Ahead of us we can start to see the mountains... A shade of hazy blue, they blend in with the clouds so that at first you can't be sure you're really seeing them, but they're there... Waiting for us.
Behind us, the great plains stretch out for a thousand miles... Endless days of fields and grasslands....
But before we tackle the Rockies, a few days of relaxing with friends and family! Woot!!!
No one showed up at the motel last night, so we headed over to the city park to pitch our tents... A nice park with absolutely beautiful grass... Ever wonder how a town in south western Nebraska gets beautiful grass? Wait until a little after midnight and you'll find out, just make sure everything you own is waterproofed... ;)
Made it Colorado today! Only 4 states left!
We're not in Kansas anymore... Although you wouldn't know it if it weren't for the signs, all these prairie towns look the same, and the past few days are all running together...
We had a really strong south wind all day. 25-ish mph sustained with gusts up to 35. Made for an interesting ride west, especially when you combine it with the big trucks passing at 65 mph... But once we got to Bird City, we turned north to head up to Nebraska, where we will catch US route 34 to take us into Colorado, an damn those last 20 miles were fun riding with the wind! I think I averaged 23 mph without even trying...
Just sitting here now by a motel, waiting for the owner to get back to see if they have any rooms... How could they possibly not have rooms? We're in Benkelman Nebraska, and there is not a single car in the parking lot, yet there is a sign in the window that says no vacancy. Anyways, some guys that were leaving the parking lot when we pulled in said the owner went out for dinner and would be back in an hour... So we wait...
Kansas = Straight and empty... But not flat...
Windy today, but it's been a cross wind from the south, so not as bad as it could have been.
Haven't seen a cloud in 3 days...
Here's a picture of us at the geographic center of the United States (well, the contiguous 48 states, anyways), just a few miles northwest of Lebanon, KS
There's not much there... This monument, a tiny chapel, and a trailer with a little exhibit about the different 'centers' of the US (the geographic center, the geodetic center, the population center, the google center...)
Of course, you can only get into the trailer if you know the code to the lock, which apparently they told only to the one market in Lebanon. Fortunately, we happened to stop in Lebanon for lunch before going to the center... But for those poor travelers who don't stop by the market, I guess they are out of luck!
Special thanks to Steven and Jane from Illinois who provided a much enjoyed cold beer and company while taking a break at the center!
Ps - if you ever find yourself in north central Kansas, and feel like stopping by the center (which you should!), the secret code to the trailer is 1-2. ;)
Woke up early to watch the sunrise over Tuttle Creek Lake (see picture). Other than that, we just rode 90 miles through farms and prairies to get to Beloit, a nice little town with free camping in their town park (which also happens to have a full disc-golf course)
I did not see a single cloud the entire day. Pretty amazing to ride through relatively flat prairie land with a great big blue sky all around you...
OMG, the weather was BEAUTIFUL today!!! After a few days of riding in 90+ humidity, a cold front came through! It was a high of 80 today, with no humidity, and we even got lucky and had nice cool cloud cover, but no rain this morning through the front. This trip would be so much easier if the weather was like this every day!
I have to give a great big thanks to John and Sofia for letting us stay at their place in Topeka! Awesome BBQ, awesome Vietnamese crepes, and an awesome dog, Silo!
We rode for a bit today on the Historic Oregon Trail. We only lost one ox while crossing the river, and no one died of Cholera, so I guess we were lucky!
We had a rather easy ride to Manhattan (did we really ride 1600 miles just to end up back in Manhattan???) where we wandered around Kansas State campus and had some good beer at the Little Apple Brewery (thanks for the tip, Laura!)
A nice quiet campsite on a lake with a full moon rounded out this beautiful Kansas day... Wish I could get a picture of the moon, but since all I have is my iPhone camera, here's a picture of corn and soy instead...
Ps... Just where exactly does all this soy go??? I never realized we grew so much soy in this country. And speaking of growing things, where's all the wheat??? Aren't there supposed to be amber waves of grain somewhere? Maybe the wheat is grown earlier in the year, and then they harvest it and plant soy? Hmmm... Will have to investigate this...
Goodbye Missouri! Hello Kansas!
First impressions: eastern Kansas has a lot more hills than one might expect... It's deceptive, because the roads are still all pretty much completely straight. In the eastern part of the country, straight roads are flat roads... Here, the make them straight regardless of the hills.
Anyways, it was a pretty nice day from Kansas City. Had a nice breakfast at the only Vietnamese restaurant in Kansas City... We were forced to ride on the interstate for a bit to get into Kansas, since the road we wanted to take was under construction.
I had a delicious Elk burger for lunch in Lawrence, KS. How many of you have ever had elk before? We also took a brief stop in Lawrence to take a picture with a fan, Ted (if you're reading this Ted, we won't forget the post card!)
Staying with a friend of Michele's in Topeka, where we will be taking the day off tomorrow to relax and rest up!
Our first century of the trip (over 100 miles)... although we came awfully close once before (99.6, if my memory serves me correctly)
Michele has a second cousin in Kansas City, so we decided not to finish the Katy trail (which would have taken us too far south). Plus, we didn't have dry camping gear after last night, so we made it a long day to get here.
Turns out that Michele's cousin's husband's family was having a BBQ tonight, so we got to spend the evening there eating and drinking (and meant that I got to spend most of the night listening to conversations in Vietnamese...)
They have a great story, though. Four brothers who came to the US in 1993 with just the clothes on their back... 17 years later, they all live in the same area of Kansas City, all with their own homes and businesses.
Missouri has been a really fun state, and while I'm looking forward to finishing another state tomorrow, there's part of me that isn't exactly sure what I have to look forward to in Kansas...
Trivia question of the day: in the category of abbreviations for types of roads (eg: st = street, blvd = boulevard, etc), what does 'tfwy' stand for?
ps - the answer for the trivia question a few days ago is: US Route 20
Last night I was disappointed that we didn't meet any other bikers at the shelter... Well this morning, just as we're about leave, two bikers with fully loaded bikes come up looking for water.
Turns out, Emelio and Alex are riding to San Francisco (they started in Cleveland, and actually rode a lot of the same path that we did). And, since we were all planning on getting to Sedalia tonight, we decided to ride together. Even though much of the time on a bicycle is spent spinning pedals and not talking, it was great to have some company along the way.
Hopefully our paths will cross again between here and the coast! But for now, it's time to enjoy some greasy food at the Missouri State Fair!!!
This place is so cool! We are spending the night at the Turner Katy Trail Shelter. It's in Trebbets, a town with a population of 60. There's a post office, a church, a bar that's only open on Tuesdays and Fridays, a few houses and this shelter...
The shelter is a two story house that is filled with bunk beds. There are showers, a refrigerator, a microwave, a ping pong table, a bike workshop attached and air conditioning. There are enough beds for maybe 30 people. There's no one here to run the place, it's all on the honor system, and cost $5 a night. If only there were more people! I mean, it's kind of fun to have the whole place to ourselves, but it feels like this place was meant to be a gathering place of strangers, sharing their food, drinks, and stories of the road before heading off in different directions in the morning...
It's slow riding on the trail, since it's not paved... And the 68 miles I rode is actually a little misleading, since the shelter is only 56 miles from Marthasville. The extra 12 miles are a result of backtracking 6 miles to the nearest grocery store once we got to Tebbetts and found only a bar open on Tuesdays and Fridays...
Anyways, if anyone ever finds themselves living in Missouri, I highly recommend taking a few days to ride the Katy trail, and stay at the shelter! Just be sure to bring friends and drinks along with you!!
I think this is the first picture we have of both of us at the same time (courtesy of the staff at the Bike Stop Cafe, in St Charles, MO, where we stopped for lunch before starting on the Katy Bike Trail through Missouri)
Stopped in Marthasville for the night, a town of about 800 people. When we asked around about a campsite, we were told to try the community club, a public park that had showers. Sure enough, the folks running the concession stand let us wash up and set up our tents, but warned us that there would be softball league games until about 11pm
We showered and walked into "town" to find somewhere to eat. After walking down both streets in town, and finding nothing that looked like it had been open in years, much less open that evening, we went back to the park to dine on concession stand hot dogs and cheap beer, and watch some softball, and let me tell you, this is the place to be! Everyone in this town and the neighboring three towns over between the ages of 21 and 40 must be here playing softball!
Passed by Route 66 today. Didn't get to ride on it, though, since it heads down to St Louis and we are by-passing St Louis to the north to meet up with a bike trail in St Charles. It would be fun to ride, though... Maybe next time... Anyone up for a road trip summer 2011, Chicago to Los Angeles???
Almost done with another state! Illinois an Indiana have just flown by compared to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Once we cross the Mississppi tomorrow, we'll just have 6 states to go!
Trivia question of the day: what is the longest road in the US?
ps... Our campsite smells like dead fish... :(
Here's a picture of out campsite.... Michele sleeps in the big yellow tent, I sleep on the sack on the ground. I totally think I win. Mine takes exactly 27 seconds to set up, about a minute and a half to roll up the next morning....
It was a nice cool 87 degrees today. We rode 97 miles, and yet somehow it seemed like an easy day.
We rode through some oil fields today. Did you know that Illinois has oil fields?? I sure didn't, and I lived in Illinois for four years!!
It's still too damn hot. At 7pm, the official temperature was 90. Now take that, rewind a few hours to when we were riding, and add in the humidity and lack of shade...
We were aiming for a state campground, but passed a motel at 7:30 with 10 miles left to ride (directly Into the sun) and decided to not go crazy and stop at the motel instead.
Incidentally, everyone recommends riding west to east across the country because of the winds, but I have to say that so far the sun has been much worse. If I was riding east in the afternoon and didn't have to face the sun the whole time, I think I would have had a more enjoyable day...
Going out for a drink, and setting the alarm for 6:00 to get some riding in during the (hopefully) cool morning.
Ps... Passed the 1000 mile mark today! Woo!
HOT. But fortunately also flat. The nice thing about riding a bike is that you always have a breeze to cool you down a bit.
So we finished another state today!!! Goodbye Ohio! Made a good dent in Indiana, should take another day and a half to get through. Otherwise, a pretty uneventful day... We did get stuck on a gravel road for about two miles because Indiana back country roads apparently switch from paved to unpaved whenever they feel like it.
Short day into Cincinnati, where we got to spend some time with David Griswold, who is getting married tomorrow! Congratulations Dave and Meg!!!!!
The bike trails in Ohio have been good to us so far, but it looks like we're going to have to leave them for a while... Off to Indiana tomorrow. Our plan is to head pretty much straight west to St. Louis where we can pick up another rail-trail which will take us most of the way across Missouri.
I know that's still a ways off, but there doesn't seem to be much between here and there other than straight and flat.... I just hope the weather cools off a bit... The predicted high of 95 tomorrow could slow us down a bit...
Felt strong and refreshed after our day off yesterday. Add to it the flattest and straightest bile path I have ever seen and you get the easiest 94 miles I I've ever ridden. The only thing stopping us was the sinking sun...
Tomorrow, a nice short day to Cincinnati!
We took advantage of the generous hospitality of our hosts here in Dublin and took the day off to rest and explore Columbus a bit. I was kind of tempted to ride around the block a few times just to get the mileage up to 700...
Anyways, it was a very relaxed day of walking, eating, napping, cooking, and having a very pleasant long slow dinner. With the heat, humidity, and thunderstorms today, it was definitely the perfect time to take a break! It looks like we still have some hot days ahead of us on our way down to Cincinnati, but it should be pretty much completely flat, since we will be taking a rail-to-trail path most of the way there.
I'm a little concerned about the accuracy of my speedometer... It's showing a top speed today of 56.3 mph... Considering that the fastest I have ever gone before is 43.8, and that today was almost completely flat, I'm pretty sure that number is wrong... Wonder if any of the other numbers are wrong...
Anyways, a pretty short day, and almost entirely flat, but still tough with the heat... mid 90's, and that's not taking into accept the humidity, or the fact that much of the ride was out in the open sun. Had some apple cider slushy to help get us through!
Thankfully, we have a wonderfully air conditioned place to sleep, plus a great dinner and delicious ice cream for desert! Thanks Chuck and Carol!!!
(anyone who finds themselves in or near Columbus should make a point of stopping by Jeni's Ice Cream)
Uhg. Hot and hilly ride, mostly through the middle of nowhere. I was hoping that the hills would stop now that we're in Ohio, but so far I have been proven drastically wrong.
We have assurances from several sources that our hills will soon end as we head towards Columbus tomorrow. I try to be positive and tell myself that I should enjoy the hills and curves while I can, since we have a lot of straight and flat coming up...
After a long and late night last night, we decided to take it easy today. Slept in, had a relaxing breakfast by the river, and only rode about 40 miles.
It was several miles uphill from the campsite to the nearest town, and since we didn't feel like riding in for dinner, we resigned ourselves to a dinner if clif bars. Fortunately, at that moment, a couple drove in and parked in the site next to us. They had come to swim and picnic, and were kind enough to share their wine, cheese, and shrimp cocktail, as well as their knowledge about the area and the best route to take in the morning. Thanks so much, Ron and Michele!!
Well, due to bike routes being generally windy, was a bit further than I thought to the state border. At 6pm, we had ridden 60 miles, and still had another 25 to the border, plus an extra 5 to the hotel I found on the iPhone (no convenient campgrounds in WV).
Anyways, it was 8:30 and starting to get dark by the time we reached where the hotel was supposed to be. Alas, there was no hotel to be found... Undaunted, we turned on our headlights and taillights and pushed on yet another 5 miles to the next hotel. Of course, that would have been too easy, and sure enough we found that hotel to be full.
At this point, I decided to start calling hotels before riding to them, and finally found one with rooms available another 5 miles down the road. Arrival time at the hotel: 10pm, having ridden the last 10 miles in the dark!
But the good news is we have left Pennsylvania! And, after all the riding in the dark, we finished nearly all of West Virginia, and are just across the river from Ohio...
Somehow, with the combination of a big ridge to cross (elev. 2430), a flat tire, and a long lunch, we found that it was already 3:00 and we had only gone 20 miles!
A strong afternoon along another rails to trails route brought us another 40 miles. Finally. The last 10 were along a pretty major highway that was under construction. Fortunately, one side of the highway was finished, but not yet painted, and since all the construction workers had gone home, we had a brand new, car free highway all to ourselves!!
Less than 80 miles to the state border, so this should hopefully be the last post from Pennsylvania.
We passed the 100-pi mark today!! I've decided that 1000-pi is a pretty good approximation of the distance from New York to San Francisco, which means that we are a tenth of the way through the trip!
The afternoon found us following the Pennsylvania bike route G onto a path created from an old railway track. It's called 'rails to trails'. It was a beautiful ride along a river, with no cars... Nice and flat. Only problem was that it wasn't paved, and on road bikes loaded with all our equipment, it was only a matter of time...
Sure enough, Michele had a little tumble. Nothing too serious, a scraped knee... But it was enough that we decided to skip out on the trail and return to paved roads. Unfortunately, by this time it was almost 7pm. There were no official campsites nearby, and with michele needing to clean up her scrapes, plus the fact that most of our gear was still wet from last nights thunderstorm, we were looking for a nice hotel.
The nearest town, Williamsburg, had nothing of the sort, so with daylight running out, and Michele's knees scraped up, we pushed a final 15 miles to the nearest hotel, arrived around 8:45 pm, just as the sun was sinking below the horizon, and promptly went to the restaurant across the street for a beer.
:)
Either Michele slept for 11 hours, or she was up all night interneting on her blackberry... Either way, we didn't leave the campsite until 11am. Combined with a hot and humid day, and a very appealing state park around mile 46, we decided to call it a short day and go for a swim.
Swimming got cut short by a sudden looming thunderstorm. Realizing we has left things unwater-proofed at the camp site, we promptly left the beach and went about preparing the site. When the storm finally let loose, there wasn't anything to do besides take shelter in our respective tents and wait it out. First night in my bivy sack in the pouring rain, and it held up nicely against the flood!
Late start and moderate hills... But all in all, a pretty uneventful day. Pennsylvania has so far proven not to be nearly as hilly as many people had thought... I think southern Pennsylvania would have been much worse. Of course, we still have a whole lot of the state to go, so well see.
Must go get bug spray!!!
Wow.. so far Pennsylvania has been so much more enjoyable than New Jersey. (sorry for anyone from NJ). It's just so nice to have a marked bike route instead of improvising through NJ where county routes all of a sudden decide to be limited access highways. On more than one occasion, we had to hop over the median of a highway to avoid a sudden unexpected on-ramp...
Long-ish day, although I'm hoping to be averaging more than 80 miles by the end of this thing...
I still don't think the scope of this undertaking has completely set in... Pennsylvania looks like a long state, and there are a WHOLE LOT of states to go after it...
Here's a picture of Michele near the Delaware Water Gap.
A late start due to apartment stuff, and Michele getting the first flat tire of the trip... before we even started riding!!! Didn't get to leave until around 2pm.
We had no route planned, so after going over the bridge, we just improvised by heading west and taken advantage of my fancy new iPhone!
Managed to do a respectable 44 miles. A solid second day that will hopefully help me build up to the long days ahead.
Heading for the Delaware Water Gap tomorrow and into Pennsylvania!
Goodbye NYC!!
