TRAVERSE CITY -- Caitlin Prentice and Meryl Estes never planned to write a book, but now they're peddling the story of their coast-to-coast bicycle journey.
The longtime friends from Traverse City completed a cross-country bike trip in the summer of 2005 just to see if they could. Three years later their e-mail messages from the road are a published book that drew more than 50 people to a book-signing event on Saturday at Horizon Books in downtown Traverse City.
"We were always up for an adventure and we had two months to do it," Estes said.
The continent-crossing trek involved 13 states, one Canadian province, 27 flat tires and 71 pounds of peanut butter -- 4,377.5 miles later.
"People in the middle of the country thought we were a bit nuts," Prentice said.
Prentice and two friends left the West Quoddy Head lighthouse in Lubec, Maine, on May 29 and pedaled through New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Ontario and Michigan. Estes joined the trip in Traverse City and the foursome left town on June 23 and headed to Ludington to take a ferry ride across Lake Michigan.
Planned routes brought the group through Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, where they ended at Cape Meares lighthouse near Tillamook.
Along the way they slept in a broken down school bus, showered in lawn sprinklers, pedaled through 100-plus degree heat and found strangers to both cook for them and allow them to camp in their backyards. There was Yellowstone National Park, Mount Rushmore, Devil's Tower and Hell's Canyon, among the other impressive landscapes they photographed from their two-wheelers.
"It took long enough that it became such a part of our lives," Prentice said.
The women wrote e-mail messages home to friends and family throughout the 11-week adventure, sent from the comfort of air-conditioned public libraries.
Those e-mails were compiled and published as "Biking the U.S. of Awesomeness," by Graphic Union Press in New York City.
Copies of the book can be purchased at Horizon Books, 243 E. Front St. in Traverse City.
Prentice now lives and teaches primary students in Scotland, while Estes works in the hospitality industry in Portland, Ore. Perhaps next they will plan a winter bike trip across the southern part of the country, they said.
