It was a rough night in Hope. Around midnight, seemingly right after finishing the blog post, the sky opened up and started dumping water on us. It honestly sounded like someone was spraying a hose onto my tent on the high pressure setting. Amazing.

It was nice for an hour or so when we woke up, so at least we did not have to pack up in the rain.

TJ stayed dry. Roger just had some mist getting in his tent, the girls and I had some minor leakage. Overall it went pretty well, but the noise of the storm didn't let up for a few hours.

First of all, this post was brought to you by Chuckwagon. When we visited him, he gave us his mobile broadband card to use in case we were in an area without wifi. Here we are in Hope North Dakota, in our tents, in a city park by a pool, with no wifi access......the mobile broadband unit works great! Thanks Chuckwagon! Also, thanks to Roger and Dee for the mobile battery pack that is powering the Wifi, and the Laptop from Mike at work that is posting this. Most trips would just end in me sleeping, but now I can stay up late posting here! Yeah.....kinda.

The weatherman had good and bad news for us. This would be the end of a long rainy stretch of weather, however it would bring with it a 25mph headwind. Yikes. Good thing we decided to take this bike trail, and good thing it was pretty well sheltered. The trail must have cut the wind in half, or possibly more. Thank goodness! We may have lost ground today otherwise!

We had our half rest day yesterday, in hopes of making 70 plus miles today. It was looking pretty good when the weatherman predicted a strong tailwind out of the East. We were all excited when we woke up, but quickly learned that the forcast had been revised and the wind would be out of the North. Darn! We have to go North West!.

All of our fans were lined up along the road.

Each adventure of my life has dealt some sort of new challenge or experience. Heat, cold, mechanical failures, hunger, draught, injury, or even problems with wildlife. Weather and road surface is always an issue, but today the combination worked against us in ways I have never faced. It rained all night, and all day. The bike trail was eventually soft enough to limit us to a crawl. The gravel became mud, and everyone slugged onward at a snails pace. After 2 hours, we had only progressed 10 miles.

None of our raingear kept the rain out today, but it did help keep us warm.

So, this is it. Goodbyes, hugs, and a surreal feeling that today is like every other day...this couldnt' be the day we have waited for. Even biking down the trail, Katie comments that this just feels like a normal ride. Surreal was her word, not mine.

Everyone exchanged hugs.

Photos were taken, and family waved us goodbye. We pulled out of the house at around 2pm.

Katie just pulled this fortune out of a cookie. I have to say, Katie gets very specific and accurate fortunes out of cookies....and it isn't like she eats at Chinese restaurants more than a couple times per year. Amazing.

What is with this girl and fortune cookies? The day before her bike accident a few years ago, she got this poor fortune. Yeah, the day before!

WHAT A DEAL!!!! Katie has decided to raise money for two Charities. She is asking for one penny for each five miles that she bikes on this trip. If she completes the 2500 mile trip, the donation would be only $5.

The Plan
Our plan is as follows..............5 riders for this trip....

Northern Tier ACA Map: Northern Tier ACA Map

DATES:
School Ends: Friday June 10th
Start Date: We will leave Saturday and Sunday for packing, last minute planning, and goodbyes, then leave Monday June 13th.
End Date: We must be home August 8th, 8 weeks later.

I added pictures, google earth, and corrections to day 19. Check it out.

Enjoy.