Well we are all home again. What a fun adventure. I had a great time. Thank you Katie for pushing for the trip and for your very good navigation. The day our trip started, she gave me the nickname "PAPA Smurf" and put a label on my blue bike. I then knew that this was going to be another good trip. Thank you to Chris and Laura for all of their hard planning to make the trip happen. Thanks to TJ, I am very glad you came on the trip, you helped make the trip more fun. (But I never did get you to carry one of my bags). I could not have asked for a better group to travel with. Everyone helped each other keep their moral up and kept the trip fun. We always said it is about the trip, not about the destination.

Hi to everyone. I am having a great time. It is as much fun as I had hoped for. We have seen a lot of sights, and met a lot of very nice people. It seems whenever some hears what we are doing, they bend over backwards to help us.

If the second half of the trip is as much fun, it will be a great trip.

Tuesday morning we left Prairie du Chien. We knew we were in for a very hot day with heat warnings all over the area. First we stopped at the post office and mailed home 13 lbs of gear. The night before we stopped at Cabella's and bought some hot weather gear. The things we sent home were warm weather things we replaced with hot weather gear. The postal workers really liked our story, helped us pack up our stuff, and took a picture of us with our bikes and package in front of the post office.

Several years ago I would hear Chris talking about taking the bike trip from home to the Gulf of Mexico. I thought he was just talking. Over time I found out he really had this goal.