1998 - Bike-Aid 3,600 Miles Across The U.S.A.
1999 - The Great Divide Mountain Bike Expedition
July 25, 1998 - St. Charles - Winona
DISTANCE TRAVELED: 33.60 MilesTIME: 3 Hours
AVERAGE SPEED: 16.3 Miles/Hour
TRAVEL CONDITIONS: Warm and sunny all day.
ROAD CONDITIONS: All of the roads were in very good condition. In the beginning and the end, when we had to go to the houses, the road was dirt.
TERRAIN/DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Small rolling hills. A very easy day especially since it was so short.
DAILY JOURNAL COMMENTS:
I woke up at 8:30 after sleeping through the commotion of everyone else who had already gotten up besides Katie and Tami. I had slept in my clothes so it was easy to get to breakfast. We had fresh pancakes with homemade apple butter along with Canadian bacon and orange juice. It quickly filled me up and I went back downstairs to lie down again. I stayed at the house until 11:00 when Matt and I left to go to the service project which I didn't know about until the previous night. We arrived 1:15 later and began to scrape paint off of the siding of the house. I began scraping where there was shade which felt great after getting hot from the short ride. After we tore off all of the loose paint from that area, I then found out that lunch was ready. I had previously been told that we would have to bring our own lunch but I was too lazy to make it. So in the end everything turned out great. I had a ham sandwich along with potato salad and Gatorade. For desert, we had three different types of cakes that had been made by the woman who owned the house that we were painting.(Picture67) It all tasted good and we were soon back to work(or at least some of us). I then moved on to some painting where I had to climb up a 20 foot ladder and then paint the underside of an overhang along with the walls. My arm quickly got tired due to the lack of blood to my hand since it was elevated so much. After I had painted everything that had been scraped, I then helped Jade paint some more before moving on to scrape some more in another area of the house where Matt, Brad, and Tami were working. I helped Matt scrape off some more old paint while making sure that the wasps that were living close-by didn't get disturbed. After this, Matt and I left around 5:00 to go to our final destination for the day. Along the way, we thought that we would have to go onto I-90 but when we saw the signs that said no bikes allowed, we knew that that was not the right way to go. I then realized that the road that we wanted branched off so we could get on later. After a few more miles, we arrived at the farm where we were to stay for the night. I immediately went upstairs with my gear and claimed one of the five beds in the house. Fortunately I was able to get the last one. After this, I took a quick shower and sat on the bed eating food and stitching up my laptop bag that had some of the stitching coming out. Soon after I had finished, dinner was ready so I went downstairs and got some chicken, pizza, rice, blackberries, and a cherry soda. For desert, I had fresh blackberry cheesecake! This was a real treat and the blackberries were just picked off of wild bushes. After dinner, I went to another person's house to pick up a volleyball. It was located over 500 feet above the city of Winona and looked out over Winona lake and the Mississippi River. We were there just in time to see the sun set over the horizon.(Picture68) On a clear day, I was told that one can see over 50 miles in the distance. After finding the ball, we went back to the farm and played until about 10:15. It was completely dark so we used a house lamp to try to make it easier to see. I went back to my room to eat some more and type some more on my laptop before going to bed around 12:30.
TRIP ROUTE:
