Much Thanks!

Hello to everyone who has been following and supporting us for this great adventure and Cycling 4 A Cure! We would both like to thank you for all donations made to helping us help the American Cancer Society! For anyone who is still wanting to donate please do so, our website on the ACS website will stay active for a bit longer! or fell free to make a check out to the ACS and you can get the needed sheet off our ACS website or sent it to Chance and 922 3rd ave ne, Aberdeen SD 5701 and he will take care of the mailing for you. We hope that everyone enjoyed reading about our trip and if you have any questions please feel free to send us an email! For all of you that we have been so lucky to meet along the way, thank you for all of your help and generosity! We have been so lucky to have met all the wonderful people that there are spread across this great country of ours. If you travel across the country remember take the back roads I know it may be slower, but you see so many wonderful sighs most people miss. Don't forget to stop in the small towns they usually have the most to offer in the form of kindness! Again, thank you all! We could have never done it without you! Look forward to pictures to come! As for what we are doing now. Chance is back home in Aberdeen, SD working construction and hanging out with family and friends. I am in Maplewood, trying to unpack from school, and enjoy the things of summer I love so much! I will be going to Aberdeen on the 17th for Chances birthday and he will then be coming back to teh cities in September to get ready for our trip to Hawaii! Again thank you all so much and we hope to stay in touch!

San Francisco and the end!

The last two days we spent in San Francisco before we would fly on home. We had a great time seeing the sights, sleeping in and getting things ready to go home! In San Fran we saw the typical tourist sights of Pier 39, Fishermans Warf and so much more! We even rented these little cars called Go-Cars! They took us all over the city and navigated us by GPS we both had agreat time! IT was nice to relax and kind of weird to think that we were done and it was about time to go home. The last day Chance and I spent relaxing, and packing for the plane! It was time to get home. We took the Red Eye flight home on the 2nd of August and arrived in MN at 6am! It was a great trip and one that will be memorable for a lifetime!

The last day of riding...

It's been a long time coming! Today was our day we would enter San Francisco. IT has been a very long 2.5 amazing months and we are ready to see the ocean and head home! The morning ride was quite easy as we zig zagged our way through city streets. We were headed to Dublin where we would get on the BART and head into San Francisco! My knee was bothering me quite a bit today but I kept my spirits high as we were excited to complete our journey! Chance was wonderful as always and worked with me so that I could feel strong the rest of the way. We knew this afternoon we would have our last larger climb. we had no idea what we were in for. As we approached this climb, we knew the summit would be roughly 1,500 ft and we started at 35 feet so we had a pretty good climb left in front of us. The first part of the climb was pretty gradual and a bit a of a head wind. Chance flew ahead as usual but I took my time as I always say the turtle wins the race! Eventually the wind picked up and things got a little crazy. I got blown off my bike 2 times and I was like screw it I have all day so I got off and walked. It got so windy I was stopped in my tracks and could not push m y bike. Eventually I saw Chance again making it to the top having to push his bike as well! The kind guy that he is, he ran back down to help me out! As he was pushing the wind just kept picking up, the wind was so strong at one point, that it actaully took two of us to push my bike. At the top we took our time and got ready to make our way down. we both had a great time going downhill and cruised into Panda Express for lunch and a little break before we our final lag of the trip.. After lunch it was a great ride, full of excitement we made our way to the BART station and got on and let out a deep breath! We made it! We were on our way into the city and talked with a few of the locals who were a big help. once we got off the BART we of course got back on our bikes and made our way over the Golden Gate bridge dodging the tourists on rentals and took our pics! The last task was to find the bike store. At the bike store they would box our bikes and ship them home for us! It was agreat feeling to be done! We were both exhausted and headed to our hotel for a shower, food and a night of relaxation! It's been a great trip!

Rode to Modesto.,..

The ride this morning was pretty good. We had a bit of climbing in the morning to get out of Groveland. The one major exciting part of the day was the hill we got to go down called Priests Grade. Now, we were told there are 2 hills to chose from, old priest grade and new priest grade. When we got up to the split we looked down old priest grade and it was crazy, at some points it can get to over 20% and is 3 miles long. The New Priest Grade which we went down was 6 miles long. Chance really enjoyed the ride, flying down and cutting corners as you could see 3 turns in front of you. I however, did not like it as much way too fast for me. So I took my time and took pictures along the way as well. Chance had to wait for me and was not too happy about it.. So we continued on our way! It was great to see the mountains start to dwindle, they didn't disappear but they got smaller so that is always good! The ride went fairly quick and the temps stayed nice with the wind so we were not boiled like other days. We stopped in Oakdale, CA for lunch at Denny's! Lunch was delicious and we continued to get more excited to almost be in San Francisco. Once we left Oakdale we were in city limits for the rest of the ride into Montrose. In Modesto we did our normal routine and hit up the library. The library is so packed that we had to wait to get a computer and then you only got it for 30 min. From there we headed to the tourist info center and talked with the lady there about camping. we were told there was no camping within the city area but we could ride another 30 miles. That was no sounding good so we made our way to the Motel 6. Once we were settled and showered Chance was very excited for his first taste of In and Out Burger. While he enjoyed it, it was not super great. After dinner we stopped by the gas station to pick up a few things headed back and got ready for out last day of riding on this crazy trip of ours

Oh, It's all down hill out of here!

This morning we woke up a bit later then normal but it was ok, it was suppose to be all down hill to Groveland. We gathered our things and packed our bags, said goodbye to Joel and hit the road. We knew that we had a little hill to climb and then it was suppose to be down hill, and it was, for a bit. We went up to 8500ft and then flew down to 7500 feet and then had to climb back up to about 8300, WTF! Does know one from the west coast understand the concepts of down hill and flat, because it looks like they don't get it to me. I don't know, maybe I, a mid-west boy need to make a guide for dummies to riding your bike in the west, because someone needs to set the story straight and I guess the locals can't fathom it so they have to bring in a consultant. Well at the top of the other hill I stopped to take a pee and wait for Kelly. It wasn't long and we heard a familiar voice, "Hey slow pokes" it was Joel he had caught up. I guess we got one more day of riding together. The rest of the ride was rolly and there was a pretty big down hill and Joel and I got separated from Kelly. We thought it was because of traffic or just because she didn't want to join our draft line. Joel and I were really moving down the hill. So we waited and it took a little longer then normal and finally when Kelly rolled up to the turn out she didn't look good. We asked what was wrong and while she was crying she told us a bee had flown into here helmet and stung her before she could get stopped and take it off. So I looked at it and sure as could be she had a stinger in her head. Joel handed me a tweezers and I pulled it out. It looked to be already swelling and we could only hope that she didn't have an allergic reaction since there wasn't any medical around. But Kelly's tough and she rode it out. We had one more hill and then a huge down hill to the turn off were we stopped at the gas station to grab a bite to eat and bid farewell to our new friend. At the corner we went right towards San Fran and Joel went left into the valley to enjoy some more beautiful wilderness. The rest of the ride wasn't too bad. It continued to be rolly but we had some amazing down hills, Kelly calls them scary and rides her breaks but I love them. As we dropped elevation we could feel the temperature rise and it got hot for the last 20miles and stayed that way till the sun went down. When we got to town we ate some ice cream and found this really weird "motel" where you rent trailer houses, little cabins or tents and if you had your own tent it was only $25, ha only. We set up camp and went to 2 guys pizza. The food was good but I don't think it set well with Kelly or I, we spent quite a bit of time on the toilet. The rest of the night was spent trying to figure out our escape plan from Cali. Unfortunately we didn't get that great of sleep since at about 10pm all sorts of people decided it was time to have a party! Oh well, thanks for your support!