Best pizza:  Figaro's in Sisters, OR.  They also had a deal, 2 for the price of 1.  Make sure you get the ones with everything on it!

Best hamburger: Grizzly Grill near the West Fork Cabin Campground in Montana.  It was a half-pound of lean hamburger char-grilled on an open fire to our specifications, and served with lettuce, tomato, onion and waffle fries.  It was almost too much to eat.

Best pie a-la-mode:  Cowboy cafe in Dubois, WY.  This one wasn't even close.  It included a huge slice of "homemade" pie  covered with so much ice cream you could barely see the pie.

Best cobbler:  The homemade blackberry cobbler (a-la-mode of course) at Ann's Restaurant in Harrodsburg, KY.

Best dessert:  The Strawberry Delight and Charlie Brown pies at Halls Restaurant in Eminence, MO, homemade by the owner's mother.

Best breakfast:  Lochsa Lodge in Powell, ID.  The pancakes were the best and they were so large they hung over the plate.  The cook brought them to the table to see our reaction.

Best lunch: East End Cafe in Scott City, KS.  They had a lunch buffet with fresh salad items, fresh fruit, watermelon, and home made puddings and jellos.  Excellent food and more than we could eat.

Best dinner:  Meatball sandwiches, potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs, and peach praline pie provided by our son and his wife in Berea, KY.

Best dinner buffet:  If it seems eating was a priority on this trip, then you're right.  The nice thing about cycling cross country is you don't have to count calories and watch your weight, and we took full advantage of this.  The best buffet was Ryans in Farmington, MO.  There was everything on this buffet you can imagine, and a dessert buffet out of this world.  All for under $7, drinks included.

Best oasis in the middle of a desert:  Grandma's Cafe in Lamont, WY.  This place is out in the middle of nowhere, literally in the middle of a desert, and we reached it after several of hours of riding into a strong headwind.  Our lunch consisted of a great sandwich, 2nd best pie a-la-mode on the trip, and conversation with a couple from Boulder, CO who saw our bikes outside and stopped in to talk touring.  Seems they did the Transamerica trail a couple of years prior.

Friendliest state:  Kansas!  Again this wasn't even close.  It seemed everyone waved when they passed in their cars, in fact our arms got tired waving back.  Our parked bicycles initiated instant conversation, and the residents made us feel like celebrities.  Many times when we stopped to look at the map motorists stopped to ask if they could help, one family even offered ice from their cooler on a particularly hot day.  We got invited to dinner in Kansas, which didn't happen in any other state.

Friendliest town:  Pacific City, OR.  We stopped in this town for breakfast at the Village Coffee Shop and Bakery.  By the time we finished eating everyone in the restaurant (which we think was close to the entire population of P.C.)  were talking to us, asking questions, and offering suggestions of alternate routes.  They convinced us to take a short cut that saved 13 miles, had less traffic, and was flatter than the mapped route.  We had trouble getting away from these folks when it was time to go.

Friendliest person:  Carol,  the cleaning lady for the Nickerson High School Gym.  We had nowhere to take showers in Nickerson and this kind lady opened up the new gym for us to shower, do laundry, and spend the afternoon relaxing in the air conditioning.  She even petitioned her supervisor to let us sleep there, but because of recent burglaries at the school he had to say no.

Nicest person:  June Curry of Afton, VA,  "The Cookie Lady", is an amazing person and a legend to TransAm bicyclists. When the TransAmerica route started in 1976 June and her father offered food and water to passing cyclists. Cyclists have been stopping by ever since for a drink of water, friendly hospitality, and a bite to eat.  She keeps a "bike house" with four large rooms that are filled with books, photos, journals, scrapbooks, maps, and memorabilia left or sent back by the 11,000+ cyclists who have passed through there in the last 26 years.  There's a fully stocked kitchen (lots of cookies of course), and plenty of room to camp for the night, each room in the bike house has at least one couch (with a supply of blankets and pillows near at hand).

Best biker friendly roads:  Oregon.  It seemed like almost every road had a paved shoulder, and the motorists were second only to Kansas in courtesy.

Best downhill:  In Wyoming from Togowtee Pass to Dubois.  Thirty-one miles of shear pleasure!

Best uphill:  If there is such a thing as a good uphill, then the climb up Muddy Pass in Colorado gets the nod.  We could tell it was a gentle grade when two different groups of westbound cyclists stopped to talk to us.  Normally they didn't stop when "flying" down the other side of a long climb.

Best campground:  Oregon Trails West RV Park in Baker City, OR.  This campground had it all.  Nice showers, laundromat, fences that separated camp sites, lean to shelters to store our bikes, and a hostess that opened early to make us coffee before we left the next morning.

Best non-campground stay:  Bill & Colleen Soux's "hog pen" in Guffey, CO.  These folks treated us to a stay in their 1800's hog pen that was remodeled into a very cozy cabin.  There was no running water or bathroom facilities inside, but that was ok with us.  Our hosts provided water and a basin to bathe in, and the nearby outhouse was more than adequate.  In the morning we were wakened by crowing roosters.  We felt like we had stepped back in time 150 years.  This is a must visit for all!

Best wildflowers: Kansas!