Final post

Awards and reflections on the Do Epic Shit ride
Awards:

Dick of the trip: Goes to Smitty of Smitty’s Shitty Salvage Yard. You have to have more to do than threaten 2 older bikers because they peed behind your trucks that were not in service on land you didn’t even own. Smitty’s Salvage phone # is 920-468-7715 if someone would please call him, I’m sure he will be so surprised to win.
Dick of the trip Runner up: Railroad bridge blocker man who added 30 miles to John and my last day and really making it much worse. Even though his impact was high he was really just doing his job. You’ll be fined 1500$…cash or check?
Strangest Person of the trip: Goes to Radio Flash/Ready Eddy. 40 years of collecting recycling stuff but never recycling because it’s his “Bank”.

Strangest thing that happened to us: Our bikes being blessed by this dude:

Strangest thing I saw: It was the historic site called The Sweet Grass Hills. This described the Blackfeet Indian legend of Blood-Clot boy vs Lizard or Frog Man.
Runner up: Employee of the month of Nations Hamburger restaurant whose name is Jeremy Found A Gun.
Best place we stayed: Great Northern Inn B and B in Chester MT. Cool house that was remodeled by a Grammy award nominated pianist who grew up in this town and who came back to record and fix up his boyhood home.
Worst place we stayed: Circle Montana in a low rent hotel that looked liked it should be closed. Owners could only mumble but there was enough junk scattered about that John could use it creatively to hang our wash out on.
Places I would hang out for a while: Sandpoint, Idaho. All kinds of water, nice looking mountains, great downtown, 10,000 people, very good road/mountain biking, outstanding restaurant and a bike shop called “Greasy Fingers”.
Runner up: Izaak Walton hotel in Essex, MT. It’s half way between West and East Glacier. You can take Amtrak straight there so no need for a car.
2nd runner up: White Mountains in NH
Toughest ride: Napoleon ND to Enderlin ND. 15-25 mph unfavorable wind with no restaurant for lunch. Gackle ND being the highlight of the day, enough said.
Runner up: Republic WA to Park Rapids WA. Sherman Pass including another 2000 ft. climb at the end with 94* temperature.
Surprises of the trip: 
– Impact on both the authors and the readers of the Epic Shit blog. I think it made us think of the total experience, take more pictures and open up to more people. The authors truly enjoyed the comments of encouragement. It took some effort to do it every day, but it really made us feel connected with a wide group of supporters.
– Being a cyclist was a great opener for deeper conversation. A few serious cyclists asked about the biking trip, the bikes or our packs/purses. Most people would tell you about themselves, their town or the history of the area. Being a biker also encouraged people to offer help or even give you rides to dinner. I think if you seemed crazy enough to bike this far and you dressed like a neon clown it made it easier to be more approachable.
– How little you really need to be comfortable day to day on a bike trip. I did borrow one pair of liner gloves from Mike. Thanks Mike.
– How not turning on the TV, radio or reading the newspaper for 6 weeks seemed to make me more aware of my immediate surrounding and fill my mind with much less stuff I can’t do anything about. I really wasn’t even curious about world news. Instead of talking about “can you believe what happened today” it was more about who you are and what you are about. I remember a shirtless man in Montana who was bitching about the Government and within 5 minutes told us he was craving companionship because his wife left him to be closer to the 

damn Grandkids. It seems that there is another side to this story.
Partners of the Century: Peter Brown, John Farrell, and Mike Shriver. Maybe I could have done it with out them but it would have been 90% less fun, more painful and the Blog wouldn’t have been any good. 
LIfe partner of the Century: Sarah Shriver

Saviors of the Decade: Jacie and Charlie Hurd.

 

Saviors and Saints for multiple days or one day

Matt Appleman

Liz and Emma Shriver and Ashley Towens

Paul and Paulette Shriver

Kate Belczyk and Steve Dugan

Caroline Rittenhouse

Joe LaRiche, Glacier Cyclery

A couple in Detroit Lakes who paid for our Breakfast at Perkins

John from the Hill City MN greasy spoon who called a friend about width of shoulders while the friend was actually driving on the road

Hop Sing and Buzzard

Galen Hersey

Don and Delores Schneck

The Spertles

Leon

Railway City bicycling club

Dave Otter of the Otter Limits

Jerry the owner of the Blue Ridge Motel in NY

John, the owner of the 32INN in North Woodstock NH

Gwenda Pryor, Bath Maine
Summary: The person who dies with the most stories wins. I didn’t die and I have a hell of a lot more stories.

If you give people a chance they are way nicer than they should be.