Day 50 - 51

to put things in perspective, Evan mentioned he felt much better waking up after a 100 mile day than he did waking up after 4 days in Fargo. Finally symptoms of the Irish Flu were fading away. 50th day on the road and we had yet to find a lake to swim in, until now. Back home in Oregon its hard to find a lake or river that wont freeze your butt off, unless you're used to that kind of water, which is why it was nice to cool off in a lake on a very hot day. Evan if the water smelt like sewage. After the refreshing dip and a snack we were off to finish our ride to Bowlus. Whether it was the circumstances that led us to to this point, or because we are just a certain breed of bike tourists, we managed to find an all all you can drink bar before we found an all you can eat buffet. Alex was once again being submerged in the American culture and rushed into his first all you can eat restaurant. We found a nice little family owned restaurant called Jories. One nice place about these small little towns, is that the restaurant you eat dinner at, the bar youy drink at, and the park you sleep at are all on the same block. The food at Jordies was great, bbq and fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing and coleslaw. IT was just like a family thanksgiving dinner, After we ate all we really could eat which was a lot, we went across the street to the city park to set up camp. After letting everything digest, the bar just 10 feet away looked to tempting, so we decided to check it out. the rest of the night was spent spending time with great small town people, like one guy who said one minute after minute "you'll never forget bowlus" and because of the night spent in that great small town, we really wont ever forget Bowlus.

51
it was definitely hard to leave our tents the morning we woke up in bowles. after a few hours of hanging around and pourposly taking a long time to pack up our stuff, we road two blocks for iced tea at the gas station. we looked like a shabby group of bikers at that point, barely being able to make it out of town, but thank god we did. Making it to royalton just 6 miles away, we stopped for a bit to rest our tires bodies, the majority of us were pretty beat. Alex averaged 90 miles a day before he met us. With two months to cross the U.S he road long days and hoped to spend some time on the east coast before flying back to England, and then to China. An older couple of cycle-tourists pulled up to the gas station where we were lying down. They had met Alex earlier on his trip, back in glacier and managed to catch up with him after all that time. Themselves, only averaging 40 miles a day. Explaining that we aren't the "average cyclists" They shook their heads and rode off. Mounting our bikes once again, we headed off, knowing we had to make it to at least Milaca. we pushed as hard as our hangovers would allow. Maybe we should of attempted this trip before we turned 21, cause Hank kept throwing up while riding towards camp. Relived to be at Milaca, we headed for Pizza hut, and ordered four large pizzas and two orders of bread sticks. Dazing in and out of a full stomach sleep while watching shark week was just the kind of break we needed. The town didn't have a campsite, so we ventured through town and found an abandoned garage with trees to screen us from the road. We set our tents while killing a massive swarm of mosquitoes. Exhausted we all feel into a very deep sleep, not looking forward to departing from Alex in the Morning.