On looking back at the week I find it impossible to hold back the genuine smile flourishing from inside me. How fortunate we are to have shared so much time with such marvellous people and overcome incredible challenges together. We've been on the road for for 5 months, have cycled over 5,000 km and raised more than £500 for the charity Aerobility. All this while jumping from bridges into the icy waters below, practising yoga with the help of a few beers in one of the most beautiful national parks. We've climbed the "Road to the Sun", which is a climb of over 3,000', in only a few hours and we've even seen a baby Grizzly bear from mere metres away. Although there have also been sadder moments, since we've arrived at the end of our adventure with our "babes", who have started to make their way back to the heart of Texas.

I guess it was fate that we'd been temporarily separated from the team this week, so that the final goodbye wouldn't be so tough. Rob and I found ourselves passing through small towns on our way towards being reunited with them once more. The day before time had caught up with us and we didn't find a grocery store, which left us with nothing for breakfast. So we got out of Steve's garden and set off to Bigfork. Though a little weak, we managed to make good progress, taking only a couple of hours. But I'm not going to lie, the last few miles were tough on me as my guts were screaming out for some sustenance! To make things worst the shop we'd seen on the map didn't seem to exist, so we had to go further than hoped to find an open one. But finally we could celebrate with a "sandwich" (the bread of which being called a "biscuit", which in British English translates as a scone!) of bacon, sausage and egg, accompanied by a cream filled doughnut and cheery pastry. This made us both very happy! Next we had to wash some clothes and take a shower. So we headed to a nearby laundrette, which also had coin showers, to rest and knock back Oreos as if there was no tomorrow. At the end of the day we decided to spend the night between the road out of town and a lake nearby, a location that appeared on the camping app iOverlander, and struggled at dusk with hanging our food filled panniers on a robust looking branch to keep it away from potential fury thieves.

The next day we decided to return to the laundrette and the lady working there welcomed us with open arms, so we made the most of it to get up to speed with various things. After a long while we left for the next town of Columbia Falls, where Austin and Addie were waiting for us! We found them in a small park, slack lining away, and they surprised us with another donation for our fundraising! It turned out that Addie's family had come to visit the town on bikes while flying some not so insignificant "Trump 2020" flags off the back, a day which culminated in their grand entrance into a bar playing live music. Here a Trump supporter gifted them a $20 note, which they very kindly decided to donate to our cause!

We woke up at 7:30 in the morning to the noise of a car horn honking, someone clearly wanted to get our attention. The night before we'd headed to the woods out of town where Austin and Addie had been camping already, supposedly on the edge of the National Forest. Well... Turns out it was so on the border that we were actually camping on someone's private land and the horn honker was the owner. After being very apologetic many times we agreed to hurry out of his large garden during the course of the morning. So we were finally heading to Glacier National Park! We were very excited as well as a little nervous as we didn't know what we were to do after this final stop, as every time we had discussed it previously it had raised more questions than answers! Before leaving we went to stock up on supplies at the supermarket in town where we met another couple from New York that were taking a year out cycling and had just started their voyage. These guys were Jesse and Sarah. We spent a while chatting before parting ways, but knowing we'd be meeting again in the National Park a few days later. After a rather warm cycle we finally arrived at the best campsite ever! Here we constantly met incredible, inspirational people with whom we had a blast over the next few days. On the day of arrival we bumped into Naomi, a mega adventurous, charming 50 year old woman, followed by Tom, another guy that was living on the road. We'd agreed to meet up with our own biker gang at this campsite too but we ended up going to bed thinking they had not made it. But surprises are never far away with these guys!

Although the original plan was to cycle the most famous and demanding road in the park, we decided to postpone this torment to the next day and rest up instead. What a choice! To our surprise Addie and Austin had arrived at the campsite in the middle of the night. Throughout the morning we all slowly got out of bed and Tom suggested going to a bridge over a nearby river, which it didn't take long for us to all sign up for, so off we went. We arrived at the bridge and before even realising it we were all in our swimming costumes on the other side of the railing, ready to jump off into the water below! Naomi took charge of filming the fun and we all discovered how capable I was of sitting down in mid air, making a perfect 90 degree angle, and bum flopping into the water, which gave me a massive bruise on my arse that'll take a few weeks to disappear! But I must say that it was well worth it. It was a feeling that, although it will take me a while until I'll feel the need to repeat, wasn't so bad after all. Our friend Tom then introduced us to the concept of the 4 levels of fun (but you'll have to listen into this weeks podcast if you want to know more! ;) After making a splash we said farewell to Naomi and headed to the lake to try out a wide selection of local beers while doing some "yoga". We'd also cool off in the water and spend some time getting to know each other a little better. This was where D-wack, from our cycling gang, joined up with us again and after a few days away he was being missed. We also met another new cyclist buddy, Leandro, the friendliest Brazilian chap you could hope to meet that was on the road after just finishing his PhD. We returned to the campsite a little tipsy after the beer tasting with a plan to wake up at 5:30 in the morning and climb the most picturesque road in the lower 48, but also the most difficult in the park. "The Road to the Sun". To make matters worse we'd have to be finished in record time, by 11am, as the road is closed to cyclists from 11-4.

We got up all motivated. We'd been told it would take some 4 hours to reach the top so ideally we'd have to leave at 6:30 but, as always, we got distracted and left closer to 7. This lead to us arriving a little later than we had hoped. The road was some 50km each way with the first 20 quite flat following the lake's shore then starting a pretty gradual accent of some 1,100m of elevation gain. We persevered but time got the better of us and, ignoring the rules completely, we pedalled on and made it all the way up at 11:30! There, besides the arctic winds we met up with Leandro and D-Wack to take the obligatory summit photo, but our thoughts quickly changed to survival from the cold. Poor old D-Wack had got a flat tyre on the way up and had to hitch hike to make it up and Addie and Austin left even later than us, so also arrived by car with the wonderful Katie; who'd later end up as part of the group. What was important was that we'd all made it! Although I don't think we spent more than half and hour there before I shot back down as fast as possible. Rob and Leandro took some photos of the incredible views and the others got back into hitch hike mode. Towards the bottom we were stopping along the way at various waterfalls and turquoise pools of water until we finally made it back to the campsite to get some rest rest after a really intense day. Katie, the lady that picked up Addie and Austin earlier, came by with a crate of beers with which to celebrate the day's achievements. Not wanting to annoy fellow campers and cyclists who had arrived throughout the day we headed to the lake's shore to finish off the beers while watching shooting starts and the constellations up above.

After a few really, really interesting days and after meeting such incredible people it was time to leave once again. The issue was that our extended plan until now had been to make it to Glacier, so it was time to make some decisions again... But chatting to Tom, who had nearly circumnavigated the lower 48 states, helped us make up our minds over the next steps. We've now set on not extending our VISA any more and instead will find a way down into Mexico at the start of September. With everything a month away we now planned to take a night train to Seattle (Washington), cycle the coast down through Oregon to then get back on the train down to Los Angeles and finally make out way by land or air into our next country, wonderful Mexico! We purchased the train tickets for next week, as it was the earliest we could find space for the bikes, and decided to spend one last night with our biker gang and their friends Ali and Reilly who had driven up from Texas to collect them. So carrying on with the day we found, to our surprise, just outside the campsite a adolescente Grizzly bear! How scary, Rob got the bear spray at the ready just in case but the bear just crossed over the road into the bushes where we hoped it was meeting up with its mum again, who given the circumstances I was rather pleased not to have seen! Once outside the park we joined a cycle path nearly all the way to a hotel where our cycle team's friends were waiting for us and who we met with a smile and a box of wine to celebrate our last night with the "Babes". We spent the night in laughter and stories until we passed out on the entirety of the floor, all 8 of us as Katie joined the party!

Although no one wanted this moment to arrive... It was inevitable, the "Babes" were to return home. We got up and with a heavy heart said goodbye to them all. We then spent the day in the hotel garden sucking up good amounts of internet while planning our route through Mexico. It was pretty productive and afterwards, without really knowing where we were going to camp, we headed to the park in Columbia Falls in which we'd been reunited with Austin and Addie a few days previously. We thought the place was pretty peaceful last time and so it seemed like a decent idea to put up the tent right there once night had fallen, so as not to attract unwanted attention. The sun was setting on us cooking some lentil stew and a huge wave of nostalgia came over us. So much so that we couldn't hold back a few tears on remembering the good times spent with the team... We watched an episode of Avatar (our new favourite TV series :)) and climbed into the tent.

So we leave behind a week full of new emotions and experiences that will stay with us for a lifetime. For sure we are getting to know the essence of happiness.