Top 10

Austin and Tom's top 10 reasons for biking across America:

10. Great tan lines
9. Riding in lightening storms
8. Drinking water out of mildewed camel packs
7. Seeing new places
6. Yelling at cows
5. Sleeping on couches
4. Meeting chicks (actually we didn't do this very often :(
3. Learning how to read a map
2. Changing flat tires
1. Avoid getting jobs.

So ... that is the list for today. It is subject to change depending on our mood, but No. 1 will always remain the same :) Tonight we had dinner with some college friends, and we are all sleeping on couches and blow-up beds - enjoying being in one place. Tomorrow we will again dawn our uniforms for a visit to Vanderbilt Children's. Our final hospital hooray.

We are finished riding for the time being, but we are going to hop back on the bikes on Saturday for one last ceremonial ride through Nashville. So for those of you that followed our blog like over-zealous NASCAR fans waiting for the next wreck, don't stop reading now ... more adventure to come. Who knows ... perhaps we will meet Bruise Lee?

~ Austin

Nashville!

We've made it to our final city: Nashville, TN. We left Columbia fairly early to make it to campus in time to coincide with a Vineyard Vines trunk show. We arrived at about noon and got a great reception. We hung out for a little while and handed out invitations to our event on Saturday.

After that ended, we went to our hosts, the Leas (their son, Graham, was Austin's and my roommate) to change, and then we visited the places in Nashville we haven't seen since graduation. We introduced Chelsea and Nick to the bacon cheeseburger at Sportsman's, stopped by Bongo Java, and met up with some old friends at McDougal's. It was a fun day.

~ Tom

Finish line

We've covered over 500 miles in four days. It's 11:30 now, and Tom and the crew are sound asleep. Tomorrow we are getting up at 5:00am so that we will have time to ride to the finish line at Vanderbilt by noon.

I can't believe that we are almost done. After three months, this has become quite a habit. It's going to be an odd thing for us - being finished. We have grown so used to all of this:

sleeping on couches, drinking warm gatorade, coping with saddle sore, fixing flat tires, eating stale granola, staying with people we don't know, getting bike grease on everything, getting lost, asking strangers for directions, having people honk at us, having people yell at us, traveling over 30 mph under the speed limit, traveling over the speed limit (once), riding on backroads, riding on the interstate (once), looking for silverware in people's houses, wearing the same clothes every day, forgeting various things at various homes in various states, begging guys at bicycle shops for discounts, asking people for donations, reading the label of a twinkie and deciding it is a good snack, explaining ourselves, etc.

Man, I'm gonna miss this job. So ... tomorrow is the big day. We're not sure what will happen on campus ... all we know is that we have to be there by 12:00 ...

~ Austin

place to crash

updating by phone tonight - forgive the typos:

We are in Jackson, TN staying with Lewis, one of the managers at the local Outback. Because of the holiday weekend, we had not been able to find anyone that could host us, but the people at Outback came to our rescue. We told them all about our ride, and they found us a place to crash.

Saw a sign today that read, "Nashville 124." I told Tom, "Dude, we're getting close." He said, "I know." (it was a thilling moment despite our thrilling dialouge).

~ Austin

for Christi

When we were with the Thomas family in Ohio, Christi put a whale tattoo on her forehead. At the time, I thought . . . "ha ha. Who would ever put one of those on their forehead?!"

Christi just went into hospital in Philadelphia, and she needs all of our prayers and support (visit Christi's journal). We are staying with the Horruck family in Memphis whose daughter Bella is also cancer warrior. Me and Bella wanted to do something for Christi, so we put on pink whales tattoos in her honor. I put mine on my forehead - we're riding for the Thomas Team today.

~ Austin

Put on my blue suede (biking) shoes

Today we made it to Memphis. Well, Millington, actually, but it's pretty close. We left Cape Girardo at about 6:30 thinking that we had to go about 190 miles. As Austin's constant updates show, it turned out to be 199, so a couple miles short of our longest day. Nick said we should ride up and down the street until we hit two hundred, but since we've already got one official double century under our belts, we figured we could live with 199 miles.

And as Austin's pictures show, today was pretty eventful. We rode through four different states: Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Kentucky was new, Tennessee we haven't ridden in since we were doing our training. But reaching Tennessee means the end is in sight, nineteen states and one district later. Today's journey is only one step from our final event in Nashville.

And today's journey was certainly eventful. I got three flat tires (one was only a slow leak, so I didn't need to change it), and Austin got one. While we were in St. Louis, Elizabeth, who works at St. Louis Children's, had showed us around her city. In the midst of sightseeing she braved a downpour and took us to a bike shop so we could get some new tubes. It's a good thing - we went through all of them.

Shortly after my third flat tire, at about mile 150, Austin and I picked up the pace a little. It was the first time I ever hit 37 mph on flat ground. I wish I could keep up speed like that, but since I can't, we didn't make it to Millington until after 10:00.

Our hosts were great. They stayed up and made us dinner when we arrived, introduced us to their new puppy, and let us play with their kids until bedtime. With all this good treatment, we should be ready for tomorrow's ride. That should only be about 100 miles, so hopefully we'll be rejuvenated and ready to go by morning.

~ Tom

Day in reverse

The following four posts are from today on the road. We updated by phone every few hours. So you can scroll down and view our day . . .
in reverse:

10:30pm . . .

Made it to Memphis, 199.07 miles ... had to stop for twinkies around mile 180 for extra energy . . .