Hey Martin! Your bike in Wisconsin! Breakfast at the Coffee Connection.
Papa passed out on the side of the road. It's been a long day.
The War Memorial in Long Prairie.
Ah yes, food food food. We spent some serious time here.
Papa hard at work.
Maya, passed out on the lawn in front of the Dippy Diner. Stop she did.Biking down the road on top of the world. This is when the weather cleared up. The sky has never been so huge.Hanging out and having some drinks at the gas station. Classy, we know. Another 16 miles to our destination: Battle Lake!Sunset last night on our way to the state park outside of Battle Lake. We had steaks at Stub's. A weird inside gazebo restaurant with no windows? But tastey!
Roland in front of the Diner where we ate breakfast this morning after all the rain!!! We are trying to get warm again, OKeey? Nice legs, man!

TODAY WE RODE A CENTURY! (That was on July 7, actually) That's One Hundred Miles. Yes, Sir. Wasn't sure if we would ever do it, but it did. Just like that. We started from out campsite in Somerset. Papa with Martin's bicycle in Wisconsin. Stopped at the Coffee Connection for Breakfast. Crazy hills and rivers. It rained some. We had lunch at a Swedish "Kafe" in Harris, MN. It was kind of seedy, but had lots of nice swedish artsy stuff on the walls that looked like antiques.Continued biking to Dalbo, which we weren't sure if we would make it to in the first place (Papa, don't be a nay-sayer! WE DID IT) Dalbo - Population 80- the bar was closed: "CURSES!!!" So we just ate snacks. 17 miles left to Milaca. As we got back on our bikes we could see a solid wall of slate gray clouds heading our way. It was only a matter or time till the downpour. We also met a former Homicide Detective. Interesting.

We met other adventure cyclists when we got to the Super 8 in Milaca. We ate at the "Restraunt" (I guess that is what it is called?) and had dessert at the Dairy Queen (those blizzards are amazing!)
Been reading Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer out loud, finished it yesterday.

July 8th was probably one of our most taxing days. You would think it would be the century, but the day after the 100miles, we rode head on into the wind for 75 miles. It was awful. Psychologically and physically, totally exhausting. We had pizza for lunch, beers. Swansville was 13 miles away from Long Prairie (our goal for the day). We had to refuel there, so we hit up the local bar, ate free popcorn and talked to some locals. We finally made it to our campsite around 8 pm, showered and read in the tent before passing out. The only bad thing about the campsite was that it smelled kind of bad, there is a waste processing plant not too far away and the wind blows the smell right through town. Gross.

Quote from Papa: "It is full of meaning. It could mean anything!" In reference to the Bible.

Yesterday, July 9, we only had some head on winds. Not nearly as bad as the day before. Roland had a long business call so Maya and I hung out at the Dipper Family Diner for hours. We ate Chicken Fajita wraps and soft serve Ice Cream. It was a good rest and time to catch up on journals, etc. No library in town, so once again the blog was neglected.

Wish I had more time and energy to write something beautiful, funny, or at least coherent. We had a long day yesterday...after eating a big meal and drinking several beers (pre-party for the real 1/2 way across the country party, we enjoyed several drinks to celebrate crossing the 2,000 mile mark!) That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Maya and I have ridden over 2,000 miles on our bicycles. So anyway, after this big meal and a whole bunch of drinks we still had to find a campsite. Which we did. It was already 9.30 and getting pretty dark. Showered as fast as we could and leaped into our tents to escape the mosquitoes. It started to rain sometime in the night and that woke us up. Then the alarm went off a little before 5 AM and it was raining still. So I didn't get up. We slept until 6.30, which turned out to be a good thing because there was a 1/2 hour break in the rain. We packed up our things and cycled away. Gray skies as far as the eye could see. Rain rain rain. More rain. Thunder. Lightening Everywhere. I was surprised how much lightening there was, it was all over the sky. The most consistent thunder storms we have had yet. Not too much wind though = excellent.
At one point, the lightening struck right next to us, reflecting in the puddle in front of me, the thunder cracked immediately afterwards. This scared the daylights out of Maya and me and we screamed out loud! Of course, embarrassed, I laughed so hard I almost peed. I am scared of getting hit by lightening, and that was a little too close for comfort.

We pedaled into Pelican Rapids and headed straight to a diner. Scarfing down warm pancakes and coffee, we thawed ourselves out. They have a wonderful library here and I can see that the sun has finally come out. I've been able to dry my tent and some of my clothes. I guess we'll see how far we make it today. My legs feel like spaghetti after riding a gazillion miles everyday (maya and I are getting pretty tough, showing Roland what we are made of).

Also, Maya and I will now be accepting donations for the making of our graphic novel: The Bullets! All about our bicycling adventure. We plan to publish.

Your Bullet Hero,
Lara