Yup, another day of struggling. At least the rain was scattered today, so we did not spend the whole day soaked!

It was pouring when we woke up, so we rested and waited out the storm. Roger kept watch out the window, to let us know when mother nature was ready to take a break. We did not leave Cooperstown until almost 1pm.

At least TJ could spend the time with his new buddy.

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.

This was a rough day for our group. Yesterdays blog by Chris mentioned Big Sky Country and "The sky seems to always be more intimidating in these flat areas". Well, I was up quite late last night and checked the radar one last time. When I saw it I knew they were having a rough night. Reds and oranges on radar are never a good thing. Sure enough they had some pretty good storms. Roger said it's pretty hard to sleep threw those in a tent. Then today....................you guessed it, more storms. Some even included sleet. At one point they had to take shelter under the eve of a house; no one was home. They are in a hotel tonight drying out, warming up and hoping to get some much needed sleep. Roger thought they would post tonight but they must have all been just to tired.

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.

A fabulous weather day today - sunshine and blue skies!

We had a late start this morning. After waking up a little later than normal, we had to go find breakfast in town because our hotel did not have any (the only down side to this hotel - otherwise a great, clean place). We left our gear in the room and rode our bikes into town. The only choices were McDonald's or a bar/restaurant, so we chose the restaurant. It took a long time to get our food. Chris and TJ had pancakes that were as big as the plate, but not so good. We still cannot figure out where the syrup went that we poured on.?.

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!

They had a very good weather day yesterday, no rain at all. They did battle head winds all day though. They needed to get some miles under them so 72 miles was really good with those headwinds. It did however, take a toll on them. Roger told me they would post last night, then called me just before he was going to sleep to let me know I should do it because the rest were all sound asleep already. Work hard, play hard, fall asleep with out posting. Sounds right for them and for me.

ANOTHER DAY OF RAIN!!!!!

Okay, I got it out now. We are tired of all the rain that seems to be following us. It sounds like the weather should be better tomorrow, still overcast but less rain.

We got a late start leaving the hotel waiting for the rain to slow down. Here is a picture of what TJ does to fill the time while he is waiting.

We left the hotel and made it one block to the bike trail and the group had to stop to put on their rain gear. Because the rain was so persistent today we don't have many pictures, but here is a good one of Dad in his rain gear.

This morning we woke to a freezing room. As we all were waking up Chris got up and checked the weather and started to find a faster route to the bike trail we got told about yesterday. We left the hotel about 10:15 this morning alittle later then we planned. It was suppose to be 70% chance of rain through out the day.

As we left we were lucky it wasn't raining yet and that we had a tailwind that gave us a average of 12.5 mph. About 10 miles into the day it started to rain. We all pulled our rain jackets out. After we all got our rain jackets on we watched the rain as it came pouring toward us, which then stopped about 50 yards in front of us. Another lucky moment of our day.

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.