Coast to Coast for a Cause 2022

You know, I’ll admit that I may have been a bit bold to plan today to be a 95 mile bike ride. In my defense, Don, the owner of the farm we were staying at was very enthusiastic about the route he planned for us and said we would be saving a lot of miles. I was easily convinced and said let’s go for it and dragged the rest of the group along with me so we could end the day at my aunt and uncles house but needless  to say, today was hard. To start, we left right on time at 8 AM…not. If you think this group leaves on time then reread the rest of the blog because that’s just not true. Leo was the one dragging his feet in the morning so we are making absolutely sure he is up bright and early tomorrow!  Another challenge we had was the wind. If you’ve been following along, then you know that the wind has a personal vendetta against us. For the past week we have been fighting headwinds and today was no different other than the headwinds being even more frustrating. Seriously, we star...

We all woke up alive this morning - so that’s a positive. Well… except for Brian… because I scared his soul out of his body last night before bed. He said he heard me walk up to his tent but I don’t believe him considering how badly he jumped. Anyway - as you can probably tell it’s Dustin again because who else would do that? Today we decided to do a short day of 60 miles so we can stay in the most amazing place on earth - according to this random guy named Mike. So we set out around 9:30 after Julia and I had a thorough discussion on what the best muffin flavor is - she thinks it’s blueberry - but that honestly is the most basic thing I’ve ever heard - cran orange or lemon poppyseed is my squeeze. Anyway - we set out thinking everything would be great considering how few miles it would be - but like all things that seem to good to be true - it was too good to be true. We got off the trail about one mile into the ride and was immediately assaulted by 20 mph head winds - which is really...

Hey it’s Julia with another blog post. So this morning I had the joy of waking up to Dustin jamming out to his pop music as he got ready. This gave me the same vibes as that one dad or uncle in all of our lives that will wake up the whole house by singing some annoyingly peppy good morning song. It really baffles me as to how this man is able to have so much energy this early in the morning. I am lucky if I can even speak coherently, let alone sing along to Today’s Top Hits.  As we were getting ready for the day, we actually had multiple early morning cyclists come and say hi to us and figure out why we were sleeping in a park. One women was very confused that it was even possible to camp in a park for free…we just continue to amaze. Another women also said a whole prayer out loud for us on our journey and asking God to protect us…. since they prayed for us, nows the perfect time to push the limits of ibuprofen doses, right? Today’s ride was really nice because it was completely on...

Today marks one month of being on our Coast to Coast Adventure and of course we had to make it special by sleeping in a little! Previous groups who have done this trip told us that getting an early start is important but I’m going to counter that and say sleeping in is also important and much more enjoyable!  We left Kindred, ND and were all super excited because today we were going to another state, Minnesota! We spent a little longer in North Dakota than we expected too (though spending the Fourth of July in Gackle was totally worth it) and we all geared up for our next awesome state sign photo shoot. Today’s route was a little different from what the Garmin was telling us to do because we are deciding to skip Fargo (I don’t think we are missing out terribly) as that would take us an extra 30 miles north and then right back south and we are trailblazers who absolutely don’t want to do extra mileage. Unfortunately because of the route we did take we never saw a state border sign w...

Every time a new video game comes out they boast about their dynamic weather - like okay cool the weather changes in the game - that happens in real life too so shouldn’t it really be the bare minimum? Anyway - today was like what dynamic weather in video games looks like because it changed pretty much every 30 minutes. We started out the day in a THICC mist, like the one from the movie The Mist. It was so thicc that we couldn’t see more than maybe 25 feet in either direction. After setting off, about five miles in I couldn’t see Brian or Julia anymore so I stopped so we could all be together with our lights and try not to get hit by a car. So Julia roles up and then we are sitting there waiting for Brian when I guy roles up on his 4x4 and is like hey those are nice lights, they work really well in this mist! Cue me feeling vindicated after buying a $200 set of lights for my bike (and Julia’s parents also bought her the taillight I have because they also loved it so much). Anyway, the ...

Happy 4th of July everyone!! Today was a great day in the town of Gackle. All the locals kept telling us “no one does 4th of July better than Gackle” and they were not wrong. We couldn’t have been happier to spend the holiday hanging out and not biking.  We had a nice slow morning, sleeping in and strolling to the local gas station for some breakfast blueberry muffins. We are still amazed at the prices of things because we got 4 muffins for what would’ve been the price of 1 back home. Maybe we should all just move out here to North Dakota.  There was a full itinerary of activities happening around town today and you know we had to hit them all up. We enjoyed BBQ and a Craft Fair at the Legion Hall, where I swear the entire town got in this one building. This is where we started chatting with different people in town and making a name for ourselves. “Oh! So you’re the bikers!” became very common for us to hear by the end of the day.  We then made our way back to the Honey ...

Today was the shortest day of biking we have had in a long time, just 38 miles from Napoleon to Gackle (don’t get it twisted though, 38 miles is still 38 miles). The main reason for this was because the weather app was telling us that we should expect a big storm rolling through in the early afternoon and since biking in the rain is an all around horrible experience, we decided a short day was best. This also meant we got another day of sleeping in which is always the best feeling! The forecast all turned out to be a lie however as  one of the biggest things that we have realized as we have come to North Dakota is that we really can’t trust the weather app much. Jason, our host for the night even said that North Dakota is where meteorologists who failed school end up and it sounds about right because what was supposed to be a day of mostly storms and bad weather turned out to be perfectly sunny with a mild crosswind. Hopefully this stays true because the next four days are also sup...