We entered wisconsin. we were picked up by Aleece and Bri. We stayed with the family in Columbus. Bri was maries longtime friend since 7th grade. It was great to see them all. The kids grew up! Our last night there we visited Alexa, Aleeces daughter, at the hospital. Alexa went into labor and was due in 24 hrs. The day we left, Alexa gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Neveh! after 3 days at the Weyker home, we were on our way to Wales where we arranged a night's stay with Pat and Mary Jo. The next day we took the several bike trails that lead toward Chicago. They were beautiful rides. Wisconsin is supposedly the second most bycicle-friendly state- and it was! Along the trail route, we encountered a club of cyclist, turned out they were the Bay View Bicycle Club. They were hosting a lunch and invited us to join. Art and Kathy, two cyclist members, invited us to stay at their place in Racine, WI. From there we headed in to Illinois, and connected with Susan from warmshowers, she rode out to meet us and guide us through the busy streets to her house. We stayed there for 2 days and explored the city, had dinner with Marshall's childhood friend Erica, and on the way out of town had a Chicago style hot dog... We rode around Lake Michigan and through the devastated city of Gary, Indiana to the town of Portage, where for the first time on the trip the rain forced us indoors to a motel. In the morning we rode to the dunes and Marie took a dip in the lake. We just arrived in Michigan and are checking our route and figuring out where we should sleep tonight.

Iowa, Psyowa....

Sorry for the lack of updates!! We traveled the Lincoln highway across Iowa. We stayed with Deb and Howard our second night, Roy and Rebecca the third night, Cecil the fourth, and Doug and Brian for the weekend.

We celebrated fourth of July with a group of harvesters at a motel in Oberlin. The next morning we rode to Alma, Nebraska, 77 miles our longest ride to date. Joe, the proprietor of the coffee/camera/bike shop hooked Marshall up with some new extra thick tubes and gave both bikes a tune up. They had a mishap with the fireworks on the fourth there so they showed them on the 5th instead, so we got a double showing. Marie got another flat in the morning so we changed it out and rode to Minden. We set up camp in the park inside a bandstand. July seventh was Marshall's birthday so we took a rest day and enjoyed Pioneer Village. We met a cyclist, Crystal on an overnight trip to Red Cloud. Marshall asked her where the closest bike shop because his rear tire was worn thin and bulging out and lumpy from the pressure. She worked for the Bike Shed in Kerney and phoned her sister to have her drop off a new armadillo tire for him which she donated towards our cause. Minden to Fairmont and a warmshowers.org connection. We stayed with Gene and his wife, and he took us on a tour of the county seat. He is turning an empty lot across the street in to a beautiful neighborhood garden. We had a lovely dinner and got some needed rest in a real bed. In the morning he rode with us to Exeter and took us out to breakfast. Lincoln was next. When we arrived we stopped at joyride, a bike shop and the girl working there, Kelly, offered us a place to stay for the weekend while we explored the city. We went to a Jazz and Blues Street fair and then slept in and relaxed all day today.

We spent a relaxing day in Eads. Our filmmaker friends invited us to check out an old theater that they were documenting. We spent the rest of the day relaxing at the community pool and had dinner at the local restaurant. The next morning, we woke up before the roosters crowed. By noon we had left the green pastures of Colorado and crossed into Kansas. Kansas is not so flat as they say- we rolled over many hills through the prairies. The wind and cornfields are endless. In the small towns that surround the silos we've met many kind locals, some we made amazing connections with (like George), who we would talk for hours with and learned so much from them. We crossed paths with many bikers along the Transcontinental Route.
If you are ever in Kansas There are at at least 3 places you should experience: (1) Check out an amazing fossil shop, the Keystone Gallery, owned by Barbra and Chuck in Scott City. (2)There is a beautiful hidden valley, Scott State Park. This place we did not check out since it was a bit out of our way; (3) the Monument Rocks, but they look amazing on the postcards we sent to our friends.
While in Oakley Darren, over heard us say we were looking for a intertubes and he called around and connected us with the biking community. We stayed with a family in Oakley for one night. Thomas, the father, checked our bikes and his friend Jim gave us spare tubes for our tires. The last few days we have had 4 flats on the road. For the weekend we are staying at Len's, a great grandfather who collects fish and rides a motorcycle. There are strong wind warnings and they're expected until after 4th of July.