We made it! 2,004 miles and over $5000.00! We are tired and happy to be finished. We are now at my brother's house with his wife Carla and their two children, Conner and Cerrigan. We have been napping and eating voraciously and spending very little time outside. Our bikes are sitting neglected in the garage. We both decided Kentucky was the most beautiful state with Missouri coming in second. Kansas has the nicest people but we prefer hilly terrain over flat terrain. We missed the hardships of the Appalachains, only suffered through their foothills.

It does feel strange not to be waking up and getting ready for a day of riding but it also feels quite peaceful. We feel so fortunate to have made the trip with only numerous flat tires and a stolen Bob trailer as mishaps - no bodily injuries other than a swollen knee and occasional sunburn. We really couldn't have done it without all the suppor through your comments here, on Facebook and through your donations. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.

http://www.wtvq.com/iphone/8950-family-bikes-across-country-for-mental-illness
Cut and paste this, and you'll see us biking in a downpour and talking about bipolar.

Wow, West Virginia is sure hilly! Today was just one big hill after hill after hill after hill. We luckily stopped at the right house for water in the midst of all the climbing. The family invited us in to their air conditioned house, gave us ice cold water to drink while they filled our water bottles with ice and water. They even gave us two cold bottles of water to take with us and loved hearing about our adventure. They were having a family reunion but were happy to invite us in for a few minutes of paradise.

Today was lovely scenery (I missed my phone/camera so much) except towards the end when the heat and the hills got the best of us. We had a late lunch at McDonalds, believe it or not. I haven't eaten there since Raine was a preschooler and then I only ate the fries. Today was the full shabang - quater pounder (which was not nearly as large as I remember them being when I had to cook those slabs in high school in my bright lime green uniform at the newly built McDonalds in my town). Disappointing! I could have devoured six of them. This trip certainly makes us starving all the time.

We're staying in Ripley, WV tonight at a really cool old hotel. We can't camp in this heat - darn! Sunday is our last day of this trip, and we are soooooooo close to making our donation goal. THANK YOU!

We made it to our last state today!!! Sadly, my phone/camera is not working so we couldn't take any pictures. We are in the eastern corner of the state just outside of Huntington. A big thank you to Gene who drove us the last ten miles to Ashland when my back tire became a wobbling mess, and a big thank you to Chris from Ashland Bicycles for ensuring my bike got fixed!

We are in our last days of biking and are amazed to see that our donations are almost at $5,000.00!!! Thank you so much to all who donated!!! It makes the upcoming hills worth it.

We have made it to the edge of Kentucky. By some miracle, we have survived this long. We end our trip on sunday, which is good, because we are both, at this point, ready to be done. There isn't much to report since our last blog. The higlight of the past week was probably the city of Lexington, which, besides the fact that the majority of the time we were there it poured, was pretty cool. After Lexington, we biked to a town called Morehead, and enterd the Daniel Boone National Forest, otherwise known as the foothills of the Appalachians. Today we will enter the real things, which I am not looking forward to. On the day coming out of Morehead, my mom's bike, once again, wasn't working right. The back tire was wobbling so much that I was convinced it was going to fall off. And, of course, it was raining. We continued riding until the bad tire went flat, and then just got a ride in a truck the last fifteen miles into Ashland. We are excited to see our family in Ranson, WV.

Thanks to our wonderful friend Junko, we got to be on the news again, this time in Lexington! The link below will take you to the site. We will also post it on facebook ASAP.
http://www.wtvq.com/iphone/8950-family-bikes-across-country-for-mental-illness#commentform

Today we have a much needed rest day in Elizabethtown, known as E-town, Kentucky. We are staying at a hotel and loving every minute of it! AC, all the ice we want and a very good Indian restaurant within walking distance.

We had two wonderful and incredible stays just before we sacked out in this hotel. The First Baptist Church in Sebree, Kentucky hosts cyclists from all over the U.S. and world and insists on feeding them their first night there. Bob and Violet took Raine and I with them to their adorable smiling grandson, Trace's birthday dinner. We met the extended family, ate a lot and laughed a lot. They are gracious people who provided us a full game room (even air hockey), laundry facilities, a shower and a full kitchen. It was hard to leave there. Thank you Bob and Violet and Janine and Kirt for the dinner.

Our next night was on a beautiful farm seventy miles east of Sebree with a couple who moved from New Jersey. They have 2 horses, three dogs, 2 cats and 11 chickens. They gave us the use of their cottage and made us not only a fabulous dinner (pasta, sausages, salad, bruschetta, red wine) with dessert (fresh strawberries, ice cream and shortbread), they also made us breakfast before we left. Good coffee at last  with cream!!! Miracle. Thank you Beth and Garry!

You wouldn't think we'd need a rest stop after that, but we do. We're wimply like that. We are off the main TransAm route now but will pick it again.

The heat is up! We are sweating buckets as we make our way across beautiful lush western Kentucky. Thanks goes out to the Methodist Church in Marion for hosting us last night - the AC saved us! Raine and I are both eating lots of meat on this trip, and we've even tried some of the local fare - fried pickles! We opted out for the frogs legs although it was tempting. Our best meal has been steak and an enormous baked potato smothered with real butter and sour cream. Ahhhhhhh.

Yesterday Raine gorged on watermellon as she and I walked back to the church from the grocery store. We are really grateful to all the libraries we stop in during the heat of the day to cool off, use their computer, and read. Also, thanks to Elizabeth who took us to Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. If she hadn't driven us, we would have missed that amazing geological sight.

Thank you for all the recent donations and support. I can't tell you enough how it