Home sweet home!!

Well after the long and grueling 51 best days of our lives, our dream of cycling this great nation of ours is complete, done, finished, over!!! Other than T's marriage to his lovely fiance Sabrina the road for us both is pretty uncertain. Our trip was everything we expected to see and more. The hospitality of the USA with the few exceptions of course was phenomenal, the scenery greatly diverse, and the people we met during the trip unforgettable. We would like to thank EVERYONE from our families, friends, and lady friends back at home who supported us through it all to the companions we made on the road. Sadly to say the easy part is now over and the hard part is about to come...life. We will be thrown into the real world sooner than we want only to think back to our manifest destiny as a memory to last a lifetime.

other than that, I'm sure you guys just want to here about the last week of our trip!!

• we hit OREGON, the last state!!!
• Met an English guy named GUY who ate a 1/2 gallon of ice cream before our eyes!!
• Sneakily made it through one of the windiest places on earth , the Columbia gorge with minimal winds. thank the lord!!!
• Rode along very old scenic highway 30 in Oregon passing over 75 waterfalls!!!!
• My trailer getting its first flat of the WHOLE trip 10 miles from the Pacific coast?!?
• arrived at SEASIDE our final destination
• survived a 12 foot+ diameter tree falling in the middle of the night at our campsite
• Surfed the Oregon coast while becoming the talk of the town somehow(probably our good looks)
• skated Burnside skate park all day in Portland while waiting for our flight

So becoming the talk of the town at least needs a little rundown of how this all happened once we hit seaside. It all started when we were man handling our bikes down to the water to dip the tires in the water when these tourist happen to see that we obviously are accomplishing something pretty big. so they meander over and start a little small talk as we get them to take our picture for us when this lady become infatuated with our trip. well knowing that people finish all summer long in seaside, we thought this would be no big thing and went along with finding out more information about town. well about an hour later this same lady, Sheree, finds us again and tells us how her friend called one of her camera man friends Dave and that he's on his way out to shoot our story. When Dave arrives, he shoots our story and all is fine. Dave calls his friend Keith who runs the local aquarium and tells him that he just has to meet these two guys who just rode their bike from Virginia!! Keith comes over, takes us back to the aquarium gives us a sweet tour and he just happened to be good friends with the owner of a local surf shop Josh. During small talk we let Keith know we're trying to rent some gear and hit the beach, hes like "oh man let me make this phone call." Keith then calls Josh at the surf shop and is like you have to meet these guys. well you get the point...Josh gives us free gear, Keith then takes us half way to this sick surf spot, Dave calls another buddy next door from where we got dropped off at to try and find us a ride, Jeff from the copy center says he can do it, Jeff actually cant do it so he calls his buddy Tom who then pulls up and we hop in his truck. we leave our bikes at the surf shop and in about 20 min down the road Tom drops us off. Before we knew it, T and I were SURFING FOR FREE!!!

the next morning, after we survive the tree falling, ( Dave and Keith come out to the spot and check on us to make sure everything is fine. Keith actually brings along Pam a reporter from the local paper who then interviews us for a little while. This whole time Dave is getting double footage from the tree and us. we end up surfing. Well Pam being a really really nice lady wants to take us out for dinner and treat us to a real meal after our accomplishment. after she saved us from being marooned out at this surf spot all day, she then gives us a VERY educated tour of the whole city and tops it off by taking us to the best fish and chips in town. in addition to all this, Dave the cameraman let us stay in his guest house/ cottage thing!!!

talk about a perfect ending to a perfect trip. (Pam writes an awesome story about us that takes up about half of the front page of the newspaper the next day)http://www.dailyastorian.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=398&ArticleID=52339

We, T and JC, formally close this blog forever and always to be used as aids for us killing time at work and remembering what riding 8 to 10 hours a day feels like and the memories that goes along with riding our bikes CROSS COUNTRY!!

-Thomas William Fortune

-Justin Craig Cantrell

BIRTHDAY and SUNSHINE!!!!!!

The weather has been PERFECT since the last post. everyday the weather has been 75/80ish with the sun shining. when we left stevensville we met a lady on the way out of the sandwich shop where we grabbed some lunch at who just told how great Missula was. Long story short, she talked us into taking a half day off in missula and hangin out. She informed us about some live music that was happening in town that night and after romping our way through a thrift shop we met her and some friends before these shows that they had in store for us. First show they took us to was some pretty "upbeat country rock" stuff that was really good. the good news about this place was that people could dance... and i mean legit dance. moves and all. T and I tried our best but when it came down to it we kinda mingled with the people and watched the music. after our dance session there they had another place in mind and right when T and I walked in, we knew this place was a little more our style. The music right when you walked in took control of your body!!! from the depths of your soul, your body just was automatically GROOVING with the music. probably one of the FUNKIEST bands either one of us have heard in our lives. to say the least we were there until the place closed a good 3 hours later covered in sweat and about to fall asleep standing up. One of Shelly's friends allowed us to crash at her place to complete one of our craziest nights yet.

After Missula we left and climbed our way into the last time zone we will encounter!!!! not to mention that was the state line into Idaho. Idaho was perfect!!

• free camping anywhere
• natural hot springs(this includes a WEIRD story that will have to be told in person dealing with nudist hahahahaha)
• camp fires every night
• the Locksaw river
• on top of all that T's 22 BIRTHDAY!!!!!!.

we are actually out of Idaho but that just means one thing...were in WASHINGTON! I'm not too sure if you guys know but Washington is clear across this nation of ours? i mean FAR FAR from home. less than a week away and were getting excited. the library lights just flashed so i think that is a little hint to wrap things up. we miss everyone and cant wait to actually tell all of our stories in person, this whole typing thing with numb hands doesn't work too well.

-The Good, Bad, and... (we both look good)

Winter in June???

Well since last post, which has been a little while, our bodies have not seen the light of day!!! Wyoming summed up-wind, rain, cold, ice, hail, snow, oh did we mention the wind? It literally rained on us every day in Wyoming, snowed on us twice, 2 hail storms, and I'm not too sure if it ever rose above 50. and it def got below freezing a multitude of nights. no need to worry though, between being real men, meeting really nice people, sleeping 6 cyclist in one hotel room, and finding ever natural hot springs in the whole state, we made it! oh dont forget the wyoming traffic jam we survived...see pic!!!!

enough about Wyoming, Montana has treated us a tab bit better. we met a three some from Colorado going from fort Collins that we rode with a couple days, a professor from Boston riding to Portland, and believe it or not we ran into someone from flipping JMU!!!!!!! Our buddy Dave is going from west to east and RANDOMLY bumped into him at a Patagonia outlet factory in Dillon MO. after exchanging stories of AWFUL weather we all shared a hotel room only to wake up to a severe weather warning for the day!!

quick perfect story of the hospitality of America /(could have been ax murderers but we had hope) after riding through a HAIL storm in early MO, this lady in a suv came up beside T and started drilling him with questions of just where are you going? after that? oh my goodness after that? long story short, she pulls off the road and talks to us a little and opens up her home to us. she gives us directions, a hot shower, and a warm bed. we said well of course well do that!!! we look on the maps to see where this is and it is over 150 miles away!?!? we were a little confused but after a couple days of riding we call her up and tell her we will be in town shortly and if the offer was still up we would love to stay for a warm night with yall. she said oh my goodness well i wont be there but my husband will make you dinner and just call him and let him know?! so we called a person we literally have never met, told him we will be at his house in about 2 hours and that we would love dinner. when we got there, it was the most beautiful house, he was making buffalo meatballs and spaghetti!!!! and told us that by the time we shower up, dinner will be ready. we get out of the shower and he offers us anything from his full bar in the back, and pours us some wine with dinner and then Tom, his daughter Sarah, and us chill around the dining room table stuffing our face!! we literally thought we were going to wake up from a dream. nothing could have been better. in the morning they left for work and told us that fruit coffee, and eggs were right in the kitchen and to just help ourselves!!! on top of this when we walked out side, the sun was shining and it was going to be 70!!!today. our week and a half of miserable winter weather in June was finally over and Tom, Sarah, and Darla helped us have a rejuvenation of a lifetime.

well i hope that some of these pictures you guys baking in a heat wave in the east can appreciate because we went a couple days without feeling our fingers or toes. at the first sight of a drop of sweat today, we are going to stop and celebrate and we have made a vow to never complain about being hot again!!

Lewis and Clark

ps we think in Missula MO we are going to catch the lewis and clark trail to portland since we lost massive time the last week or so. this will cut a couple hundred miles. this will allow us to keep the mind set of "vacation riding of look at that lets take a pic" instead of "we have to get miles in today!!!" to say the least, im pretty sure were making the right decision.

Wyoming...and still going.

Its been a while, but we finally got those pictures to upload. Theres a handful of new ones at the bottom of the page for you to check out. Colorado was unbelievable....the pictures don't even begin to do them justice. We got into Wyoming last night...and apparently wyoming is very windy. A lady we met told us today about how 100 mph winds are not uncommon!! But luckily, she said most of that happens in an area that we are not traveling through, so lets keep our finders crossed. We are both doing well, gettting weird tan lines, and excited to be making so much progress. We hope to write more soon, but we've got to go for now. Ok bye.