Radio Daze

Just extended my stay at this internet cafe - that's right the metropolis of
Havre (5,000 people!) has an internet cafe.

I was very excited yesterday to find a station on the FM band, and it
actually played non-country music. For the past week, i could only get AM
stations, mostly country. However, i did enjoy the Northern Ag(riculture)
Network. It was pleasant to listen to the market report and instead of
listing the big movers in the Dow and NASDAQ, they listed the prices on live
cattle futures and soybean prices. I also really liked the news announcers
who delivered the news in a very grandfatherly way - plus I got to hear many
tales from Paul "and that's the REST of the story" Harvey. For two evenings
I was able to pick up an oldies station that was quite good called Dave's
Diner. Dave's music selections were fantastic, but he cracked me up every
time the commercials ended - the lead off song would already be half in
progress. It's not even that he missed the timing, no it was as if he
didn't know how to stop the music, he just kept it playing and put any news
or commericials on top of it. I also got to hear lots of local news like
highschool football season has started! Heard the interview with Mike King,
coach of the returning state class B state football champs - Malta High.

So the other day we stopped for lunch at Frazer, Montana which has it's
corner store in a trailer on the edge of town. We've gone through many
Indian reservations along the way and although have been told horror stories
by just about everyone, we have had no problems yet. In Frazer we were
talking to a guy who was Native American and he informed us that the
previous town we stopped in was knicknamed "Stab City" for having more
stabbings per capita than any other town in the country. Don't know if it's
true or not, but there's a fun fact for you. He was a travelling nurse and
said that his most common task was of taking care of diabetics - turns out
on most reservations 80-100% of residents have diabetes. He also told us
that he was to be ordained the next day by the Native American ministries or
something and asked if he could say a prayer over us. Well, looks like my
New York skepticism is starting to dissolve b/c without blinking an eye I
said, "sure."

I finally had my first flat tube two days ago. That's right, 3,000 miles on
the same tubes and tires. I thought I looked pretty cool changing the tube
Chip Coutts style on the side of the road. Luckily, there was a cattle
drive taking place across the street so Alex could fulfill the 60 minutes by
taking pictures of that. By the way, current day cowboys actually ride 4
wheel ATV's to drive the cattle instead of horses. I'm guessing that we
won't be seeing the Marlboro Man riding an ATV any time soon, even if that's
the way it's done now.

We keep running into more bikers. A guy two days ago was 77 years old and
he's finishing up his Michigan to Virginia, VA to Oregon, Oregon to Michigan
trip. Yeah, 77. I guessed early 60's this guy acted so young. We finally
met another couple who are heading from Chicago to Washington. It's nice
because we get to see them once a day usually. One night in a large town we
went to a chinese restaurant (mmmmmm not hamburgerssssss arggllhh) and they
were there too. Turns out we all have the same cravings. We swapped
stories of people we met and their top tale was of a couple who walked 5
horses and a pack mule from texas to Alaska. Took them 2 years. Oh, and
they had met 1 week prior to leaving on the excursion. Good times.
Hope you are doing well.
cheers,
leigh

The sky really is big out here

Hello!
I'm in Havre, Montana (sounds like "have or", unless you're a big dork like
me and have to pronounce it like Ben Stiller said Brett Favre's name in
There's Something About Mary).

Last week we were supposed to bike 70 some miles one day b/c there really
wasn't any other option - no towns along the way. However, half way there
we spied a little marina and decided to just stop in really quickly for a
drink. Unfortunately for us they had about 10 kinds of homemade pies
including many that contained joonberries, which are a north dakota
specialty. Well, after our slices of pie the owners convinced us to stay
the night and we could rent kayaks and take them out on Lake Sakakawea
(pronounced sa-cock'-a-we-a) yeah there's no "J" in Sakakawea, i don't know
if that was a pittsburgh thing to inject a J, which in that case gets filed
under things I learned when I left Pittsburgh. Sort of like the public
school system allowing me to think that "the grass needs cut" was a proper
sentence, and the accent in Carnegie is on the second syllable - of which I
promptly was made fun for both when i got to college. Any way you pronounce
it the lake was unbelievably beatiful with the badland topography all around
(i also didn't know what badland topography looked like, but hopefully you
will b/c i don't know how to describe it). It was really nice talking to
the owners at dinner, turned out that he was a biology professor and she was
a personnel manager at Hewlitt packard and one day they both decided that if
what they really live for is their 3 weeks of vacation hunting and fishing
in north dakota, then why not quit their other life and do that full time.
So they bought the marina, opened a restaurant and are absolutely loving
life.

On the border of North dakota and Montana we stopped at the rest stop/casino
- there are casinos everywhere out here...in the gas stations, restaurants,
hotels. Inside we talked to the bartender - we'll call her Marlene. She
couldn't believe that we were biking all the way across Montana. Suddenly
her face showed that she had an idea and said, "well, you could count all
the crosses on the side of the road, where people died in car accidents on
Route 2. That would give you something to do to pass the time." Well, gee
thanks there Marlene for that extremely gruesome car game.

Many of our nights have been spent at the city parks which are usually free
or a couple bucks to camp. At the park in Wolf Point the showers were
attached to the town pool. The "showers" were actually shower heads on the
wall in the changing area/bathroom. I heard the lifeguards whistle
signifying the end of the swimming day and knew that soon i would be
bombarded with lots of little girls - many who would be quite shocked to see
me showering in the middle of their changing room. I decided to prolong the
encounter by changing my contacts. Suddenly I heard little shouts of, "you
have contacts?! can i watch?! Can i touch them?!" Apparently the advanced
technology of contacts isn't widely spread across Montana. I got to talking
with the little girls and when they found out that I lived in New York,
their obvious first question (as any good 11 year old would ask) was, "do
you know where the TRL building is?" When I replied "yes" their eyes got
really big and fought each other to be the first to get the next question
out, "do you know Carson Daly?!" (For those of you who haven't spent much
time near a 10-17 year old lately, TRL and Carson Daly are the American
Bandstand and Dick Clark for the new millenium.) To their dissapointment I
admitted that i did not know Carson Daly and my stock continued to fall as I
answered "no" to the questions of "Did i know Britney Spears Christina
Aquilera Backstreet Boys nsync?" I thought really hard and said, "I did see
Gwyneth Paltrow on the street once." That received an eyebrow raising, "oh
that's not bad" and i was back on their good side. We discussed how I was
soon to take a shower inside and they said that people take showers in their
w/ their bathing suits all the time, except this one time when this crazy
lady took a shower buck naked, w/ soap!" I replied that soon I was to
become that crazy lady and they decided that it was time for them to leave.

Hope everyone is doing well.
cheers!
leigh

Wide open spaces

Hello!
I'm still in Minot, ND.

Most of you know we've picked up a new member of the team - Alex. We met up
with Alex in Fargo. We quickly learned that the people of Fargo definitely
have a love-hate relationship with the movie of the same name, after the
first 3 people we talked to all brought up the movie in their first sentence
and asked if we thought they were really like that. My favorite Fargo story
is the following. I called 3 hotels in fargo checking their prices. I had
their addresses but i needed to know where they were located. I had the
same conversation with the women from the first two hotels and finally
changed my ways with the third.
Me: "Oh, and one more thing, what is your cross street?"
Woman from Hotel: "The what?"
Me: "The cross street?"
WFH: "The cross street?"
ME: "Yes, the cross street."
WFH: pause, then "301 third avenue."
Me: "Yes, and what would the cross street be?"
WFH: long pause as I could hear her brain churning and drops of sweat from
her forhead hit the phone receiver, then a "I'm sorry?"

Finally I explained to her what i was looking for. I didn't realize that it
wasn't a nationally accepted term.

I'm not sure how many of you have ever been to North Dakota, I never had.
It's very hard to imagine if you grew up west of Illinois. I mean, we'll
bike for 30 miles of farm land to hit the first town of 80 people where
we'll bike down Main Street which consists of a few closed buildings, a
diner/bar and maybe a post office. Main Street really looks like the Main
Streets of old westerns where there is nothing around, no houses except this
one short street with about 4 buildings on it. Then after lunch we'll bike
another 30 miles to get to the big town of 130 people in it which has the
same services and maybe a city park. We don't see many gas stations or
anything else, especially no advertising. It is very cool. Since we can't
stop for as many breaks, we usually go into the diners (they call them
drive-ins) to sit down for lunch. For the past ten days I've had 8
cheeseburgers, one mooseburger, and one club sandwich. They don't have a
lot of variety on the drive-in menus, but let me tell you the pies are
fantastic. I had the best pie I've ever eaten two days ago - called fruit
of the forest which had every fruit in it that you can find in the forest.
Oh, was it good. It's been nice having Alex around because he provides a
lot of perspective to the way of life we have adopted over the past 2.5
months. Like when he told us, "wow, i've never heard anyone talk so long
about the flavors of gatorade." But you see, when you are on the bike long
stories are good and the more tangents the better to pass the time. Melissa
and I were long winded before, I'm really afraid of entering conversations
with people on either coast now.

Last saturday we ended up in the little town of Page, ND. page had the same
services as the other towns, with one added bonus - a movie theater. It was
an old one screener that showed only on saturday night at 7:30. We jammed
dinner down so that we could make the showing of Legally Blonde. there were
so many reasons why I loved that night let me start listing them.
1. B/c admission cost $4.25
2. b/c my pack of m&m's cost $.75 (i mean yeah the ticket price was cheap
but when was the last time refreshments cost under $3?)
3. b/c the sign on the door had only three rules of the theater listed as
follows:
A. No feet on the seats
B. No talking
C. No Running (i couldn't stop laughing at the no running rule. how funny
is that?)
4. b/c half way through the movie we heard little ten year old feet running
around the theater
5. b/c the movie broke down about 25 times from the start of the previews
til the credits
6. b/c the previews were for movies that came out July 4th or earlier.
7. b/c the movie was not adjusted to fit the screen so Reese Witherspoon's
chin never made it on the screen in close ups and all cars were scrunched in
so that they appeared to have shot them in England.
8. b/c they had a raffle with our ticket stubs at one of the points when
the movie broke down proving that they were anticipating the breakdown, b/c
were they going to do the raffle at the end of the movie? that wouldn't
make sense.
9. b/c the audience was mostly made up of 8-10 year old girls all who had
their bikes parked outside next to ours.
10. b/c I hadn't seen a movie in a long time and i would take whatever i
could get.

The next day we stopped into Hope, ND for a late breakfast early lunch.
Well, all 75 people of Hope were in the drive-in for a little after church
breakfast. It took us 1.5 hours to get our eggs, but it was worth it
sitting there talking to all of the farmers and their families. We got
invited to go home with one of them and help with the combining. I've
picked up that it is the season to combine (accent on the first syllable).
This particular farmer was extremely proud of his high school age son who
had a date the night before and took her to the movie in page. Very funny,
but we didn't see him there and he didn't mention that he saw us, so we're
thinking that they didn't end up at the movie, but we held our tongues and
didn't blow his cover. It was also amusing to see all of the old men come
over to the young guy and ask how football practice was going and how the
team was going to do them proud this year. I wanted to ask him a ton of
questions, like how can you field a team with a TOWN of 75 people. But, i
never got the chance.

We've seen more cross country bikers in the past week than the rest of the
trip combined (accent on the second syllable again). My favorites were two
guys we met outside of Fargo heading eastward - actually all those we met
are heading eastward, very smart. We asked them where they started and they
replied with, "Actually we're on our way back. We started in Mass. Headed
down to Virginia, then over to oregon, and now heading back." At least we
took solace in the fact that they looked really ragged and tired and said
they just wanted to get home to see their girlfriends.
Later tonight we'll drop Melissa off at the train station. It should be
pretty sad, but I'm psyched that I can continue on. We'll probably stop
for one more ice cream at the Dairy Queen for old times sake.

Enjoy the weekend! I'm sure that you all will be renting lots of Kevin
Smith movies in preparation for the release of Jay and Silent Bob Strikes
Back which opens on Wednesday. It better be showing in Montana or that
might be the one negative thing that happens on this trip.

Ok, i really am getting kicked off now, so hope everyone is doing well.
cheers!
leigh

Kindness of Strangers

Hello,
I'm in Minot, North Dakota. It's been a while since I've seen a library so
let me try to pick up where we left off.

Leaving Minneapolis we started to encounter really friendly people. Not
that other places didn't have friendly people, but EVERYONE out here is
friendly. Around 95% of drivers wave to us first while we are biking. No
joke. I have a few stories about how kind everyone has been to us. Outside
of Minneapolis one night we didn't have any place to stay - it turned out
the campground had closed, the motel was booked and the B&B was going to be
way out of our price range. I'll spare you the details, but we ended up
camping on the back porch of one of the town council members. The guy,
Brian, turned out to be completely interesting - he is a beekeeper, jewelry
maker (he even made melissa and me pendants while we were talking), and he
is a lighting/technician kind of guy for movies/tv. He showed us one video
of a show he worked on called Let's Bowl that aired on the Minneapolis cable
access channel - kind of funny in a really random bowling kind of way.
Anyway, today while we were watching tv (we're in a motel room - Yay!) we
saw a commercial for Let's Bowl on Comedy Central. We were very excited to
realize that Brian and his gang of comedic misfits finally made it onto the
national scene.

When we tell people out here that we are biking cross country starting in
Maine, most of them tell us that we are going the wrong way. Not b/c we are
lost, but because we are traveling against the prevailing winds. For the
first half of the trip we could laugh them off, because we luckily did not
face any kind of headwind. Well, that all has changed. Thankfully, the
heat wave has ended but the wind has really picked up. We asked three
different people if westerly winds meant coming from or going to the west
since we kept hearing on the radio that we would have westerly winds for the
upcoming days. Unfortunately all of them agreed that westerly winds means
coming from the west which produces a brutal headwind for us. One day last
week we realized that there was just no way that we would make the town with
the campground at the 6mph at which we were traveling. So, we finally hit a
town whose only service was a restaurant. We walked in and asked if she
knew of any place for us to camp. She offered the backyard of the
restaurant and we almost started crying it was such a relief. The
restaurant was actually in a old one room red school house that was built in
the 1880's. Gail was a fantastic hostess, dinner was wonderful and her free
breakfast the next morning of eggs, toast and homemade freezer jam couldn't
be beat.

Campgrounds have been charging us much less out here than they did back east
which was around $20. All of them have asked either $5 total or given us
the site for free. One woman kept the kitchen open for us so that we
wouldn't have to cook our own dinner and then when we were leaving came out
and gave us a freshly cut cucumber in a ziploc baggie. Now back in your
world, a small bag of cucumber might not be that big of a deal, but for us
who hadn't seen fresh produce in many days, it was an amazing gesture. That
night we camped on a bluff about 70 feet above the mississippi River. It
was breathtaking and really surprising how many stars can be seen when there
aren't any city lights interfering.

I'm going to end this now, because i don't know when i'm going to be kicked
off this computer. Hope everyone is doing well.
cheers,
leigh

Personnel Announcement

I am proud to announce a new addition to the team, Alex MacDonald. Alex
joins us from Chicago where he was living passing the time after he quit his
job to move out to Montana and ski all winter. We first heard from Alex via
email about a month ago. He was getting my emails forwarded to him from his
mother who received my emails from her good friend, my Aunt Karen. Alex is
a perfect member for our team and fits right in with his sense of humor and
agreeable nature.

It is with deep sadness that I must announce that Melissa Wagamon will be
departing the trip on Saturday to return to Philadelphia and her previous
job. Melissa was an amazing partner for the first half of this trip and
made it an unbelievable journey. We wish her luck as she re-enters east
coast life. She will be truly missed.

Leigh

And then the cops came, and I ran

Hello,
I'm still in Minneapolis and it's 2am.

My Aunt Karen just moved to Iowa (it is somewhere in the upper 20's of the
number of times my Aunt Karen and Uncle Bob have moved) and was kind enough
to drive up to Minneapolis for a little air conditioned hotel sleeping, lots
of eating at restaurants and an excursion to the mall of america with me.
My aunt karen sort of inspired me to go to the mall, since she is an
excellent shopper - it is almost an art form to watch her - while i am a
sad, sad slacker with no shopping agenda. Highlights of the MOA - riding
the roller coaster, and taking a break in the middle of the day to watch a
movie at the cineplex in the mall. A big public thank you to my aunt for
totally taking care of me for 2 days, it was a great vacation from my
vacation.

I met a cool girl while we were biking through Stillwater, MN named Rachael
who kindly offered to take me out one night while Melissa was in Philly. We
went out for good Vietnamese food with her friend Claudia. Both were
extremely cool. Later that night they asked if I wanted to go swimming in
one of the lakes (they have 10,000 of them you know). I said sure, if
that's what the Minnesotans do, then why not. We went to a place called
Hidden Beach which was really amazing with a full moon overhead, completely
still water and someone had created a campfire on the beach. Around 11:45
we decided to head home. While we were walking out of the woods to the car,
we noticed a police car pull up. Then another and another until there were
5 police cars and one big ole police van. The first policeman came up and
asked us where we were from. I responded with a big smile "North Carolina!"
You see i have lived enough places that I can be "from" about 3 places and
i judge the audience to determine which answer to use. To any officer of
the law I have learned to always say North Carolina. The reasoning is two
fold - 1. b/c my license and car's plates say i'm from Carolina (long
story) and 2. b/c if I am north of the Mason Dixon line the officer
immediately thinks I'm really stupid, feels sorry for me and usually lets me
off easy. So, in true form this policeman asked as a follow up a little
slower than he asked the first question, "What are you doing all the way up
here?"
"I'm biking cross country," I responded cheerfully. His face began to look
fatherly stern as he said, "you know you're not supposed to be swimming
after 10pm, see that sign?" I replied with my best surprised, "oh!"
"Yeah," continued mr. policeman, "we're going down to the beach right now to
arrest everyone." All I could muster was, "for real?" And he assured me
that yes, they were going to arrest everyone for...swimming. No mention of
public drunkenness, no possession of drugs, no disturbing the peace, just
swimming after 10pm. I wonder what Jesse The Body would say to that. Well,
being that I am an extremely lucky individual, we were able to walk away
laughing instead of facing a ride in the paddy wagon.

Just like all of the other cities, I could stay here for another week.
Well, except for the fact that it is so freaking hot. Luckily the hostel
that we are in has a free internet connection (even if it is hot as Hades on
the second floor), b/c I cannot sleep right now due to the heat. It's
Minnesota! What's this 108 degrees with the heat index stuff? Don't worry,
we drink lots of fluids and take lots of breaks when we are biking and it is
this hot.

Hope everyone is doing well.
Cheers,
leigh

Miss Congeniality

Hello,
I'm in Minneapolis, MN. I've been here for a few days, while Melissa flew
back to Philly. Yes, it was time for another one of our vacations from our
vacation.

A few days ago we were in Red Wing, Minnesota. Some of you know that I like
watching movies. I tend to go to quite a few. Now that i'm out in the real
world here, things are constantly reminding me of movies I've seen. So,
probably twice a day I'll say to Melissa, "Oh! have you seen (insert any
movie title here)?" Melissa, however does not like watching movies and 95%
of the time responds with, "no." Actually i've realized, if the movie i'm
thinking of isn't Tommy Boy, Willy Wonka, something by Kevin Smith, Dune, or
a movie about beauty pageants, to just keep my mouth shut, since odds are
she hasn't seen it. Luckily, Drop Dead Gorgeous is a film about beauty
pageants, so we both were equally apalled by the following real life
situation. Most of you probably have not seen Drop Dead Gorgeous as it was
a little seen dark comedy that didn't make much money and well, wasn't
really oscar quality, but if you have you are lucky b/c you probably will
find the following story much more amusing than the rest fo the population.

We walked out of the library in Red Wing, Minnesota around 12:30 and two
high school age girls walked by with sashes. I looked down the other side
of the street and there were two more walking towards us with the white
satin sashes. I looked at Melissa and we both whispered, "ohmygod!
pageant!" Now see the movie takes place in beautiful Mount Rose, Minnesota
and after hanging out in the town square as the young women did there
"presentation" phase of the pageant we realized that the movie we thought of
as a parody was really more like a documentary. From the committee members
telling us in thick Minnesota accents that this is the largest "scholarship
program" (never refer to it as a pageant) in Minnesota to the emcee exalting
that she was Miss Red Wing 1989, real life became funnier than fiction.
There even was a John Doe who walked up to us and said in a fake shocked
voice, "what do we have here, a picnic?" Meanwhile you know he had it in
big red letters on his calendar and has been x-ing off the days for the past
month. It was a little creepy having him stand behind us, but it was worth
it to be witness to the following conversation:

Old guy (around 95) hobbling towards us screams in a crotchety voice:
"What's going on?!"
Pedophile in the same fake voice: "I don't know i was just passing by, but
they said lunch was $6 and that i could stick around b/c something was going
to happen." long pause and then begins again: "Looks like these two girls
(melissa and me) have found the only shady spot in the whole square."
Old guy: "HEH???!!"
Pedophile: "LOOKS LIKE THESE TWO HAVE FOUND THE ONLY SHADY SPOT IN THE
WHOLE SQUARE!"
Old guy: "HEH?! THEY'RE SHADY?!"

We then got to see each girl go up and give their presentation which
consisted of this speech (please read in a minnesota cheerleading accent)
"Hi, I'm Patricia Bauer, my parents are John and Carol Bauer, this fall i
will be attending the University of Minnesota at Duluth. At this time I'd
like to thank my sponsor Bauer construction supplies...where we build power
at Bauer!"

The only downer of the event was that there were about 15 8 year old girls
running around getting the contestants' autographs. I wanted to sceam out,
"no! these are not your role models! WE should be your role models." but
then i caught myself as i was rising up to declare this because what was i
going to say, "Be like us b/c we slept on the ground last night, haven't
been to work in 3 months and ate pb&j for dinner yesterday?" I had to
succumb to the realization that my lone voice cannot fight against the
influence of Seventeen magazine, MTV, and the pageant committee of Red Wing.
Ahh, the committee members - each one in their matching white sleveless
polo shirts with navy blue shorts. One of my favorite quotes from a committe
member was, "yes, the queen is pretty much the good will ambassador for the
town of Red Wing during the year of her reign." Why? To smooth over that
nasty little border dispute you had back in '95 with Wisconsin? To work on
building peace with Canada? Come on!

And so ends my rant. I am sorry if I have offended any hidden Miss
Willoughby, Ohio's out there.

Hope everyone is doing well.
cheers,
leigh