was a cool experience to see the snake near where it begins because while i was on the rowing team at Washington state we rowed on the snake only it was 500 yards wide and moving so slow it was nearly standing water. after rafting we returned to the church were donated domino's was delivered and bed wasn't far behind that.

June 20th, day 19, west Yellowstone, mt. to west thumb, WY.

We started the day at 5:30 am on the cafeteria floor of the west Yellowstone school. Once up, it was bagels with peanut butter, cereal and bananas. We started off by waiting in line to get into the park, once in the park we took it slow.

I rode with Todd Wright, Nick Cramer, and my brother Jake. We held a smooth 13mph for the first part of the ride, it was mostly flat and we were trying to soak in the park. We stopped multiple times to take pictures, the first time it was for a pair of bald eagles and then their nest with chicks. Then there were multiple bull bison and small herds of elk to entertain us in our slow pace.


We eventually made it to a geyser basin where the whole team took a break and walked the trail around looking at all of the different pools and geysers. For me the most interesting pool was the painted mud pots, they looked like giant pools of boiling white paint. It wasn’t until after the geyser basin that we really got into the hills. These hills were tough, with constant and steep ups and downs. We actually crossed the continental divide three times.

Shortly after our third time, on one of many steep downhill runs we hit a spot of traffic, which in Yellowstone are known as bear jams. My pace line and I got off of our bikes so we could walk them on the shoulder past all of the traffic, trying to get to lunch soon because we knew the rest of the team was waiting on us, Todd and I were sweeps. As we approached the end of the bear jam we saw a few park rangers and a bunch of tourists looking and snapping pictures. We walked closer and saw that it was a female grizzly and her two cubs. It was an amazing sight but also a nerve racking one, I had just learned earlier in the day that a man, who had been mauled by a female grizzly rearing two cub, had died earlier in the week. We took a few pictures from a distance and called it good; we decided to let the “curious” people have the fun. As we were leaving we heard the ranger yell “NO RUNNING SIR!” when we all look over its Karl our historian scurrying around trying to get all of the pictures that he can, fifteen feet from the wild animal. We finally decide to get going, not wanting to witness anything tragic before lunch. It was a short ride from there to Grant Village where we ate lunch and got set for the night thanks to Yellowstone National Park Lodges and Xanterra. Most of the team got in the vans and headed out to visit old faithful as well as the other areas of the park before their all you can eat pasta dinner. I as well as Jake and Todd, the other two Washington State guys, are lucky enough to have a chapter brother giving guided horse tours in the park for the summer.

Jacob Turner drove along with the team all day and picked us (WSU boys) up after lunch and drove us to Roosevelt Corrals where we took a covered wagon tour of the immediate area while getting a history of the park. The tour stopped in a meadow for an all you can eat steak cookout. Then we took the wagons back to the corrals and watched the employees remove all of the saddles, and clean all of the horses. Jacob gave us a ride home by 10:30, and it was off to bed we went.

June 19th, day 18, from bozeman to w. Yellowstone.

the day was supposed to be 90 miles but due to the amount of traffic and the narrow shoulders we decided to rack past 30 miles in the name of safety. it just happened to be to the top of a steep hill. from the top of the hill everyone thought that the day would be easy since we cut 30 miles out of the ride, but instead it was extremely hard. once we got going we ended up hitting a headwind that pushed us down to about 11 mph the whole way, so in the end it was kind of a good thing that we racked or we might not have made it in time for out dinner reservations.

west Yellowstone is a pretty small town based mostly on tourism. we stayed in the high school which was k-12, they had a graduating class of 11. not much else happened in west Yellowstone other that preparation for the next day.

June 18th, day 17 from Butte, MT to Bozeman, MT.

the day started off well when we learned that we would not have to ride along I-90 to the entire day. instead we took highways 82 and 84... i think which shortened our day by about 20 miles. even though our climb was steeper,

we didn't have to breathe in all the exhaust smoke from the freeway. today was the first day we crossed the continental divide, sadly there were no signs because it was a back road.

the was a very beautiful ride, after the divide we dropped down into a very green farming valley where we rode up and down several times over rolling hills. we eventually hooked up with I-90, there were very large shoulders which made it nice to ride on, only occasionally there were guard rails that cut off the entire shoulder and we were forced to ride in the freeway lanes. the only happened a few times and before long were were in bozeman. our lodging was nice, we stayed in the high school wrestling room which is always nice because we have the mats to add padding. once we were showered Todd, Karl and i walked to Arby's where they had free wireless and a 5 for 5 deal on sandwiches. We made sure to make it back in time to change and prepare for our friendship visit. we went to a place called eagle mount, they have a 10 acre ranch where they provide hippo therapy for children and adults with disabilities. hippo therapy is horseback riding with a few tricks, it mimics human walking and improves balance as well as some other things. eagle mount also runs a ski program where they take people with disabilities up skiing with special equipment. after dinner we gave them a grant to go towards their adventure cycling program which enables paraplegic people to ride on hand powered bicycles. after the friendship visit we went back to the high school to get to sleep so we could get up in the morning and do it again.

well the days and numbers got all messed up...

its Sunday June 17th, fathers day.
Happy Fathers Day!
wake up was at 5:30 on the day we left Missoula for Phillipsburg. the ride to Phillipsburg was incredible,

its so cool that we get to see the country at such a slow pace,

we get to see everything. it was 80 miles to P-burg where we stayed at Granite high school. I pumped out 100 push ups before showering because i am trying to catch up with the push america challenge where we do a push up and sit up for every mile we ride. right now i am about 200 behind.

once clean and fresh Jake, Karl and i walked over to the old fashioned soda shop for a milkshakes. at about 6 we left for dinner, which turned out to be the Granite County rib cook off. the Rotary club of Phillipsburg sponsored out tickets for the all you can eat feast. every type of pork you can imagine cooked in homemade BBQ sauces, it was hands down the best meal we have eaten this trip. after dinner we we back to the high school and played a few games of bump on the basketball court with the guys before heading to bed. we were allowed to sleep in an hour, so wake up was at 6:30. the ride to Butte was 80 miles with a 3 mile climb at an 8% grade to summit a pass that had no name...

but it passed right by Georgetown Lake.

shortly after i took this picture it started to snow. so we tried to make it down the hill quickly to avoid anything dangerous. we spent most of the day on Montana state route 1, getting on to I-90 for the last 15 miles. tonight we are staying at the YMCA here in butte which is great because we were allowed to use the hot tub. we got to head to our friendship visit at around 5, if was freezing cold but still tons of fun, i spent most of the time with Denise,

just hanging out and talking, i learned about her life growing up in Butte.
after the friendship visit we returned to the YMCA and just relaxed. hit the hot tub for a little bit, then got ready for bed early because tomorrow we have 105 miles to ride and 3 passes to summit.

Yes, we're still on Highway 12

Day 11: Woke up in Kamiah, ID and rode to Powell Junction, ID. It was 95 miles surrounded by trees as we followed the Clearwater River through the Idaho forests. It was a VERY long day with my personal max speed reaching only 29 mph. So, yes, the ride was long... but we made it! We made it to the Lochsa Lodge in Powell which was kinda like a log cabin camp/resort. It was well taken care of and there was an excellent restaurant right there where we had dinner. I had the country fried steak and Andrew had the roast beef. Both dishes were amazing! Later, I caught some down time with Chadd from UW watching some movies on his laptop. After that we got some huckleberry ice cream at the restaurant. The waiter gave us four scoops for the price of three! Some guys stayed up by the campfire but I was too tired. I got into bed early.
Day 12: Even though I got a good amount of sleep (IN A BED), I was still tired and my muscles felt tight. I'm not a big fan of that area of Idaho. There are scary old men and no cell/internet service. After a slow 8 mile ride to the stretching point, I felt better. I guess just preparing myself for the 4-5 mile climb. My group of three averaged 7-8 mph up Lolo Pass. We had all been told it was going to be a tough climb but at the summit, I had never been so happy for all of the stinking hills there are in Washington that I had been training on. It was tough, don't get me wrong, but after a few gulps out of the water bottle, I was fine and ready to go. After a photo op. at the summit sign reading the elevation

and the "Welcome to Montana" sign, we froze flying down the back side of the mountain. After that steep descent, it was mostly down hill til about 8 miles out of Missoula, MT. My group was cruising between 19 and 25mph for most of the ride. With the change to Mountain Time, we had less than an hour to get ready for a lunch with Adventure Cycling, the organization who creates cycling routes throughout the U.S. We got a good meal and some cool history on the organization. Plus, this cool sticker that says "I ride, therefore I Trans-Am." I took a shower and nap after lunch and prepared for an interesting and rewarding friendship visit/dinner at Opportunities Resources, an assisted living home for some people with pretty severe disabilities. Communication was hard at times and limited, but they were very excited to see us, that's for sure. We had some great tacos and chocolate cream pie for dessert, which I love! Missoula's definitely cooler than the isolated places we stayed in in Idaho. After dinner, I played a two on two game of basketball in the gym here at Hellsgate High School. Later, we enjoyed some nightlife at the Iron Horse. We've got a dayoff today, much needed before our six days of cycling which are awaiting. So, today, it's blog updating, laundry, a team meeting, and basically relaxation. Giving my butt and legs some time to rest. I having trouble keep track of places and days and it seems like it's already been so long, it blows my mind to think that there's still two months left. When we get a better connection, we throw some more pictures on here. Thanks for stopping by!