June 25th- June 30th

 Monday June 30th

Dad strained a muscle in his right thigh.  It was good timing as far as the weekend recovery but it's not well yet.  We may not go far today.  We weren't sure we would ride at all today but he wants to give it a try. Looks like the wind will be in our favor today so that should help.  

Friday June 27th

One of the thousands of tiny toads hopping on the road.  At first i thought they were pieces of leaves being blown down the road, but they weren't all going with the wind.  Mom thinks they are cute.  

The scenery changed from flat grasslands to rolling hills with lakes and ponds and trees.  

 Here's a picture of our camp site.  Its by a lake near the little town of Cormorant.  We're in the rent now.  Mom has earplugs in and it is pouring again and she can't hear it; I can and I can't sleep so I though I'd send this.  

Thursday June 26th

We set up tent on the concrete floor of a pavilion in the city park in Enderlin, ND and put the bikes and trailer in the pavilion as well.  It didn't look like rain when we went to bed.  Mom couldn't sleep so she stayed awake and watched a movie on her phone until after 2 am.  I woke up about 4am with the sound of pouring rain on the tin roof. It is still pouring at 8 am.  Mom is still sleeping (she wears ear plugs) I can't see a good reason to start riding bikes right now. Can you? We were hoping to reach Fargo today but, we may just stay in Enderlin. (8:00 am -Dad)

We are in Enderlin North Dakota.  It's raining the bardes rain I've ever seen! we are camped under a pavilion so our bikes, trailer and tent are dry. We have ridden in the rain storms but this is something else! We plan to hold up here another day.  (10:30 am -Mom)

If you saw spot today you realized we rode after all.  It stopped raining at noon so we broke camp and headed out.  We got to Fargo about 7:30 pm.  Someone swiped my flag while we were in a fast food joint.  And we left the other one in the Glendive Inn.  Oh well!

Wednesday June 25th

We rode from Marion to Enderlin ND.  3:28 hrs.  38.22 miles, ascent 718 ft, decent 1135ft.(mom)

  

This is Emily.  the cutest waitress west of the Mississippi.  8 years old.  

  This is Joan Trapped and her grandson.  She interviewed us for the Marion Newspaper. 

Friday June 20th-Tuesday June 24th

Old Cars passing through Richardton, N.D.

Saturday June 21st

We found this rubber duckie beside the the freeway when we stopped for a rest and put it on the trailer.  We decided he's kinda cute, so we're keeping him.  We need a name for him, though.

Good names provided by family.... Pinky, Binky, Duck, Cruiser, Butterfly jumped off the trailer and we don't know where he is.  Thanks for your help.  Love you all. G-pa K

Sunday June  22nd

The Bismarck, ND Temple.  The church we went to today was right next to it. 

Monday June 23rd

We rode 84.54 miles today.  The weather was nice most of the day.  We had some light showers off and on and a slight tailwind and it wasn't too hot or cold.  The ride total time was6 hours 52 minutes, we climbed 2,851 ft. and descended 2,569 ft.  I burned 5,595 calories.  We took a 15 mile side trip into Bismarck to get batteries for the spot, then rode 70 miles to Napolean.  We did get caught in a downpour and it has been raining hard since we put the tent.  Having fun. 

Here is a scene about 30 miles before we got to Napoleon.  

Tuesday June 24th

We've set up camp on the stage in the city park in Marion ND tonight.  We get double protection from the elements that way. 

Dinner.

  

Wednesday June 18th

We are in Madora N. Dakota.  We rode 64.64 miles today, had 3 flat tires, changed one in pouring rain.  It stopped raining the minute we got to Madora. We got the tent set up before it started raining again. We ate in the tent and it started raining The thunder was so loud it was a little frigtening.It was a real downpour. So grateful for our nice tent! 
It's been a wonderful day, we are having so much fun, inspite of the rain and flat tires. 

Tuesday June 17th.....
  Well the bike part we have been waiting for arrived about an hour ago! Keith has my bike all put back together, he is so wonderful! He is just taking it out to ride and make little adjusments. It's too late to head out today but we are so anxious to get going again tomorrow. 
Thanks for all the love, concern and prayers

Tuesday June 17th

The bike part is NOT here yet.  In tracking it it looks like it won't be here till around 5 p.m.  We are so antsy to get going!

Look at that cloud! They don't make em like that in Utah.

June 10, 2014 Ride from Denton to Grass Range.

That sign says "Judith" River Joy's sister's name.

This hungry guy crossed the road in front of me.  If I had been
driving a car instead, he would have gotten squished.

We rode from Denton to Grass Range today. Most of the time the weather was nice, but later in the day we had a downpour that got us while we were going over the Judith Mountains.

We passed through Lewistown today and had lunch there. We thought about staying there, but we wanted to cover more ground today, so we went on to Grass Range.

Grass Range is such a small town we were wondering about ou

This truck stop doesn't look like much, but its the people that really made it nice

r decision, but it turned out to be a good decision. In Grass Range we stayed in a campground by the only store in town, the Little Montana Truck Stop.  The people there were really nice and down to earth.  They were really interested in what we were doing. We were concerned about leaving our bikes out in the rain and the lady in the store said we could bring our bikes into the store for the night, so that's what we did.

We asked them about the hills ahead, but we found that unless they are cyclists they don't really pay attention to the hills. Someone will tell us that there aren't any hills ahead then we'll climb over 3000 feet that day. You can ask them where a good place to eat is, though. Joy asked someone in Lewistown and he told us about Ruby's.  Ruby's is a fast food hamburger place, but there burgers really are the best.  They use local Montana beef and they are big and tasty.

This is how the 'flat' Eastern Montana roads are.

Sunday June 15th

Keith and I just calculated our mileage and figured we have 2952 miles to go! we have ridden 1335 miles so far.  So we ARE almost a third of the way!

Saturday June 14th

Keith: Its really not flatter ground.  There aren't mountain passes,  but we climbed more today than some days when we were in the mountains. We climbed 3028 feet today. There are things to distract us like deer and antelope and groundhogs.  The road today was really bumpy which was annoying,  but we persevered. 

We have been passed by several giant machines going down the road. One today took up the whole road. I don't know how it passed other vehicles but we were off the road when he went by. For some reason they have a lot of them out here.

This is mom. There are rolling hills one after another and they are relentless.  The last 15 miles were pretty flat but from the time we started this morning until then we were working hard.  Ascent was 3051 ft. The descent was 3251 ft. We just count the climbing because coasting is easy!

The previous was copied from a conversation with Judy. Note that my climbing number was different than moms. Our GPS s give a little different readings.

Joy: We had an amazing ride today, 48 miles in just over 3 hours!  We averaged 15.2 mph! We flew into Glendive.
On the way to the motel from the grocery store I crashed and broke my right shifter, dadgumit!
Our bike guy Parrish in AF is sending a new one but it won't get here til Tuesday!

It's all good,  I'm just grateful for Parrish, he is so good to us. 
We will stay here 4 nights I guess
and catch up on some sleep and some laundry. 

We are really close to North Dakota boarder!  We were going to be in N D Monday!

Friday June 13th

Breaking camp

Cool looking old west town.  Just imagine a gunfight in the middle of the street.  

Thursday June 12

Well,  We're out here where there's sagebrush and wind and not much else until you come to a little town. We're in Jordan. Nice little town.  Friendly people. Tomorrow we're planning a 68 miles ride to circle.  We'll do that if the weather's not too bad.

Picture

Thursday June 12tg

We rode 70 miles yesterday and almost that again today.
Our trip should take 12 weeks and we have already used 4! We need to start getting more miles in! It should start getting easier.  We were averaging almost 17 miles an hour this morning for about 23 miles we had a nice tail wind. Then we started climbing again and the direction of the wind changed.
It's all good and we are having a great time.
As of tonight we have ridden 1184 miles.
This is Joy

Random pictures from the begining of the trip that didn't get added.

Tuesday June 10th

This is the Missouri River from Fort Benton.  If you zoom in enough you can see some deer standing by that island.  I have a bunch of pictures I could send, but I have such poor signal it takes forever to send.  I love you guys.  Give all your kids a hug for me.

We went from Denton to Grass Range today.  It was mostly nice weather, except we had a slight headwind most of the time.  we got fought in a downpour about 5p.m. We stopped and put on our rain gear, then it quit raining.  

We went by this road and I had to get a picture.  The spelling is a little off, but :)

Saturday June 7th

I was growing my whiskers out....

But I shaved them off.  They were bugging me.  I feel better now.  

Saturday June 7th updates

We rode from Great Falls to Fort Benton today,  about 50 miles.  It was nice weather to ride in. The roads were in good shape and not much traffic. The roads had some hard climbs again and there was a strong West wind.
  My Mom (grandma Kling- Iris) said. "They don't go very far in a day!"
  I don't have any more pictures today. Mom took some,  though.

More updates June 5th (these ones are from Keith)

We went over the Continental Divide today. Rogers pass.

Pretty Montana

 Judy, Robbie, and Vera met us in Augusta and Surprised Gramma.

A big pointy rock thing.

Yesterday we stopped in a Jerky store.  

That was in Lincoln.

Our campground last night.  We heard wolves again last night.

Our campground 2 nights ago. In Lubrecht Experimental Forest.

Getting pictures at Adventure Cycling.  They might put us in their magazine. 

(I think dad forgot that he already sent this ... oh well I'll Humor him-Robyn)

Another bike traveler we met at the Continental Divide.  He was going west.  He started in St. Louis.

It looks like thunder storms, but they blew the other way.

Beautiful Gramma with a beautiful Montana background and sky.  It really is a big sky here.

Me and the big Montana Sky.

Beautiful Augusta Montana sunset.

June 5th updates... unexpected visit from our daughter Judy.

We finally have reception yay! We crossed Lolo pass today.  It was a hard ride for me.  Keith's very patient and encouraging.  We will stay here, just outside of Missoula Montana,  again sunday night.

We are in Missoula Montana at  Taco Sano. We just ate the best breakfast burrito Ive ever had! We are waiting for Dad's  bike to be  repaired .  No biggy, don't be alarmed. His shifter broke a week or so ago. The bike shop in Walla Walla (Allegro Bike Shop) ordered the part and had it sent here to  (Missoula Bike Source) we are having them install it. Oh, they just called, bike is done. We will go to Adventure Cycling when we pick up Dad's bike. Love you, Mom

We are just up the river from the Lochsa Historical Ranger Station. The ranger station is closed so we aren't certain what makes it historical, Dad figures it's probably where Smokey the Bear got his start.  We are camped in an undeveloped site, but it's free!  We rode 56 miles today . We rode by the clear water river and then the Lochsa river.  We saw a lot of River rafters having a great time.                    The ride was great upgrade all day but it was so gradual  we hardly noticed.  

Notice Dad's beard? 

Thursday May 29

Judy got here today, surprised the sox off me! Thanks for all the letters I miss you all so much. Dad and I are having a great time.  We will be in Great Falls tomorrow, can't wait to see hunka Terry. This is what the sky here in Augusta looks like tonight. 

This is where we camped by the Lochsa Historical Ranger Station. My favorite camp site yet!