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We made it!!!! New York City

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So close :)

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The next interesting event happened on Friday when we went to Denny's in Pennsylvania for all you can eat pancakes! After eating I don't know how many pancakes I order two more and right before the waitress brings them to our table I tell Erik "man, I'm full and I don't know of I can finish these next pancakes." Whem she set them down she said; "if you can finish these you'll be the new recprd holder"! Oh man, the pressure! Amd I was already near bursting! Well, whoever's reading this wil be disapointed to know that I didn't set a new record
looking back I wish I had pounded it down but at the moment every bite was bringing me nearer to leaving all my pancakes!
The last funny thing happned yesterday when we tried to fill up our waters from a spiget on the side of a building. Erik touched it first and jumped back saying he had been shocked! I then tried to turn it on and got the tingle he had talked about. We did manage to get it open but only after much jumping and exclamation marks!

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First of all pardon our lack of blogging for which we have no excuses! So to catch you up on a week of events I'll simply hit the highights.
Satuday evening in Ohio was our first and most interesting run in with the law! The cop woke us up at 3 in the morning and gave us the raised eyebrow when we told him we were biking across the country and that we weren't druggies :-) Ultimately, he told us to have a good trip and let us get back to sleep.
Sunday morning as we were nearing Cleveland Erik's rear derailer decided to take a trip into the spokes of his rear wheel which bent up his chain and left us stranded! Fortunately, we were able to cut his chain and Jerry rig his bike into a single speed! That was great except it left him in a super low gear pedalling about 7 times for every one of mine (Nathan). The best part about this setup was that we topped out at 10mph and had to ride 40m to ride! It was a lazy Sunday ride for me but Erik was whizzing along and sweating bullets lol!

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Almost there :)

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Well actually we entered Ohia last Friday

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Leaving Ross's (Nathan's brother) dwelling place :)

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Nathan and Ross’ family after the 1/2 ironman with Erik in a blue shirt second in from the right! 

Nathan and his mom after the 1/2 ironman.

Nathan and his older brother Ross after both completing the 1/2 ironman Nathan had a time of 5:25 and Ross a time of 6:12.

 

A pic of Nathan with his finisher medal right after the 1/2 ironman in Michigan.

Ross (Nathan’s older brother) coming into the finish chute at the 1/2 ironman in Michigan.

Another picture of Ross making the transition from the bike to the run in the 1/2 ironman!

Ross (Nathan’s older brother) making the transition from bike to run in the half ironman.

Nathan coming into the finish chute at the 1/2 ironman in Benton harbor Michigan

On Saturday Erik, Ross and I traveled from Ann Arbor to Benton Harbor to run in a 1/2 ironman (1.2 miles swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run).

we arrived in the town, got registered and promptly downed a pasta buffet provided by pizza hut :-) We then got camped and tried to get some shut eye with a sleeping arrangement of us three stuffed into a two person tent.

The first wave of the race started at 7:00 but Ross' and my wave (18-24) started at 7:53 so we got to the transition area early to get our bikes and running gear checked in. We then donned our wet-suits and headed down to the swim start. We chilled in the water and waited for our heat to be called on deck and when our turn finally came we found our spots while "we will rock you" blared in the background. And then we were off!

I don't want to go into too much detail on what happened during the race for that would take far too long but I can simply say that it was an absolute blast and actually seemed to go by really Quickly!

I (Nathan) was fortunate enough to finish the race in 5 hours and 25 min and Ross with his incredibly short training period of 2 months managed to pull together an astounding 6 hour 12 minute race! I know! He's a stud for sure ;-)

It was so much fun and though it's now two days after the race I'm still crazy sore!

Sunday we went to Ross' church and got to meet and talk to some really dynamic Christians that knew their Bibles amazingly well.

And today we thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in and then we spent the afternoon with my family at a water park.

Nathan and Ross( Nathan's brother) after completing the Iron Man :)

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We made it to Ann Harbor Michigan!!! we have been here since tuesday spending time with Ross Leavitt, Nathan's older brother.
Are time here has not been so much productive as it has been very restful, which is a very nice change pace from the last month and a half.
Right now Nathan and Ross are checking in for the half iron man that is tomorrow and also eating unlimited pizza. While on the other hand I got kicked out of the check in area. Also Nathan's whole family is going to be at the race, which is pretty exciting since we havn't seen them since we left.
Please be praying for the race and I will try to update how the race goes

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Lynda the lady that let us stake at her house in Dubuque :)

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FWD:

It's Saterday now but to catch you up on what's been happening I'll debrief from Thurs on.
Thursday we set out to make our 110 and were in such hast to get the miles in that we skipped eating until mile 80 in Dubuque! By the time we ate we were utterly famished and Erik was a little feverish. But as we stood outside of Wal-mart a worker asked us what we were doing and within a minute she had invited us into her house for the night! That was such a blessing because as we rode to her house tornado sirens began to sound!
We left her house Fri morning and set off for Rockford Illinois but as we were riding at about11pm we got caught in a major thunder storm than touched a lightning bolt down so close to us that there ws no delay between light anf thunder! But thank God we made it safe to a camping area and only got mildly wet as we dosed ;-)
Sat we we made it to the HQ of a Christiam organization in Hindsdale Chicago that praise the Lord gave us an unexpected dinnner and lodging!

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Whoa were did the road go?

We hit a few mudd patches on the road that we were taking, so we had to jump off and push.

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Wohh water everwhere!!!

This is a road that we were supposed to cross in Western Chicago but had to make a deture because of the flooding.

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yeah buddy!!!

Well, we left Rachel`s on Monday and headed north to get back on our route eastward across Iowa, but the next eight days will be a little more interesting with the 110 mile/day average that we`re going to try to maintain in order to reach Michigan by the 27th! If we reach Michigan by this date it will give us four days of rest before the triathlon which would be awesome!

We made 100 on Monday due to some stops we took to avoid thunder storms, but Tueday we made 130! Today (Wednesday) we've made it 78 miles to a town called Waverly and upon arrival we quikly found the nearest Chinese buffet and thoroughly endulged... It felt goood :-) It's about mid-afternoon right now, we just finished our traditional after-buffet nap and we'll head out in a moment to get our last 32 miles in for the day. Thanks for any prayers and we'll keep you posted!
Nathan and Erik

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My sister Rachel Nathan and I

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Nathan carrying a spare tire :)

Mike and Nathan the fellow cyclist we ran into three times this weekend

What an amazing weekend Nathan and I just had. Last week we were able to average over a 100 miles a day so we could make it to Council Bluff, IA on Friday, Because Friday was my sister's (Rachel) birthday and we wanted to celebrate it with her. On friday we went to a "surprize" birthday party for Rachel and got to meet a bunch of her friends and also went bowling. Then on Saterday we were able to chill by a pool and and eat Omaha steaks which was a blast.
Then on Sunday we were able to attend a wonderful bible teaching church, where the people we very friendly. It was a very uplifting time to be able to be taught from the word and be able to worship the Lord with other believers.
Also we met a farmer\ cyclists , Mike, in a small town on friday. Then on Saterday we randomly saw him at a bike shop , and then today we called him and we were able to talk some more.
Well this weekend was very restful but now we are now planning on heading up to Michigan to see Nathan's brother, Ross.

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Wow, sorry for the long delay between posts but since last weekend we averaged about 100 miles/day because my (nathan) hub was spitting bearings like sunflower seeds (well not quite). To get it fixed we lost a day and a half and had to scramble to make up the time.
We met several groups of bikers throughout the week though and it was so much fun to hear their travel stories. One was a 55 year old English woman who had ridden almost 10,000 miles in the year she had been touring the world on her bike!
We spent the weekend in Pierre SD using a website called "couch surfing.com" to find lodging. Through this site people have said that their couch can be used by travelers and all the traveler needs to do is contact them in advance of thier arrival. We stayed with a guy named Ryan and a guy named Sam for sat and sun evening, and we were so blessed by the crazy hospitality that they showed us! Now we`re getting ready to leave town and we`ll keep you posted on continuing adventures!

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South Dakota

Justin and Chrysta the couple who graciously let us stay with them for two days

We had a wonderful Independance Day weekend. So to give the very short version, last friday while biking around 11pm a couple drove up to us and asked if we needed anything, we said no without thinking much of it. Then on Saterday while at a free barbeque a man, justin, came up to us and said that he was the guy that we saw 80 miled away in the middle of the night riding our bikes.
We talked for a bit and afterwards Justin told us that we could sleep at his house. So for the next two days Justin and his wife, Christa, treated us like family. They gave us beds, showers, food and were so loving the whole time. Justin even drove us to another town so Nathan could get a new wheel. Well there is much more to say but this is all there is room for. God really knows how to bless his children.

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Yes! Yes! Yes! Yeahhhh!

A snake on the road that had been run over and had its recent sage rat dinner

mmmm lunch (chicken and ice cream)

Waking up in the morning after sleeping on concrete under the concession stand at a baseball field

Nathan pigging out in front Albertsons in Montana

Beautiful Montana

The regular occurance of Erik sleeping while Nathan is working on his bike

Nathan eating lunch by the side ot the Missouri River in Fort Benton MT

I think the sign says it all :)

Once again camping by the side of the road in Montana

This is a fellow biker that we met up and camped with just out of Bonner Montana

We stopped by the Adventure Cycling headquarters in Missoula Montana (they made the maps for the biking route that we're following)

Biking by a beautiful river on our way up to Lolo pass to cross the rockies in Idaho

A place just out of Grangville Idaho that we camped by the the river

Nathan by a canola field in Idaho.

Haha, I know a dead badger in the middle of teh road but how often do you see a badger :-)

Yeeha! We made it to Idaho!

On top of some random moutain peak and so happy to be at the top!

A little park we stopped at just off highway 84 in Oregon

Our campground on the second day just west of Portland! We were tuacked away in some ivy just off the road...it was pretty epic lol!

In a park in Longview Washington with a cyclist named Frank that we talked to for a decent bit.

Our camping site on the first day of the trip tucked away in the coast of Seaside Oregon