Finish

What a great adventure! The finish to the trip, was very intense, I crossed the state of Washington in four days in order to make it to Anacortes when my parents were there. That men riding about 120mi wed and crossing Sherman pass. 120mi Thur crossing Waconda and loop loop passes. 150 mi Friday crossing Washington pass to finish. Friday I rode with James my brother-in-law, the ride from my sisters place near Mazama to Anacortes took exactly 12hrs.
But hell i'm done! now what... Its a very strange experience being home even though I've only been away for 53 days. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do instead of being granted with that mission without question every morning. An existence with a mission without question is a great way to live, I envy thouse who have that.
I'll be posting pictures of the trip now. Thanks for all your wishes of support along the way!

Enjoy!

...I'm posting pics to the Mallochdigital site which is a lot easier, I'll make an update when they are there with a link.

Whitefish Montana

Its crazy to think how far North I've traveled since my first day on the road. In fact its just crazy to think back how far I've traveled. My first day on the road back in Yorktown seems like forever ago though its only like 45ish days. My friend Reed put it best I think, "your confusing distance with time". I'm almost to the Northern most part of my trek; Eureka, Mt.
Montana continues to display amazing scenery and is surprisingly flat, but that is just due to the rout I'm taking. Traffic here is fucking INSANE! the speed limit on two lane shoulderless roads is 70MPH! It is by far the scariest riding I have done to date. Going into Seeley lake two day ago (just out of Missoula) day I had the worst harassment of the entire trip (even worse than Missouri where I had trash thrown at me); lots of logging folk who hate us bicycle riding librawls.
I visited the Adventure Cycling Association headquarters in Missoula, its is the central Nexus of the touring wold and full of friendly folk. While working on truing my wheels there I was treated with free ice cream...awesome. I also saw the best bike sticker of my life 'my other ride is your mom'. Note to self: must get this sticker. I was also granted with a new jersey I want to have made: 'my other water bottle is a GLOCK'. Yes, the traffic here is getting to me, it has definitely detracted from the beauty of this state.
I'm starting to get a bit ancy about getting home; that or the coffee is just getting stronger as I head West (which happens to be true). I'm now well ahead of any schedule I had thought I would be on, even just a week ago. The thought of not being always on the road sounds very nice. However, the only problems with this plan is what to do when I return... Though one of my goals for this trip was to try and figure this out, I haven't. While I have ruled out some ideas, others keep popping into my head... maybe I just need to go on another trip after this one when I get back!
Returning home after being on the road, experiencing what I have, seeing what I have, and getting used to always being on the road, feels like it will be both a blessing and a challenge.

Day 40? Montana

I'm now in Twin Bridges Montana. I've spent the last several days riding with a great group of guys from Tennessee and Virginia as we traveled through Yellowstone Park. Though I've been to Yellowstone twice before, the crazy geothermal anomalies there still intrigue me. The traffic wasn't as crazy as I imagined even though it was the 4th of July weekend. The worst by far are stupid people who have rented RVs and have no experience driving them, then try to pass you on blind corners...stupid. (Picture: Back to front: Dan, Chris, Dave, Mike)

Over the past week it seems a lot of bikers have been in my relative proximity. In the city of Landers, Wy there were about 15 cyclists all together storming the the town. While its nice to be around folks of the same persuasion, it can be a bit obnoxious trying to coordinate anything.

I'm now back on my own which is faster but kind of a shock. The scenery continues to be amazing but also hillier in general. Furthermore the weather has become predictable with thunder storms every afternoon. I've been trying to make progress but have defiantly jumped off the road into drainage ditches dropping my bike and squatting while the lightning passes. I feel pretty stupid doing so but riding a chunk of steel on the open road in "big sky country" with electricity shooting down at you is not too smart. Aside from lightning, people in Montana seem to love or hate bikes either buzzing me as close as possible when the road is clear and strait or swinging onto the rumble strip of the opposite lane...stupid.

I hope to be in Missoula in two or three days at which point I break from the regular Tansam route and continue North to White Fish and Eureka before turning West for home. I expect to see fewer bikers on that route since the Transam generally gets more patronage than any of the others.

I've included a picture of myself crossing into Montana just inside the Western boundary of Yellowstone. The west has shown a sharp decline in the number of showers. I can't remember how longs its been now but I think I'm smelling bad because the guy on the computer next to me is giving me funny looks.

Day 24 Scenery that will make your Microsoft Windows Vista desktop background package jealous

I'm currently in the beautiful state of Wyoming and the town of Lander. The scenery is fantastic and has been for almost a week now, red coulees set against snow capped peaks. If I had known, I would have just started the trip in Pueblo Co. and gone west from there, but I guess that you kind of have to do the trip to figure it out. At this point however, I'm really glad I'm headed west. It would be hard to do this trip Eastbound, because all the best stuff is out west.
The past few days I've traveled a ton of distance. Doing about 300mi in three days. While its kind of unexpected, once your in the high plains of Colorado/Wyoming its really quite flat. In addition, the scenery makes the miles fly by.
Passing through much of the mountainous regions of Colorado I was amazed to see the percentage of bark beetle kill. Most of the entire mountain range is brown with about 95% kill. This is what about 50 some odd years of a U.S. Forest Service policy of fire suppression compounded by global climate change does for forest health. When the area burns, (and I mean when not if) the entire Rockies will likely go up in smoke.
Yesterday I met up with a father son couple who I had met in Virginia. I was amazed to see them again, initially thinking that they must have blown ahead of me somehow. However it seems that they made a tactical uhaul move and bypassed Kansas and Eastern Colorado. Its great to see them, and their company is fantastic after several days of being by myself. In fact Lander seems to be an unavoidable stopping spot due to the next jump being about 75mi. so a lot of cyclists convene here.
As for being by myself, I think it is starting to get to me. Crossing the great divide basin yesterday staring at the road to navigate its horribly broken surface, I zoned out in a big way... ya I think I'm starting to loose it a little.
Crossing hoosier pass was pretty great, the highest point in the trip. Since then I've crossed the continental dived 3 more times and I think I cross about another 2. Initial estimates as of now put me in Anacortes July 21-25.

Day 27 Mountain Time

My tactics have been spot on, the day after my last post I flew 130 miles with one heck of a tail wind. One segment that day was 58 miles without any sevices or stops passing therought the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, this segment I did in 2.5 hours in a rainstorm. When it comes to a situation like that however, there are really two options one can choose from, hunker down and wait for better weather, or RIDE LIKE HELL. I chose the later.
As I have move furthur west, the climate has become drier, moving less from corn and more into wheat and finally into dryland cattle range. The human population has become more and more sparse as well, sometimes traveling many miles without seeing any houses or people. The scale of the farming has increased congruently. While in Easter Kansas, there was little irrigation Western Kansas has many center pivots the largest I saw had 15 segment! In addition the size of the combines and tractors have increased. I have now entered Colorado and mountain time, but besides the road signs theres not a whole lot of destinction between the western Kansas and Eastern Colorado biological continum.
One thing that did strike me about Kansas was the amount of oil wells. Aparently oil is a bigger source of revenue than argiculte in the state. Oil wells speckle the landscape some turning some not and some starting to turn all-of-the-sudden (why, I don't know). The oil is pumped to a cluster of tanks and various states of direpair in the near vacinity with a spill burm of sand around their base, but it is obviouse its just for looks.
I spent at least an hour today riding along at 17mph and making phone calls to pass the time as the road pans strait out in front of me at a very slight incline. Bugs also have become quite a nuisance, I am covered head to toe in black gnats which stick to my skin because of the sweat and sunscreen. Once the gnats have started then the ladybugs arrive hoping for a meal.
I have begun to realize that people are not as friendly as they once were. While the older population will still ask you where your going out of the blue the conversation usually ends there. The yonger folk, won't talk to you at all, and if prompted to star a conversation will not reciprocate.
Tomorrow I hope to be in Pueblo Co., the largest city I will hit on the entire route. Its prettymuch the last stop before getting into the hills of the Rockies, which will be a fantastic change after the continual plains. I'm about half way done with the trip as of today so I estimate my return at about July 24... we'll see...

Day 24, Somewhere in middle america

Day 24 finds me in Hesston Kansas, I've only moved 12 miles since this morning, and there is a good reason: WIND! This isn't your regular wind though. I'm traveling due west trying to keep a modest flat ground pace of 15 mph the wind is out of the SW at currently... 23 gusting to 29 mph. The result is pedaling downhill (yest there are long rolling hills in Kansas) in my smallest chain ring just to keep 6 mph its exhausting. I was able to make 98 miles yesterday but about 20 of that was with the wind. In addition I camped out in a city park through mid day till five pm to do the last 38 miles. So today I'm saying Fu** it. Heres the good new though, the wind is forecast to die out and come strait out of the South tomorrow and as I move further east may forecasts show a NE wind. All told this should make conditions much easier.

Aside from weather, Kansas has been what I expected, rolling plains of corn and wheat as far as the eye can see. girded roads every mile. At times to avoid unnecessary headwind I have gone off the route and cut through on country roads. Its nice to get of off the rout but the cost is riding on dirt/gravel country roads, the calculations have paid off every time so far though. I don't think there are many more instances where that is a possibility since the rout seems to stop making frivolous stops by towns just to say on pavement. Meh! pavement smavement.

I wish I could say that the wind in Kansas was the only bad weather I've had since my last post but the truth is getting out of Missouri was hampered by 75mph winds and 3.5 inches of rain in one hour. It was pretty crazy, I haven't seen rain that intense since Puerto Rico or Australia. I was hunkered down on a porch bivied under my rain fly peering out looking for a funnel cloud. Apparently everyone else in town had high-tailed it to their respective storm shelters but I calculated I couldn't dash without getting drenched. Apparently my calculation paid off. However when it came time to leave all the roads in and out of town were flooded making my westward press stalled for a few hours.

Anyway weather weather weather weather... I will persevere!

Day 17?

Wow, I can't even remember what day I'm on. I'm now in Elington Missouri, having crossed the Mississippi river yesterday. Today has brought me into the Ozarks which are the last hills before the great plains. I've met up with 6 other bikers over the past two days and we have been riding together which has been a great change of pace.
Eastern Kentucky was insane, much of the time I felt like I was in the third world. Lots of broken down winding roads leading into the mountain, lots of trash, lots of dogs, lots of trailers, lots of poverty, lots of confederate flags and a few neo nazi flags too... no I'm not joking... fu**ing crazy. I can't believe that part of the country is actually IN this country.
By contrast, western Kentucky is an altogether different state, rolling hills, lots of horses, and you can actually see some distance. When I picture "America" its something like western Kentucky but its crazy that eastern Kentucky poverty is "America" too.
The most amazing part about this trip so far has by far been the friendly people. Specifically, the folks at First Baptist Church in Sebree Kentucky, it has really changed my perspective on churches. Beyond that people have been so friendly opening their doors to bikers such as in my current situation, a friendly family, warm showers, food, for 6 people!
Anyway I'm expecting to be in Kansas by Thursday of next week then the miles will really start to click.