Ross' Transamerica Bike Trip

Divine Wind

2012-01-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

Saturday, July 12th. Big surprise- I slept in again today. But, Grandpa Josh did as well so at least he wasn't pissed. A hot shower and shave and we prepared for departure! We decided to stop by and say goodbye to the old lady who owned the place. Josh found her particularly endearing and actually took a video of her saying hello to Josh's girlfriend (Jen) and sent it to her. I'm sure the lady had no idea what was going on (seeing as she was probably more familiar with dinosaurs than the internet) but it was still cute.

I felt really good after an awesome night's rest, but I really was not looking forward to cycling again after yesterday's headwinds. Not that I typically look forward to cycling any morning for that matter. But I was particularly negative about it today. So, I just evaded the whole issue by coercing Josh into eating a massive breakfast. We went to the local grocer and loaded up on bread, meat, cheese and pickles and made some monster sandwiches. Being fat > being active/productive.

Sadly though, no matter how much I put it off we eventually had to bike. And man did I feel like an idiot once we started! We made our way to I-90 and quickly realized God was finally smiling down on us. Our headwind from yesterday had shifted a full 180 degrees. We had the fastest tailwind perhaps ever recorded by a cyclist! The wind was HOWLING! Screaming. Josh and myself giggled like school girls as we rocketed down the road at 20mph with ease. The slightest effort and we would break mid 20's... 30's... 40's.... Look for yourself.

We made more distance in two hours than I had expected to all day! Didn't take long until we made it to our next 100th mile...

Milestone 17 of 35ish!

The miles flew by effortlessly. Probably the toughest part of the day was evading all the roadkill (ever seen a porcupine? They're huge!). Early in the afternoon we we right outside of Chamberlain, SD. It was a pretty little area with a good size river running through it (the first body of water we've seen in the state). Talking to a few locals we discovered this river cut the state more or less in half and more importantly divided the "hilly" side of South Dakota from the "flat" side. This day keeps getting better and better!

We hiked up a barely significant hill (the wind was temporarily blocked by some high rocks and trees right off the road) but a mile or two past the river the locals forecast came true. Flat. And I don't mean "flat compared to Wyoming or Montana" or anywhere else that had some variable terrain. I mean "calibrate your lazer level" flat. I knew I was going to love South Datoka!

"Hilly" vs flat. I wonder if that river marked a fault line or something?

We were apprehensive about stopping for the day. We had spent ~5.5 hours actually pedaling and already made 120 miles for the day! But between slights breaks for food, water and bathrooms the Sun was sinking low in the flat South Dakotian horizon. We were only about 30 miles from the next town and we both were eager to try and push for a 150 mile day but we knew it would be dark and I-90 in the pitch black seemed like a stupid idea even by my foolishly lackidasical standards. We decide to at least check a campsite or two just to feel them out before we continued on since we were pretty much in the middle of no where.

We pulled up to the campground and I was pleased to see it was called "Gordy's Campground" (note similarity to my address GORD the great.blogspot.com). Seemed like a good omen to me! I mean, the sign reads bikes and tents welcome? We rolled into the campground and a group of children ceased playing long enough to stare at us like some other-worldly creatures. I suppose two gross dudes laden with bike equipment is rare for these parts. We met some of the owners who offered us a camp site for 10 dollars which was a bit too sweet of a deal to pass up. I suppose a lowly 120 miles for the day would have to be sufficient.

We talked with the owners for about five minutes and learned the campground was family owned getaway from their day to day grind in Souix Falls. They seemed really nice and were very curious to hear of our adventures! After chatting maybe 15 minutes the family patriarch returned to the campground dirty from an afternoon of four wheeling. The man told us we were the second group of cyclist to come through this summer (I guess gross dudes laden with bike equipment isn't as rare as I thought here) and he insisted our money was no good here. He offered to let us stay in one of the mobile campers they owned on the property. We couldn't had been more gracious!

Most generous family in South Dakota!

We talked and made merry until about 1 am when everyone decided to retire for the night. We showered for the second time in two days and crashed hard. What an absolutely perfect day!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 119.6
Total mileage- 1785.4

Wrath of God

2011-07-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 11th. I remarkably woke up early today. Early enough to get a head start on Josh. I grabbed the water bottles and headed about 3 miles in the wrong direction through the Badlands. According to everyone we've talked to there was a gas station there, and it was the only place to get food and water. I grabbed some muffins and filled our water for the day.

When I arrived at our campground I went over some gravel and took a nasty spill. I was fine but I was furious to see my rear rack had been mangled. I flipped the fuck OUT. By this point in the trip I've had what must had been a dozen flat tires, a broke spoke or two, and two moderate falls off my bike. I shook my fists at the heavens and cursed God! If I can't use my rack I can't carry any of my gear and realistically the trip is over. We had come so far, I didn't want to have to give up. But if we couldn't fix this, we'd have no choice.

Thankfully, Josh is a far better handyman than myself. It took us about a half hour and a full roll of duct/electrical tape but the rack held together... barely. Even worse, the muffins were terrible.

We still had a few miles to ride back out of Badlands. Josh seemed to enjoy the park as much as I was, so we decided to stop at a few places take in the sights.

Again, they really do it no justice.

And hey! On the way out we hit another milestone!

Milestone 16 of 35ish!

Again, right as we exit the park is going from like.. prehistoric geological rock formations back to grassy flatland. Like immediately. No transition just boom, over, done. Welcome back to uneventful SD.

In case today hadn't been off to a terrible enough God seemed determined to really smite the crap outta me. The wind was horrendous! It was coming from a kinda side/front direction but regardless it was so damn hard we could barely move! Josh wasn't thrilled with it either but it was definitely getting to me a lot more so than him. You can take a look for yourself, but a video of wind can only be so helpful...

We trekked on. For what seemed to be hours (cause it was). We moved at a snail's pace. I figured eventually the wind would have to shift or lessen but nope. Just constant aggressive wind. We eventually found another auxiliary road which paralleled I-90 again. Josh was convinced it would have less wind/be quicker but I saw a lot more rolling hills on it. For the first time all trip we split up. And raced!

The roads were about a 1/4 mile apart so we could easily see each other but it was about the only thing that made today bearable. Fighting wind and anger to try to put my physically-perfected partner in his place. Pretty boy bested me though (but it was close!)

We had already gone a solid 50 miles today. Frankly a respectable day especially given our shitty conditions. I saw a sign for a KOA (Kampground of America) and thought it'd be a reasonable place to stop. Josh wanted to go further but I was about ready to throw myself in front of a truck and put myself out of my misery. Josh reluctantly agreed to the KOA.

Five miles down the road and still no camp. Ten. Fifteen. Are you effing kidding me?! We were already to the next town (Murdo) and it became clear this campground was no where to be had. Have your fun God! Enjoy playing your games with us mere mortals.

We finally arrived at Murdo and Josh seemed pleased with our distance for the day and I was an angry, sour man from the experience. By far the worst day we've had since we biked down the Rockies. We found a cute little Motel and pulled up. The sweetest old lady on Earth greeted us and gave a 30 dollar rate which we immediately took. Turns out she was 96 years old and still ran this motel by herself after the passing of her husband. She had a cute little cart and would drive around changing linens and letting guests into their rooms. I mean how can you stay mad after seeing a lady like that? My heart melted. Although if I had the chance I woulda stole that hat in a heart beat!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 74.8
Total mileage- 1665.8

Beauty in the Badlands

2011-07-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 10th. So it turned out the one night we didn't put the fly on it rained. We quickly got up and tossed the fly on and covered the bikes before getting what sleep we could. But like always, we awoke to the sauna. At least the mosquitoes were leaving us alone this morning. We broke camp and started up the auxiliary road. The road wasn't in bad shape initially but about a mile up the road it simply got HORRIBLE. It really got so bad I didn't know how much longer we'd last. We were going at least half speed it was just so shitty.

About three miles up shit-road we came to a dead end. Literally. The road just ended. We could see the highway about a half mile away, but walking through tall grass and fields seemed like more work than simply back tracking. So we biked all 3 miles back along the gravely POS. A total of 6 miles of wasted work which is not a good way to start the day.

Right before we got to the highway we came to a cute little church. I really need to find a bathroom and it appeared no one was there. We knocked a few times with no answer. The door was unlocked so we kinda just walked right in. That's right. We broke into a church. Josh is a man of God so I figured he could make some prayers and clear up our indiscretion. But c'mon, when ya gotta go ya gotta go. We filled up some water, apologized to the Big Guy for our B+E and hit the road.

There was no denying it. It was straight up hot today. By the time we got a move on I-90 it was the heat of the day and it was definitely taking it's toll. On top of that remember that whole "flat geography" thing I have been talking about? I was entirely wrong. There are no major hills or mountains. But the entire area was just a bunch of tiny rolling hills. Just enough to piss me off. I fueled myself with rage and took the lead over Josh.

A few miles outside Wasta I looked back to see Josh biking with someone else which was clearly perplexing. I waited up for them to catch up and learned he was a fellow Transcontinental biker who went by Smilin' Joe. A trucker from Pennsylvania. Really nice guy with one helluva laugh. We welcomed the company, discussed our routes and decided to bike together for a while.

Around 4pm the three of us made it to a town called Wall, SD. It's a weird place. You'll see signs for Wall for hundreds of miles in every direction. It's this little tourist trap in literally the middle of nowhere. We stopped at their main attraction Wall Drugstore which was had everything but pharmaceuticals there. Things such as this-

As you can see, all clearly important things.

Afterwards we went across the street and grabbed a pizza with Smilin' Joe. It was a really damn good pie. The whole town seemed to have a atypically large amount of young foreign employees. We grabbed our waitress (who turned out to be Ukrainian) and asked her how on earth she ended up in Wall, SD. Turns out she's part of a "work in America" programs where college students sign up to spend a summer working in the good ol' US of A. This poor chick probably thought she was gunna be in the Big Apple or LA or something and ends up in one of the smallest cities on Earth. I felt bad for her but hey- welcome to America babe.

We finished our food and Josh and I decided to rest a bit. Smilin' Joe on the other hand was determined to make it further today. We said our goodbyes and wished him luck. He was a nice dude, but I feel better running this operation with 2 men. I'm not sharing my Joshypants with anyone! While he left we decided to order a second pizza. It was just that good!

Around 6pm we were debating what to do with our day. It was hot. Like balls hot. 95 degrees hot. And I do not do well in the heat. I was concerned how far we would make it and where we'd refill our water if the heat continued tonight/tomorrow. Regardless, Josh convinced me to not be lazy and get moving.

On our way out of wall we saw a few signs for the Badlands National Park. I had always heard great things but wasn't really sure what to expect. It was hot, it'd tack an extra 20 miles on to the trip, and I was feeling lazy. On the other hand we had purchased a National Park Pass back in Yellowstone and felt inclined to get the most bang for our buck. I mean, when else would we ever be back here again? Might as well go take a peak. And God was I glad we did! Here's a comparison. The entrance to the park was a very gentle hill. Here's before the hill, then right after...

A shocking night and day difference!

It was just so amazing! So beautiful! For as far as the eye can see massive rock spires jutting up from nowhere! Gorgeous streaks of red and yellow and brown. You just can't describe it well enough. No photo here will do it justice. As the evening cooled we took our time and took in the gorgeous scenery.

We biked well into the night. There was a campground on the eastern edge of the Park we planned on stopping at. It was a real cool experience seeing the park at night. I must admit, the Badlands really impressed me. To date it is without a doubt my favorite sight on this trip.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 59.9
Total mileage- 1591.0

Finally Flat!

2011-07-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 7th. I slept like a baby in the cabin. I have to admit, Josh makes an excellent big spoon. We were up fairly early (well, early for me) and had plenty of time a nice long shower. Really we just didn't want to miss the all you can eat pancake breakfast. The night prior our campground neighbors showed interest in joining us for breakfast. They had a car so we figured a 1 minute drive is nicer than a 5 minute walk. Why not? He's a picture of them at the ol' moose lodge.

They tied up their dog (we didn't think they'd let it in the restaurant) and piled in their car. Six people in a four seater was interesting, but it was also literally like 51 seconds to the restaurant. The place was indeed all you can eat pancakes for 1 dollar. But that was it. JUST pancakes. Nothing else included. Not drinks or sides or anything. Hell I don't even think syrup was included. In the interest of Josh-level-frugality we spent a grand total of 2 dollars. Tax included. Booyah. We ate comparatively quick but hung around and enjoyed the company of our new friends. After about an hour we all piled back into the car and made our way to the cabins.

When we arrived the office manager was waiting at our cabins. She immediately told the family that it was cruel to leave their dog tied up for so long with no water, handed them their money back and DEMANDED they leave. Immediately. She then turned to myself and Josh, clearly pissed told us check out was in 30 minutes and we needed to be gone. Josh was confused why such a nice lady would act out like that. I figured she was a dog lady, she did treat her Boston Terrier more like a child than dog. We were guilty by proxy. Certainly a bit of an awkward start to the morning.

It didn't take us long to pack, said our goodbyes and hit the road. We were theoretically exiting the black hills today and I was excited for the prospect of downhills. We were only a few miles outside Rapid City which is a larger city by South Dakota standards. On the way though, one of Josh's front racks broke. Who'd of guessed! For once a bike issue didn't happen to me! I could tell it was clearly stressing Josh out, so we stopped and evaluated. If we couldn't get it fixed Josh's whole front end would be off balance and difficult to steer. We called a bunch of local bike shops and no one had a replacement. Bad news. Josh even went so far as to call a welder. In the long run we just duct taped the mofo up. Seems to be holding fine. And just a few miles outside Rapid City look at what happened!

Milestone 15 of 35ish!

After Rapid City the terrain changed quickly. It always seems to do that, maybe it's just that were on bikes and have time to notice but literally like 10-20 miles and it's practically a whole new world. For the first time the entire trip I could see nothing but flat. No risk of mountains ahead. No concerns for hundreds of miles. I was truly elated. It was finally flat...

As we followed I-90 we noticed an axillary road running parallel to the highway. We both agreed it might be wise to get off the highway for a bit. And frankly it should be equidistant since it appeared to run parallel for quite some time. Along the way we came across some super weird humpbacked cows. Craziness.

I tried to make friends with that cow but he was being a dick.

We ran into a couple farmers while harassing the local bovines. They told us of a quaint park up ahead with a lake we could camp near. We decided it was probably a wise idea to make that the goal for the evening. The farmers made the directions seem real easy but I'm not gunna lie- we got lost like 3 times trying to find this damn pond! The sun was setting rapidly and I was getting concerned if we'd find it before dark. I'm still not 100% sure where the freaking farmers were trying to send us, but we did finally make it right as the Sun sinking low into a beautiful sunset.

We got most of camp set up before it was completely dark. And lucky for us being next to the lake provided plenty of mosquitoes to keep us company. It was a bit humid out and I elected to keep the fly off the tent for the night. Every freaking night we put it on and it never rained. I also blamed it for most of the sauna-like mornings we had. We laid there, talking about how we couldn't believe how far we've made it. The sky was crystal clear and the stars were beautiful. We made up sexual explicit constellations until we drifted off to sleep.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 48.2
Total mileage- 1531.1

Rushmore'd

2011-07-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, June 8th. No pumas. No bears. The only injuries I received was Josh smacking me with his arm in his sleep as he sometimes tends to do. I was real excited! Today was a big day- we were scheduled to reach Mount Rushmore today!

First things first though, we needed to get my broken spoke fixed. We heard rumors of a bike store in a small town called Hill City. Right on the way to Keystone (where Rushmore is at). It's real pretty around here! Nothing particularly special. Rather typical forest area but I guess I just kinda dig that. I bet it's absolute hell in winter with this terrain and a bunch of snow.

Couldn't had been much more than an hour to town. It was a cute little town. More importantly it had an all you can eat buffet! We do NOT turn down all you can eat. I'd be surprised if we didn't get kicked out. We made our way to the bike shop first where a very knowledgeable gentleman worked on my bike. In the mean time we gorged.

Mmmm. Bacon.

Bellies full, we returned to my fixed bike. Josh decided last minute to get his bike tuned up as well. Probably a good idea, it has been nearly 1500 miles.

The closer you get to Rushmore the more the geology changes. Rapidly. In the 5ish miles before you get there you begin seeing large rock spires jutting out of the ground. They were pretty neat. I think this one was Josh's favorite.

Once Josh calmed down after witnessing cock-rock we continued on. Overall the biking was uphill (its a mountain, duh). But the peaks were comparatively short and steep and frankly I was handling them pretty well.

Rushmore was quite different than I expected. It was, well, small. Maybe not small but way smaller than I expected. If I hadn't known it was going to be there I could had easily biked right past it unknowingly. Also there's this big like entrance gate for lack of a better term. I kinda thought it'd just be mountain + heads but nope. Big long entrance area which was kinda cool. We put our bikes off the beaten path behind a building but clearly in view of the fellow tourist. We didn't even bother to lock them up, we kinda figured if someone really wanted to steal a bike laden down with all this gear then I suppose they deserved it. And we'd have a great excuse to go home.

While it wasn't exactly what we'd expected it was still a really cool sight to see. I highly recommend checking it out if you get the chance. We waited around checking out the displays and caught a guided tour. What a weird tour though! First of all, the tour was held by a Native American. Which is totally fine, don't get me wrong, but ALL he did was talk about Indians! I'm at an American monument all this guy just blabbed on and on "George Washington's head is up there. The bla bla clan of Indian has a leader who just like him etc." I mean literally, that all it was the whole time. I was a bit dissatisfied but we did get to see some close ups of the monument.

Overall, pretty cool.

After spending a few hours there we made our way back to our bikes which sadly had not been stolen. Have I mentioned yet a pet peeve of mine being how it takes Josh FOREVER to get ready when going through his bags? The S.O.B. literally reopens his bags like 200 times and needs every fold and place perfect. Maddening.

Biking out of the area went smoothly. It was majority down hill all the way to Keystone. Sadly afterwards it was a moderate uphill to get out of town. I managed well enough. We got out of the hills and the sun was already getting low. We biked past a large restaurant advertising 1 dollar all you can eat pancakes. Yes please! Turns out it was for breakfast only, but we weren't going to let that stop us! Conveniently there was a campground right next door so we went to check it out.

We went to the office and rented a tent plot for 14 bucks. Pretty reasonable. The office had a boatload of food as well so we ended up chit-chatting with the nice lady and buying mac and cheese, frozen pizza and some other snacks. And she had a super cute Boston Terrier and we spent quite the bit of time playing the pup. She definitely seemed to like us after that. My guess is she was kind of a dog lady. Either way she was kind enough to let us into her house to cook some of the food before heading to our camp site. We walked toward our plot when we noticed some small cabins and were real curious if they were up for grabs. Running back and catching the lady before she went to bed we found out the cabins were a mere 6 dollars more. Sure I'd be sharing a bed with Joshypants but it's still way more roomy then my tent!

We also had access to showers and a laundry room which is always lovely. While washing ourselves and our clothes we met our cabin neighbors. They were a rather kind family although perhaps a tad rough around the edges. From Minnesota I believe? Anyway more importantly they gave us a few hotdogs and it made for a delightful night all around!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 37.0
Total mileage- 1482.9

Bathroom Talk with the Crypt Keeper

2011-03-07T11:35:00.000-08:00

Monday, June 7th. We awoke in the firehouse quite well rested. There was no one around to thank for our stay, and no shower, so we packed up and hit the road. Thanks though Osage Fire Dept! Food options were a little scarce in town. The plan was to continue southeast on route 16 into South Dakota today and we knew there was a larger town, Newcastle, about 15 miles down the road.

It was a really nice day out and the biking went smoothly. We made it to Newcastle in good time and found a little diner on it's outskirts and popped in for a breakfast. Our waitress seemed a bit disheveled, coming back a few times to double check the order. When we got our food Josh had to ask a few times to get some syrup for his pancakes and I could tell he was clearly getting a bit pissed which is frankly no easy task. When pretty boy Josh stepped into the restroom I overheard the waitress talking about how one of her friends had just died the night before. I figured that was probably why she was so mixed up. Josh felt a bad for being upset. We left her a nice tip figuring there wasn't much more we could do for a stranger.

We biked into the heart of the metropolis known as Newcastle. We found a local grocer and replenished our stores. When we stepped back outside we were a pleasantly surprised to find two touring bikes next to our own! It was easy to locate the owners (hint- spandex). It was a father cycling with his 24 year old daughter.

Unlike ourselves these were true transcontinental-ers. They had started out on the west coast and had intention of making their way to Maine. We swapped stories and even discovered they were blogging their way across the country as well! We also learned of Nutella, which apparently is some sort of cyclist's holy grail. A chocolaty peanut butter like concoction I'm told! They let us try a bit, its was pretty good. After a while I felt we were perhaps holding the fellow cyclist up we let them get to their groceries and we hit the road! South Dakota bound we were! Only a few more miles until the border, but before then...

Milestone 14 of 35ish!

I wasn't completely sure why but I was really excited about South Dakota. Even back when I was doing my very scarce planning for the trip South Dakota had caught my eye. The south eastern edge of the state begins the Black Hills as their known. Two things about the Black Hills-

A- They're definitely hilly.
B- After reading some informative signs it turns out they're called the back hills because the dark foliage that exists there. From a distance they do indeed look blackish!Or at least so compared to all the green around..

Not long after seeing the Black Hills (you can see the beginning of them in mile 1400 photo above) we crossed into South Dakota. A land of Great Faces. Great Places. And a saddening lack of fireworks. Its wasn't long over the state border before I faced a whole new bike related issue. One of my freaking spokes broke off! I must admit, Josh and myself were a tad stumped. Can you ride on a broken spoke? What do we do?

Lucky for us, the father/daughter combo just so happened to be biking past us while we were pondering our predicament. The father took a look and gave us a diagnosis. Turns out you can bike on a wheel with a broken spoke it's just going to wobble a bit side to side and rub up against the brakes. The bigger concern is once a single spoke breaks the likelihood of more breaking increases and increases. Shit. I have the worst effing luck on Earth with this damn bike. I sometime wonder how we've made it this far with my bad luck and shocking lack of bike knowledge. We thanked the family and continued on our way.

The bike still traveled fine and after a few miles I really didn't even worry. We spent the next few hours biking through the hills. They weren't too bad as far as hills go. Regardless at this point I'm pretty damn conditioned for hills and frankly even got ahead of Josh a few times! That musta pissed him off though, cause when a bus got "a bit too close for comfort" Josh swerved out of the way, bumping me with his bike. Luckily, no one fell but I took the hint and let the pretty boy take his position back in the front of the pack.

We really weren't too far away from Mount Rushmore although I didn't think we would quite make it there today. When you cross into South Dakota the first town you come to is Custer, followed by Keystone a bit north. Mount Rushmore is right outside Keystone. There's also another lesser-known monument called Crazy Horse. It's pretty much the same thing as Rushmore but for the injuns. And also four times the size. I wasn't 100% sure where it was but after asking some locals (a terrible idea) it turned out we were almost there! Just a few miles up the road and we came across it. It's kinda hard to make out.

So when you compare you can see what they're going for. I think it's a pretty cool idea, but it's kinda unimpressive. Then again, Rushmore had government funding and I think Crazy Horse is just donations and some dude with a lot of dynamite and time on his hands. Maybe in 50 years when I come back it'll be a bit more impressive?

It was getting a bit dark and it was clear we wouldn't make it much further today. A few miles up the road we found a campground and decided to pull in and take a look. Right off the bat we saw the charge (18 dollars) and kinda said fuck that. But, we figured we'd scope it out, and they did have a bathroom which beats doing it like a bear in the woods. We met a few people while there and chatted them up. Very nice people, as people tend to be. They cooked us up some burgers which were spectacular. While we were hanging out talking this lady who must had been in her 70's came over to check out what was going on. Turns out shes a campground employee and was just ensuring we weren't causing any trouble. Because clearly four people sitting at a table is a problematic situation. Then again she was just doing her job. We hung around with our new friends for what must had been an hour or two. At about 10pm the Crypt Keeper came back over giving us a hard time about being in the campgrounds so late. She kept interrogating us!

"You have to pay if you stay here tonight"
"Were not."

"Are you going to sleep in the bathroom? Don't sleep in the bathroom."
"Lady, that bathroom smells SO BAD I would die well before I fell asleep in there."

Since clearly Skeletor wasn't going to give us a break, we said our thank you's and bid farewell to our new friends. On our way out of the campground the employee asked us where we planned on sleeping if not at the designated campgrounds (I think she was worried we'd sneak back in). I pointed across the street at the forest. She argued we couldn't camp there cause it wasn't a designated camp ground. Smirking like a true dick, I explained how it's a National Forest and I can camp where ever I damn well pleased. She was real pissed clearly. I would had been worried about her having a heart attack or something but I'm fairly sure she was already the living dead, so I think were in the clear.

So we walked into the woods a good 100 yards or so. It was pitch black which was problematic when it came to setting up camp. Josh held the flashlights for me while I set the tent up and I held it for him while he was hanging the food. I had a weird feeling though. I kept hearing a noise off to the left. A couple times I'd beam the lights off in that direction but it seemed to be pissing Josh off. Bout the third time I did it though I caught a glimpse of something. A pair of glowing eyes. I watch and followed them as they slow circled around us. Getting no closer. No further. Just slowly circling. Being well aware there are mountain lions in the region I kinda flipped out! Josh on the other hand... very unconcerned. He just felt it was a wolf or coyote and recommended we just get in the tent and forget it. I slept with the mag-light next to me just in case I needed to beat a puma off in the middle of the night.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 64.2
Total mileage- 1445.9

Best Town on EARTH

2010-07-29T16:45:00.001-07:00

Sunday, July 6th. Josh woke me up about 5:45 today. It sucked, but I had agreed to it and we really did need to get a move on. We showered, got ready, and hit the road. The plan was to follow I-90 to Moorcroft then drop Southeast along CR-16 toward South Dakota. If we made good mileage it's highly possible to reach the border tonight. We had t0 make some stops first though. We rode back to Walmart where Josh bought a raincoat. We also stopped by the post office to ship his old rain gear back home. All in all we were ready and on the road to Moorcroft by 8:15. Not too shabby.

On the way out of town a trained passed us. Sometimes you have to keep yourself preoccupied when biking...

All in all the ride to Moorcroft was uneventful and easy. Fairly flat, nice in cool under the morning Sun and it was a quick 30 miles. We stopped in town for a quick lunch and made our way to CR-16.

I expected the road path to begin getting hilly any time now. Once we got to South Dakota we would be in the Black Hills. And while I know nothing about them I imagine they're rather hilly. So I was mentally preparing myself for this.

Another 10 miles or so down the road I started having an issue. The shirt I had bought was too lose, and the wind was flapping against my body every time I pedaled. At first this is no issue, but after forty miles of flapping my poor man-nip was getting chaffed and bleeding! I took pity on my man-boobage and took the shirt off.

After that smooth sailing! I came across an antelope of some sorts. Going along with the theme of the day I decided to race it!

It was a close race, I let him win.

We continued on down the road until we came to a small town called Upton. I had seen it on the map and thought it might be a suitable place to stop and rest. God was in I in for a treat when I got to here. The sign alone screamed "amazing."

Sure, I had to make fun of the place, but the town really had some charm. It was cute. In a dilapidated sort of way. We stopped into a convenience store to grab some items. There was a lovely young girl inside who talked to us for a while. She was very friendly! We asked here if there was a cafe or anything in town I could get wifi and she said no, but that I could sit in there conference room and use theirs. So we took a break, Josh wrote his journal and I went online a bit and wrote 50+ postcards. While I was writing them my good buddy Dave Gould (hi Dave!) sent me a bunch of Frank Rizzo audio clips. For anyone who doesn't know Frank Rizzo you're missing out. God he's hilarious!

We stayed until 4ish and laughed until we cried. I felt bad, I think we overstayed our welcome a bit. Sorry! But thanks again for letting us stay! You're a doll.

I lost your name, but thank you mystery girl!

We left town quite refreshed and in good spirits. There was still plenty of daylight left and we were making solid time. The town of Osage was 15 miles down the road and Newcastle 30 miles. If we kept this pace up we'd definitely make it to the South Dakota border tonight! The land was beginning to get a bit more hilly like I had expected. I was just real curious to see if we'd make it.

Right before we got to Osage Josh had to piss. I felt the need to poke fun at him and his new safari-style hat. Enjoy.

As we pulled into Osage the wind was really picking up. Not normal "annoying" wind. It was that wind you feel before a storm comes through. The sky was darkening fast and we even heard some rumblings of thunder in the distance. Osage was little more than a few houses thrown together. We pulled off the road and found a bar and went inside. Figured they had to have some grub, right?

The bar was nothing special, and they really didn't have much food. They had some frozen pizzas so we ordered like 5 (they were small). We sat and talked to the bartender for a while and she told us all about herself and her family. Apparently her son had passed away which was very sad. About a half hour after arriving a few local boys showed up. They told us the storm was approaching and should break any minute now. We stepped outside just as the lightning started sparking like crazy. It was pretty sweet.

The rain came down and came down hard. It became obvious we weren't going to make it any further. I just wanted a safe place to pitch my tent so we didn't get struck by lightning (not really many trees around, ya know?) We asked the bartender if we could pitch the tent out behind the bar. One of the locals heard us asking and he offered us the fire station for the night. Apparently he's a volunteer and had access to it. We gratefully accepted! The fire station was only a minute away so we hopped on our bikes and he let us in. Check out this place....

Pretty sweet huh? So what did we do? We had about 4 beers each, got hammered, and dressed up like fire fighters! I mean, what else would you do? We drunkenly say in the ambulance and realized we could totally drive this thing around and no one would be the wiser but decided against it. After all, these people were super generous to begin with.

All in all a solid day. We made good mileage, met good people and had good times. Sorry today was a bit video heavy but I think it was worth it.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 67.0
Total mileage- 1381.7

Bummin' Round

2010-07-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 5th. I woke up well before Josh and decided to let him sleep. I got up, worked on my blog for about 90 minutes before Josh got up. We had a bit of a serious talk about his health and whether we should take the day off and let him rest of continue on. Josh had been and continues to be a bit worried about our pace. He just doesn't want to run out of money or leave Jen alone too long. I completely understand but at the same time I can't have his health deteriorating any further it's just unsafe. Josh was adamant on trying to make some ground so we agreed to try and make it to Moorcroft which is about 30 miles from Gilette.

First things first, we needed to find Josh some appropriate headgear. We biked to Walmart to check out their inventory. It was shady so Josh watched the bikes while I quickly ran in for a haircut. I ended up walking out with a huge sandwich, a bandanna and an athletic shirt. A little splurge but I wanted something to cover my pale irish skin and I was tired of having sweat drip into my eyes! It was Josh's turn so I sat on their display furniture and relaxed.

Yeah baby, I'm stylin'.

Josh took a bit of time but I really didn't mind. It was shady. I popped my sunglasses on and relaxed. About 15 minutes later security came out and checked up on me. Apparently more than one person had reported than a young man had "passed out" on a lawn chair in front of the store. I appreciate the sentiment people but uh I'm fine. Kinda funny though.

Josh didn't find any head wear he liked so we biked a few miles down the road to a sporting good store. He did find something more suitable. The hat made him look like a total ass but at least his head would be less constricted but covered.

We sure look like asses, but hopefully it'll help.

Afterward, Josh wanted to find some new rain gear- seeing as his wasn't too effective. We went back to Walmart to look around. I don't fully recall but I'm pretty sure he didn't get anything.

All in all it was a fairly non productive day so far. It was well into the afternoon and we both agreed we wouldn't get very far if we tried today. We decided to stay in town for the night and get up super early tomorrow to maximize our day.

We went back to Crazy Woman Campgrounds and set up. I pitched tent and Josh decided to try out his hammock again. We called it an early night.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 6.1 (Day "off", 6th day of rest)
Total mileage- 1314.7

Independence Day

2010-07-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 4th. Independence Day. We awoke around 10am in Buffalo. About a week prior we had been discussing spending the 4th of July at Mount Rushmore but the distance just simply wasn't feasible. I'm sure they put on one hell of a fireworks show though. The plan for the day was to cycle along I-90 to Gilette, a city about 70 miles East of Buffalo. There was no towns at all between these two points so I was frankly concerned about water. It was hot out today and I knew it was going to be upwards of 90. I asked some locals if there were any stops along the way and they said there was a rest stop about 25 miles outside Buffalo which was essential. We could bike 25 miles, stop, refuel and go the remaining 45. Solid plan if you ask me.

We got underway and compared to yesterday things were a breeze. The topography was definitely hilly but I was expecting that and therefore was less pissed. The hills were in fact rather large and I started playing a game with Josh to see who could more accurately guess the distance from one summit to the next. We were both a bit too good at it. We've been on these roads way to long, man.

It was a pleasant ride in the morning. There were these lovely Yellowish-Green plants all along the road. The locals told me they typically aren't there but since it had been such a wet Summer there was a lot of unique vegetation.

About 20 miles in there was no sign of a rest stop. We came across men who's car had broken down (they were headed West, opposite of us). We asked if they needed a hand or to use our cell but they had it under control. I asked them if they had seen a rest stop when they traveled from Gilette but none of the men could recall seeing one. That definitely made me nervous. I decided I needed to start conserving my water a bit more just in case this rest stop didn't actually exist..

I was making real good time. For once I was actually ahead of Josh. I kept thinking there was no way the locals could make up a rest stop. It just had to be there. But I was still nervous. I kept watching my surroundings. I'd see a stream or dirty river and think "I guess if I have to I could drink that." Josh was far less concerned. The man's really a machine. He was quite convinced he could make the 70 mile trip on one water bottle and sacrifice the other to me. I appreciated the sentiment but honestly sometimes I feel Josh doesn't know his own limits. Not that he wouldnt make it on one bottle but he shouldn't make it on one bottle. The man really needs to drink more water.

Luckily though not too far down the road was the rest station. I eagerly pulled off and Josh followed suit. We got a nice spot in the shade and sat, filling our bellies with food and water. I chugged every last drop I had. I went inside the station (little more than a bathroom and a water fountain) and took a swig of the water and there was something wrong.

Sulfur. More of it than I'd like to admit. Sulfur has been a bit of a plague throughout Wyoming. Ever since we got to Cody I had noticed the air itself had a smell of sulfur. It was simply displeasing. It seemed the well this fountain was connected to definitely had some sulfur in it also. So I weighed my options- fill my bottles with sulfur water or go without it for 45 miles in 85+ degree heat? Life isn't always glamorous on the road. I knew I needed to stay hydrated so I chugged a bottle of sulfur water and filled up.

We finished eating and waited for the temperature to drop a bit before heading on. I inspected Josh's head to find spots of sunburn. Perhaps that's what had been causing all the issues? Also, check out this huge puff ball I found! We got to talking with a kindly old man while waiting there. It turns out his son was also biking across the country! What are the odds? We talked a bit and somehow got on the topic of sulfur water when he offered us some fresh filtered water. Josh declined at first but I certainly wasn't going to pass it up. He ended up filling a little over one bottle with the fresh stuff. We weren't going to wait around for more to filter so we thanked him and got on our way.

It was hot. Damn hot. We had 45 miles to go, but frankly it felt like an eternity. After about 15 miles Josh had acquiesced the lead from me and I was starting to lag behind. It was the smell. And the heat. It just smelled like hot, clammy sulfur and it was gross. I had a belly full of nasty H2O and it just wasn't working. After another 10 miles I pulled on the side of the road and just had to sit down.

My head was pounding. I felt light headed. I just wasn't doing okay. I literally laid down right on the side of the road. Josh thought this was funny because it later caked my back in pebbles and he thought I'd find it funny in hindsight. I guess my dehydration and nausea was a tad humorous looking back. We really didn't have many options though. We still had plenty of miles to put on and little choice but to go all the way tonight. I thought perhaps I had sweat out a lot of my electrolytes and munched on salty snacks. If nothing else I figured maybe I could "placebo" myself into feeling better. Although I'm not too sure that works when you do it to yourself? Regardless I felt slightly okay after 15 minutes and we continued on.

Josh was clearly in the lead at this point. He was like a graceful gazelle- powering up hills and gleefully rolling down them. I was like an awkward turtle- sluggishly making my way, looking sad and hopeless while doing it. Another 10 miles down the road Josh was way ahead of me. At least a quarter mile if not more and he was flying up a hill. I needed a break. I was hurting. I screamed at him. No response. I pulled out my rape whistle and blew as hard as I could. Nope. Nothing. He disappeared over the hill. I was getting annoyed. What if something happened to me? How far would he go before turning back to check up? I was so pissed I kept going, no break for Ross. I found out later Josh kept a good distance ahead of me to try and motivate me to keep going. You bastard Josh. Guess it worked.

A bit further down the road Josh waited up for me. We agreed we'd take a quick break while I snapped a photo of our 1300th mile.

Milestone 13 of 35ish!

After this brief break I was feeling a lot better. I knew we were getting close to the end of the day and the temperature was dropping. We were starting to see sporadic houses so I knew if absolute worst came to worst I could beg someone for water. I just felt safer. The landscape also was getting real interesting the closer you got to Gilette. There were all these small bumps in the fields. It was practically flat everywhere except for these "pimples." I didn't know what to make of them.

Not long after we arrived at Gilette. I was thrilled to be there! We stopped at the first subway we found and we scarfed down exactly one buttload of food. Afterward we were hanging around outside the restaurant making some calls and in general not doing much when a man approached us. His name was Jonathan and saw our bikes and had gotten curious. He too was a biker and was traversing the states as well! We stayed and talked to Jonathan for at least an hour before parting ways. He was a real cool guy, I believe he worked for Apple and started in California. He biked through the desert and was headed to Glacier National Park which he was highly recommending. Apparently this wasn't his first ride either, although I commend him on going solo. I really do think that takes balls (although he was hoteling it the whole way). Was great meeting you Jonathan!

It was late already and we had still yet to find a place to sleep. We heard of a camp ground called "Crazy Woman Campgrounds" and rode over. We made camp for the night and faced some tough decisions. Josh's head wasn't getting any better. If anything it was getting worse. There was a hospital right next to the campgrounds and we decided Josh was going to have to go to the ER to get this checked out. I was beginning to get fearful Josh would not be able to finish the trip. It'd be real shitty to make it this far and have to leave due to medical issues.

It took until late in the night for Josh to see a doctor. I offered to stay up with him but he told me not to bother and to sleep. I mean, what could I really do sitting there? I felt like a prick but I was exhausted. I asked again but he declined so I went to bed about midnight.

I woke up as Josh crawled into the tent that night. I asked him how everything went and he told me he had a blood test done to see if there were any kidney issues. Apparently he had a bit of low Potassium and was dehydrated (shocker). The doctor felt the culprit for the swelling was likely the bandanna he was using to shield his head. Perhaps it was an allergy to the fabric or perhaps it was too tight but either way she recommended not using it.

By the time Josh got back from the hospital the sun was rising. Sorry you had to go through all that buddy.... hope you feel better tomorrow.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 72.1
Total mileage- 1308.6

Biking Uphill, Both Ways!

2010-07-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 3rd. It had rained during the night. We could hear the thunder a bit off in the distance but I slept well. We awoke to dozens of mosquitoes trying to make it through the mesh of my tank but thankfully we were safe inside. We got up and ate breakfast and broke camp. I likely have about 60 dead mosquitoes in my tent fly but what can you do?

It was a beautiful day and it was early enough to be cool (although I didn't expect much heat at these altitudes). I was on the side of the road stretching when Josh realized he had misplaced his biking gloves. We went back and checked camp two or three times but simply couldn't find them. Josh was pretty pissed. Not that they were the best pair of gloves ever but I wouldn't be very comfortable biking without them. Josh was more pissed about the financial loss. Funny how the two of us see things differently. On top of that Josh's head was really starting to hurt. He thought his bald scalp was starting to get a bit burnt causing a headache and we didn't have anything to remedy it. Poor Josh is having a tough morning! On a separate note- check out my awesome tan lines!

We continued uphill. I was impressed how non-stop this mountain was. Most hills have some breaks, ya know some briefs flats or downhills in them. Not the Big Horns. Literally one long uphill. We made it another 5ish miles before the grade decreased which was absolutely wonderful! As we approached the peak you could see large piles of snow. Pretty damn cool seeing snow in July.

Only a few hours after beginning our day we reached the summit with what I'll call "pessimistic joy." I was obviously thrilled to be at the top but pretty pissed I had to go up the thing in the first place.

There were a fair number of people at the top. They had a little information station informing you the elevation was 9,666 feet. We had started at 4200 feet down at Ten Sleep. So we had gone approximately 5400 feet in about a day. Let me put that in layman's terms for you. Go out side for a moment. See that cloud up there? That cloud is probably 10,000 feet in elevation. Now go get on a bike and pedal your ass up there. Look like fun to you?

That's the equivalent of 4.3 Empire state buildings!

... or 16,000 apples.

So finally 16000 apples later we were there. We stayed a bit, ate, drank, took in the sights. There was a large pile of rocks at the summit as well, and I was kind of in the mood to go climb on them. No real reason. I just felt like monkeying around. Josh was a bit worried about time but when I put it in the perspective of "when will you ever be here again. Lets go check out the view" he was okay with it.

We started walking up towards the pile. From the road it didn't seem too far away or too high but the closer you got the more you realized this was not a quick 15 minute hike. We soldiered on though. I was still wearing my biking cleats which were rather slick. So I too my good time. These rocks were sharp and one wrong move and we could really hurt ourselves. Not to mention there were icky spiders all over the place. This photo should give you a little perspective on the height of this rock pile.

After what must had been an hour we reached the summit. I presumed it must had been another 300ish feet up this rock wall which would put us at near 10,000 feet. Short of taking our plane flight this would be by far the highest point of our bike trip.

The view from the top!

In fact, sitting there that moment, looking over the huge horizon I couldn't help but feel so accomplished. We had come so far, overcome so much! I mean we had cross the Rockies and biked hundred and hundreds of miles. Perched up there Josh and I felt like kings. We celebrated by eating pistachios and spitting their shells all over the mountain we had conquered.

Before we left I gave Josh the camera and he took a whole bunch of photos. Notice anything wrong with this one?

Our conquest was brief though and we climbed from our lofty throne. We had both been a bit worried leaving our bikes on the side of the road when we first went to climb the rock pile. We jokingly hoped our bikes were gone so we could give up with dignity and go home. Lucky us though, no one stole the bikes laden with dozens of pounds in gear. Shucks. In typical fashion I gave the mountain the finger and we began biking down the Eastern slope.

Screw you Big Horns. I won.

It was easy riding. We flew down the hill hitting upwards of 40mph without even pedaling. We were going so fast I even stopped to put on some extra clothes/my helmet just in case I fell (again). Josh and I were quite pleased to finally have some downhills. I mean, I had just faced 26 miles of continuous uphill. I DESERVE easy riding. On another good note we soon hit our 1200th mile!

Milestone 12 of 35ish!

We were joking and having fun, it was quite pleasant really. The two of us had a unhealthy obsession with trying to hit 50mph's on a bike. Here's my first attempt..

Shortly after my first try at 50mph we came across a hill. A little annoying but sometimes there are slight uphills on the downhill side. We pedaled up the inconvenience and continued our quest for 50!

We were about to start going downhill again when a truck drove past us and beeped suddenly as it crossed Josh. Josh was noticeably startled (although things like this happen all the time). When I caught up to him Josh went on about how the guy was a prick and bitched about what the guys problem was. Honestly it takes a lot to piss Josh off and I was a bit shocked to see him like this. It really got to him.

About another mile up the road we came to yet another hill. Hmm, well that's annoying. Josh was still pissed and he powered up the hill in a fury. I took my time- I already biked up a mountain yesterday. Today's supposed to be my easy day. I earned it.

Josh takes advantage of the slope and goes FLYING down the next hill! He actually managed to hit 49.9 mph and because of that we deduced the speedometer probably maxes out there. Good work Josh ol' boy. We continued another mile. Another hill. This was starting to get to me. I mean the majority of the distance we were traveling was downhill but it's taking me 5 times longer to go up this mini mountains. I was starting to get pissed.

Josh was starting to get a bit reckless, he was clearly still upset from that truck driver and his horn and started drafting cars and trucks on the downhill in a quest for speed. Definitely dangerous but I was getting so pissed about biking UPHILL the downhill face of the mountain I didn't give a shit.

After about 3 or 4 more hills I'd had enough. I got off my bike, picked it up and THREW it on the side of the road. When it landed a reflector broke off my back wheel and Josh picked it up, handing it to me. I took it and launched it as hard as I could into the woods. Josh burst into laughter over my childish behavior.

"Fuck this Josh! I'm not spending all day biking up both sides of this mountain! This is so fucking gay! We didn't get a break on the opposite side! It's just not fair!"

I sat down with my laptop and looked up the topography of the mountain vowing to walk up any more uphills I faced. Josh was laughing, knowing I was just super pissed. Somehow knowing I was even more upset than him put him in a good mood. He threatened to tell everyone I didn't actually "bike" the whole way if I walked up any hills. I got super pissed and didn't talk to Josh again for about 45 minutes.

At about that time we came across a sign saying "cautious 7-8% grade hills for next 5 miles" meaning there were no more uphills. I thanked God Almighty and flew down the hill. I literally spent 2/3rd of the day biking back up the mountain today. I'd had enough of it.

Once we left the mountains we reached the town of Buffalo. No fucking around tonight. It was already evening and I was hungry and grumpy. We went to a pizza shop and each ordered a large cheese pizza. That's right. Each of us dammit. I literally ate the whole damn thing. It was more to prove I could because after about 5 of 8 slices I wasn't that hungry. Josh had a slice or two left over and opted to bring it with him. What a pussy. Some day I'll teach that boy how to eat.

We went and found a suitable campsite for the night. We did some laundry, wrote in our journals and blogs and enjoyed some relaxation. We decided to go for a little walk through town before the night ended. We ended up just buying 5 kit kats each. Josh's head was still hurting a bit and when he went to inspect it he noticed his right temple was severely swollen. Inspect this photo again and see if you can notice (hard not to now that I mentioned it). We didn't exactly know what was up, but we decided if it didn't get better soon we'd have to do something about it...

Little swollen Joshyboy?

When we were going to bed I informed Josh I planned on sleeping in tomorrow because today sucked so much. Josh pointed out though that tomorrow was the 4th of July and he didn't want to be on the road late at night due to the likelihood of drunk drivers. It's times like now that I'm glad he's here. I would had never thought of that. Thanks Josh, take care of your melon-head, will you?

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 49.7
Total mileage- 1236.5

One Mile Marathon

2010-07-26T18:38:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 2nd. We definitely slept in today. Yesterday was a long day though, so I say we earned it. When we awoke the Schwede's children were outside our camper playing. They asked a million questions and it was funny how interested they were in us. It was refreshing in a way. We could see the Rocky Mountains in the distance and knew we had a hellish day in store. It was best to get started. We said goodbye to Mrs. Schwede and got on our way.

I tried not to think about how horrible today was going to be. You all know how much I hate hills, let alone mountains. I had looked at all the routes and considered all my options. There was no way around it I was going over the Rocky Mountains. today The only consolation I had was the rumor the Rockies weren't steep, just high. God I was hoping that's true!

First things first though, we had to get to the mountains and they were 30 miles away. The ride was really pretty. There were all these red hills off in the distance. The photos (like most) do them little justice. It was fairly flat and a real nice day and we were making great time.

Oh, and Josh upgraded his head piece. He's now rocking the "Arabian Prince" look.

We arrived at the foot of the mountain to find a cute town called Ten Sleep. I had been seeing the name on my maps for days and it piqued my interest. We were both real curious where the name came from but there were more pressing matters. Were starving and it was time for lunch. The mountain slope was right here and I need to fuel up! We had a yummy meal and stopped at a convenience store to get some supplies.

We started chatting with the locals and they asked what we were doing. We told them we were biking over the Big Horns to which they replied.. "Really? I have a hard time driving over them! I can't even imagine biking it!" Cause that's what you want to hear. before doing this. We asked how far it is from the base of the mountain to the top. Turns out its TWENTY SIX straight uphill miles to the top, totaling a MILE increase in elevation. A mile high marathon indeed. Simply sounds horrendous. Seeing as there was no camp until the other side of the mountain we loaded up on food and water. As we biked out of Ten Sleep we came across a sign that satisfied my curiosity. I think we should describe everything in "sleeps!"

The hills really weren't so bad at first. A "pleasant" slope. Perhaps the rumors about the Rockies being gradual was true? For about 8 miles we continued up the slopes without too much trouble. I mean, I was still going slow and Josh was clearly making easier work of this than myself but I wasn't stopping. At mile 9 it all changed. The slopes began increasing, becoming more and more brutal. It was pretty though, have a look-see.

We kept moving, although very slow. We were averaging 3-4 mph. When moving that slow you just can't help but feel a bit disheartened. I mean you've been biking for HOURS and you're barely moving. You can't help thinking with each pedal...

"What if I hadn't brought these items? How much lighter would my gear be?"

"Okay, I've gone X miles. I'm going approximately 3.5mph. That means I just have Y more hours to the top."

And let me tell you, when Y is 5+ hours you just can't help but think shit this sucks. The grade of the mountain had to be as steep as Steven's Pass if not steeper. My body was obviously in better shape to handle the mountains but still- I was struggling. At the beginning of the mountain I'd go 3/4 miles or more without a break, but toward the end of the day I was dying. I'd go a quarter mile or so if I was lucky without needing a breather. I'm just not cut out for these hills!

The day was growing late and I was getting tired. In an interesting turn of events Josh was very adamant on stopping before myself. It was about 8:30 and we were about 8 miles from the summit. We approximated our elevation to be about 8000 feet and it was starting to get fairly cool. Being a fan of cold weather I thought we should trek on and just make it to the summit while it was colder out. I figured Josh owed me after dragging me out of Yellowstone at midnight. But he was pretty serious- he really was worried he'd be too cold during the night at the summit and I really didn't want to bike any further.

We found a nice clearing about 50 feet off the road and made camp. I gotta say Josh was pretty nice about things today. Not that it's easy for him to handle these hills but if I wasn't there slowing him down he definitely would had made it to the summit if not further. He was a real sport though, he complimented me on my ability to "keep up" with him today, which I appreciated. We just laid there in the tent for hours and talked. We discussed everything from God to how our bikes were handling. We discussed how we shifted and what we found most efficient and how we powered through the tough parts. We sounded like old cycling masters at this point in the trip. It was a really nice talk I must admit. About 11 o'clock we decided it was time to sleep.

As I laid there I couldn't help but think of those girls from the night before. There was no sight of the family at all today. Had the 9 year old girl made it over the Rocky Mountains in one day where I could not? Man, I'm such a pussy.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 51.76
Total mileage- 1186.8

Iowa Sucks

2010-07-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, July 1st. We awoke promptly at 8am. We showered, shaved, and got ready to hit the road. We again went to Bubba's, this time only gorging ourselves on the well-priced blueberry pancakes. We had a long day of riding ahead and knew there would be few if any stop from here to the next closest town. Josh thought it might be a good idea to load up, so we stopped and purchased a gallon jug of yellow Gatorade. Would it be piss warm by the time we drank it? Yes. Would we stay hydrated in the Summer heat? Well, I hope so.

We left Cody heading East on the main highway. We knew that about 100 miles ahead we were going to face some of the Rocky Mountains at what were called the "Big Horn Mountain Range." I obviously was not looking forward to this and was considering my options. There was a Northern path (along highway 14) and a southern pass (along highway 16). I decided to ponder the decision while on the road since no matter what we had to head East to Greybull. The road was pretty easy. A couple rolling hills but for the most part it was flat, dry, and rather pretty. Josh had decided to purchase a bandanna to cover his bald head. It was a good idea I thought, I didn't think sunscreen alone was going to be enough to protect his ghastly scalp. Sadly though, Josh was still learning how to tie a bandanna.

Seriously, he's not joining the KKK..

The ride was going nicely. I felt a lot better knowing the 55 mile trek wouldn't be much of an issue with our extra gallon of fluids. After stopping for a break I took a look at the maps and noticed there were some small towns slightly south off the main highway. If we were going to take the southern Teir of the Bighorns it'd actually save us time to shortcut down highway 30. So, that became the plan! Not too long after (about 30 miles outside of Cody) we were biking down a nice slope when we saw a man by himself pushing a bicycle up the hill. We of course stopped to see if he needed some mechanical assistance and to see what was up.

When we met him we discovered he too was a transcontinental cyclist! He was a Japanese student who was studying in the US and had decided to see America. This kid (his name was Toshi I believe) was insane. He had started in New York and was headed to the West Coast. He literally went to a Walmart, bought a 200 dollar mountain bike and hit the road. No special seats. No bike shorts. No special packs. Just an old rugged backpack and a tent. I felt like a total pussy after meeting this kid. We shared stories and he had this piece of advice for us....

If you're having a hard time understanding, he's saying "Iowa.. Iowa sucks. Sorry Iowa."

We had a lot of laughs and he told us all about his adventures. Getting caught by the police camping in parks in Chicago, biking through the shitty corn fields of Iowa, he really was an awesome guy. It turned out he was running low on water and was walking up the hills to conserve fluids. We promptly took our gallon of Gatorade (we hadn't drank much) and gave it to him. No way we were letting an awesome dude like this go another inch without all the Gatorade he could drink! Either way, now that I had changed routes it wouldn't be much further before we were at a town to fill up, and we had more than enough. Seriously though, this guy rocked.

We took our detour down route 30 and we came across another cute town called Burlington. Made me think of my buddy Matt who went to school in Burlington VT! This one's for you buddy. On the way out of town we hit our 1100th mile!

Milestone 11 of 35ish

We filled up our bottles and kept moving. We were making great time and for the first time in a long time I had taken the lead over Josh. I'm not positive if he just let me or I was actually in the zone but either way we were flying!

We got to Basin (the junction of route 30 and route 16) and grabbed a few burgers. They were just too cheap not to pass up. Nothing too heavy though, we still wanted to make it further today. Ultimately our hope was to get to the foot of the Bighorn mountains today. That'd leave us fresh and ready to take on the uphills the day after!

We made our way South getting to Manderson, a nice little community. We stopped at a local diner where people were curious what the hell we were doing. We ate and told everyone about our trip. A local family (the Schwedes- pronounced Sweetys) said they lived a couple miles down the road, and if we made it to their house by night we could stop and fill up our water bottles. We were quite appreciative and said we'd certainly try to make it there by nightfall. It was getting late however.

We were full. Uncomfortably full. But thought it'd be best to do a few more miles since we were still 40 miles from the base of the mountains. We had decided if we got the Schwedes and they offered us a place to stay we'd definitely take it. It was late, the wind was blowing hard against us, it had been a long day and I was tired.

It was about 20 miles further to the Schwedes house. We were about 10 miles down the road when we started to notice some figures on the side of the road. When we got closer we discovered four figures with bicycles! How odd to two run into two sets of cyclist in a day. We had been hearing about these people for a couple days actually. They were a family of four who had started on the West coast (California I believe?) and were working East. Apparently we had finally caught up to them. The troop consisted of a mother/father (early 50's I'd guess) and their two daughters ages NINE AND ELEVEN! How crazy is that? These kids were spending their Summer vacation biking cross country with their parents. I personally would had never stood for it at that age. I didn't even like biking to the next town (5 miles each way) when I was a kid. I'll give those kids some props. While talking we started to notice lightning off in the distance and figured it'd be best to get moving and find some shelter.

About a half hour later we rode up on the Schwede's residence. When we got they filled our bottles and offered us a few brews. The father told us he had a travel camper and we were welcome to stay in it. Of course we gratefully accepted! It was a really nice and large interior. We tarped our tents (preparing for the impending storm) and slept like rocks. Good day!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 78.13
Total mileage- 1135.04

Fifteen Hundred Guns

2010-07-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

Monday June 30th. We awoke in the campgrounds and got an early move on. We of course were not going to pass up a shower, but right after we got a move on. We had been eying this diner across the road called "Bubba's." We figured it just sounded like a delicious establishment. We went across and order a boatload of food. It came to like 9 dollars each.

Try and keep up Mr. Phelps.

After eating what could only be described as a "retarded gluttonous" amount of food we went over to Walmart. We had decided to make CD's of our photos and mail them back to our families. They were going to take a while, so we decided to go to the local museum the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Now I'm not really a big museum man. But I gotta say I had fun! They had a sections about the Plain's Indians, the local wildlife and even Buffalo Bill himself. It was interesting. There was also a section about firearms. Literally hundreds and hundreds of them. Josh thought his father would be interested in them. God I hope he is because Josh took photos of literally 1500 guns to show the man. If you like guns let me know, I'll mail ya a CD. You'll cream your pants.

We got the CD's and mailed them out. We had spent a lot of time already today and it was a solid 55 miles to the next town (there was really nothing in between so we had to plan on the full side). We were making our way out of town when we came across a Subway. I think it's fairly obvious at this point we can't resist the allure of a Subway.

While chowing down we noticed it was getting really dark out. Clouds rolled in and the temperature was dropping rapidly. We figured a storm was about to come through.

I'd say that was an accurate assessment.

After the downpour we weren't sure what to do. It had been 97 degrees prior to the storm and it had cooled off significantly which was nice. But the wind was in the wrong direction and it was getting late in the evening. We decided to hold off for the day and catch up on our blogs and journals. We sat at McDonald's a few hours and leeched their wifi.

We went back to the same campsite. The owners were surprised to see us again., they expected us to be well down the road by now. What can I say, sometimes you have to be a tourist. We purchased another nights stay. There was a rodeo going on that evening and I was pretty interested in going. I mean a real wild west rodeo? That'd be cool, right?! But Josh convinced me it'd be a good idea to sleep early. After all, we were definitely going to have to get a move on tomorrow!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 11.13 (Day "off", 5th day of rest)
Total mileage- 1056.91

Premature Baldness

2010-07-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday, June 29th. We awoke in the woods sans bear attacks. I was pleased. We had slept a good amount, but not as much as I'd of pleased. At least Josh didn't wake me up at 8. We broke camp and realized we really weren't that far off the main road. We were both a bit surprised no one had noticed us or bothered us considering there was a sign that clearly forbid our presence.

Biking was decent this morning. Nothing too noteworthy but the scenery. This was our first day in Wyoming. Okay Yellowstone was technically in Wyoming also but Yellowstone doesn't count! Why? Cause I say so.

Seriously though, the scenery was quite different here. Everything was very much what you'd expect from Wyoming. Large rock bluffs and cliffs. Montana looked nothing like this. Neither did Yellowstone. It was literally like you crossed a line again and bam! Everything was different. I mean it doesn't get much more "Wyoming" than this, does it?

A dude ranch!

We were following a river, snaking around bends and small mountains. At times the wind would pick up and blast us in the face. A bit annoying but for the most part the wind wasn't much of an issue. Once we escaped the mountains it got pretty flat. Pretty flat and desolate. Realistically it started turning into somewhat desert-like conditions. I mean there was still vegetation (probably because we were next to the river) but it wasn't like previously in the mountains.

We continued along. Toward afternoon we came across a lake the river was feeding. A bit further down the road we noticed a huge concrete structure. Upon further inspection we realized it was a dam! Hey pretty cool. I had never really seen a damn before up close. We parked the biked and checked it out. Turns out it's the "Buffalo Bill Dam." You'd be amazed how much water can blast out of this thing! Take a look...

I just can't believe this thing doesn't run out of water.

Right next to the dam on the main road was a huge tunnel blasted through the mountain. It was nice- once you entered the channel it literally dropped like 5-10 degrees. It was quite noticeable. It was a solid 1/4 mile if not 1/2 to make it through the hole. We both liked it. It was neat! We popped out the other side and went through a couple smaller tunnels that were not nearly as exciting.

So lets see... pedal pedal pedal. Nothing out of the ordinary. Until we came across a decent sized down in the middle of nowhere. I was pleased because of the name of the town. Cody! I immediately got excited and called my good buddy Cody Ture to inform tell him all about it.

Cody was a cute little town (which is not unlike Mr. Ture himself). We found a nice campsite and pitched our house for the night. The town was large enough to have a good sized Walmart (which was literally next door to the campgrounds) so we took a stroll over. We bought a giant like 15'' sub for 5 dollars. I'm pretty sure it was made of only highest quality Wyoming meats and cheeses. Josh also had the strong desire to shave his head. We had talked about this a few times now, but he was serious. He thought it'd help keep him cool and make biking in general easier. So he bought an electric trimmer.

We went back to the site and devoured/showered. We discussed if Josh REALLY wanted to go through with this. He was insistent. I grabbed the clippers and started buzzing...

Say goodbye to those pretty locks Joshyboy.

This was shockingly difficult. I figured I'd buzz his head and bam. End of story. Well, the damn clipper was so shitty it wouldn't even cut his hair! It literally took me a 1/2 hour to cut this much off...I soldiered on though. After about an hour we were getting somewhere.

Josh is a real trend setter. I see this look catching on real soon!

No joke but after about an hour of this we had dulled the blades so much they literally wouldn't cut hair. Josh was left with his half shaved head and looking super hot I gotta say. I was glad he was sleeping with me tonight if you know what I mean, hubba hubba. He was thinking of going back to Walmart, returning the shears and getting a new pair. I mentioned how it MIGHT be obviously they're used considering his head looks like it's been butchered. We got out Josh's Swiss army knife and I literally used the scissor piece to cut his hair off inch by inch. An hour later we were getting close. Enjoy the highly photogenic images of my compatriot.

It took a grand total of 2 hours. For some reason I decided not to take a picture of the final product. But I assure you, I shaved his head bald. I gotta say, he has one pasty white head. Hope you don't regret this Josh!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 43.91
Total mileage- 1045.78

Yellowstone Part III- Midnight Riders

2010-04-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 28th. We woke up early after Katie's late night difficulties. We still felt bad that someone who was helping us had so much trouble. Guess my bad luck is contagious, eh? Either way, our days of rest are over. Time to get our asses back on the bikes and pedaling down the road! The plan was to bike clear across Yellowstone park today. From side to side it's 87 miles, not to mention mileage to the park and to where ever we spend the night. We decided to get an early start to maximize our daylight.

8am. We biked to town. We were hoping to do our laundry the night prior but obviously that didn't happen. We got food, did laundry and picked up a few souvenirs. If you can believe it, all of that took until 1pm. We picked up the pace and got a move on.

We arrived at the entrance to Yellowstone! There were a few families there taking photos of loved ones. I thought it'd be a fun new hobby to take photos of unsuspecting tourist. I figured you'd seen enough of my fat ass.

Some random people.

My fat ass since I know you miss it.

So we entered Yellowstone... for the third time. Here's a cool little tid bit- at the entrance of the park there is a bald eagle's nest. Since they don't want people disturbing the rare bird you're not allowed to stop on the road in your car. The benefits of a bicycle my friends! I stopped and snapped a few photos.

It's a bird!

We also entered our fourth state shortly after crossing the Yellowstone border...

State 4 baby!

We had decided to head along the north side of the south loop. This provided us with the shortest route, although there's a lot of hills. As we made our way up the first significant hill we stopped to take some pictures of the waterfalls when we met a mother and her daughter. They were really nice and stopped and talk to us for a few minutes before we made our way.

Cycling was much easier today! We were heading up some serious hills and we were making great time. It wasn't exactly easy, but a few days rest made it much more bearable. I was even keeping up with Josh. The sky was clear and bright. It was a cool 70 degrees. It might had been the perfect day.

As I've mentioned before wildlife was everywhere. And sure it was cool seeing them, but you know what else was interesting? How effing stupid people can be around them. So I turn a bend in the road and see a Buffalo. Again, as I mentioned Buffalo = huge. This one was just about as close as I'd want it to be before I start getting nervous. It was happily grazing on the side of the road and I felt no need to worry or worry the animal by getting closer. Next thing I know I hear a truck coming behind us with a somewhat reckless family. The truck pulls up besides the Buffalo (I'd say about 12 feet away) and a teenage girl leans her entire upper torso out the hatchback window to take a close up shot of the beast. Bad idea if you ask me. THEN the driver puts the car in reverse, teasingly sending the girl even closer to the buffalo! The girl screams and scampers (because screaming is scampering is a good idea) the buffalo looks up like "wtf mate?" and goes back to grazing.

Stupid girl. Nice Buffalo.

We had made it 35 miles or so through the park and came to a gas station/convenience store. We took a break, bought pop tarts and other assorted food, filled water... you know the drill. I called Katie to try to get an update. Turns out we were correct after all! A pebble had gotten stuck between the brake pad and the rotor. A simple fix but c'mon how was I supposed to know what to do? I can barely figure out how to make my bike go forward. While we were stuffing our faces and catching our breath a familiar face popped in. The mother/daughter combo from earlier in the day had caught up with us! They were really impressed we had made it "so far so fast" and were keeping up with them in a car. I mean obviously they were stopping and seeing sights but it feels real good when people are impressed with what were doing. Especially the ladies if ya know what I mean wink wink wink. Time to go impress more high school sophmores, back on the bikes!

Further down the road we came across a large gathering of people. Usual Yellowstone rules, group of people = something to see. We figured it was probably another bear and weren't that interested but after inquiring it turned out to be two elk. Having never seen an Elk before we stopped. Now I have seen an Elk. And so have you.

We were approaching the east side of Yellowstone and the day was growing late. It became clear we weren't going to make it out of the park before the sunset. We were still 30 miles from the east entrance and the majority of those miles were uphill. After 55 miles for the day I was considering whether or not it'd be a wise idea to find a campsite. Throughout the park there are camping areas designated exclusively for biker/hikers/non-motorized tourist. I thought if there was one close enough we'd be set. During the peak of the season there's just no way any motorized campsites would be left. We found a park ranger and asked him if we had any reasonable options. He informed us all the campsites were filled and the closest cycling campsite was 25 miles in the wrong direction (back by the convenience store). That obviously wasn't going to happen and Josh was quite insistent we try to make it out of the park tonight. We didn't have time to argue over it, I figured we still had daylight and I was going to make the best of it.

The last few hours in Yellowstone were great. They also presented me with some of my favorite photos. Take a look.

Not long after we made it to Lake Yellowstone. This was the final stretch of the park. There's a long straight path that follows the lake before you head up into the mountains to reach the East entrance. The sun was getting low and I was a bit tired and hungry. We took a short little downhill which brought us through a swarm of gnats. Being half naked, sweaty, and hairy I was literally covered head to toe is tiny little black bugs. Super gross. The lake was gorgeous though.

There was a small store at the foot of the mountains. We bought protein bars, bread, and other treats to fuel. I was not a fan at all of continuing on. It was already sunset. We still had a minimum of 20 miles to go. Up hill. I hate hills. Let alone in the dark. Let alone in the bear infested woods. Overall it seemed like a horrible idea. Josh didn't seemed to care, he really wanted to make more ground and good time. He figured we were so well rested we should be able to push ourselves. I suppose he was right but damn was I pissed. I begrudgingly got on my bike and pedal up the damn hill.

We had barely begun our ascent when darkness fell. For the first time on the whole trip we donned our reflective vests feeling it might add some level of protect. Or just make us easier to spot for bears. There really wasn't much traffic which was good, but that only added to the creepiness of the whole ordeal. The further up we got in the mountain, the creepier it got. After the first hour of biking in the dark it was pitch black, but your eyes adjusted just enough so you could make out the trees and the road. In the distance you'd see a car coming and think "Fuck! We have to bike all the way up to THERE?! Shoot me now." It just looked so far away. I wasn't really tired, probably because most every noise startled me. I couldn't see shit man! I had little issue in repeatably "joking" about how bad of an idea this was.

Another 1/2 an hour up the mountain and it was 35 degrees and snow was still on the ground. We added layers to keep warm. This was beginning to remind me a bit too much of Steven's Pass although luckily not as steep. Or maybe I'm just that much better at this point. You'd hear a stick crack or some snow crunch.. some water trickling. You'd flash your light and see nothing. It was so quiet, which only helped to make every noise that much louder. Another 1/2 hour up the mountain we finally reach the top. Two hours of uphill blind biking. Remind me to thank you for all this later Joshyboy. We were both pretty ecstatic to be up here, we knew it was a easy downhill on the other side. We stopped and relaxed a few minutes, ate some food and celebrated. You couldn't help looking at the sky, it was so clear, so bright. It seemed closer, but maybe because I had just biked a few hours uphill.

So great! Were at the top. Time to go down. Issue though, we can't see a damn thing! One thing I'm sure of is that I don't want to go flying 30-40 miles down a hill and not be able to see a pothole in the road. I've already been thrown off my bike once, dammit. Not to mention the right side of the road is a cliff. I don't mean a 10 foot fall. I mean a 200 foot cliff. You fall off, you're gone. Josh and I both had flashlights we tried to hold and aim at the ground to see it as we went. My light wasn't strong enough and it just wasn't feasible holding Josh's. We tried sticking the thing in our mouths and holding it, but that was a bit too gay and our jaw got sore fast. What do intrepid bikers turn to whenever they have a problem? Duct tape. We duct taped that mofo right to my handlebar bag. A little bit of adhesive fine tuning and I had a bright light shining about 12 feet in front of me. Just enough to react to a bump or hole. We started downhill.

Riding went a bit too smoothly. Josh and I were giddy like little school girls who were recklessly disregarding their own safety. We laughing, flying downhill and not believing we made it this far! I was in the lead and Josh followed about 25 feet behind me, trusting my path was safe. Or that he could stop before hitting me if I fell. I would scream back to make sure Josh hadn't fallen himself about every 45 seconds. It's weird when you're biking you can't really hear anything behind you, but can easily hear things in front of you. I was holding the break- I didn't want to go too fast. 30 mph seemed fast enough for a midnight ride, don't you think? About half way down the hill I stopped. Guess what?!

Milestone 10 of 35ish baby! Grand Milestone #1.

Mile 1000. Beautiful, isn't it?

Another few miles down the road and we reached the east gate. There were some lamp posts and a picnic table there so we decided to take a break. We sat, ate sandwiches and chomped on candy. We discussed the trip, and how it was hard to believe we had made it 1000 miles. It was thrilling and at the same time depressing. We were barely 30% of the way there. But we lived up the momentary accomplishment.

The park closes each day at sunset. No traffic is supposed to come into the park because there are no rangers stationed at the entrances. In other words- if you come late at night you can sneak into Yellowstone for free. And I must say I'm amazed how many people do this! We sat at that picnic table for about a half hour and 5 or so cars must had come by. They'd drive up, see Josh and myself there and stop. They'd roll down there windows and look at us, usually nervously. These poor saps thought we were park employees! We'd wave them on and laugh. After a few cars we'd go out to the road and stop people, look at their license plates, then wave them in. In hindsight we should have just charged admission coulda made some money...

It was late though and we needed a place to camp. We had been told there were numerous campsites right off the road when you leave Yellowstone, so we figured not much longer till were resting. We left the park. It's silly how you feel safer when you leave. Not that is particularly dangerous in it, but you feel like it's a zoo of sorts- the animals don't leave the park. Obviously this isn't true. We were really no safer out of Yellowstone than inside. But you felt safer, and that was good.

We biked about 5 miles down the road, a bit surprised to have not seen any campsites yet. We came across a business (which was obviously closed) but it did still have one vehicle left in the parking lot. It was a truck of sorts it reminded me of an ice cream truck actually. There was a large window or door on the side. And oddly enough a man was outside the truck leaning in through this opening. We bike about 30 feet from him thinking we could ask if he knew of any campsites. Josh started with a "Hello Sir!" to see if we could get his attention. No response. His body just stayed in the window, moving around. We moved a bit closer and again Josh goes "Excuse me, Sir". Again. No answer. The man is doing something, what exactly we don't know. It sounds to me like he's shoveling dirt or ice with a small hand shovel. Josh and myself exchange concerned glances. I speak up, yelling rather loudly "Hey! Excuse me! Can you help us?!" Still doesn't move an inch. Thoroughly creeped out we decide we need to get the fuck out of here.

We continued biking, talking about the weird experience. We postulated a thousand different scenarios why the man wouldn't answer us. Maybe he was hard of hearing or deaf? Maybe he was on drugs? Or maybe he had just KILLED SOMEONE and was burying the evidence in an ice cream truck. I vote for option 3. We had biked another 5 miles. We had definitely missed some camp sites by now and were getting concerned. Another mile or two down the road and we came to one, finally. As we turned off the road we saw a sign "Hard sided campers only. No tents allowed." Well shit. There were woods right across the road and it was 1AM. I was not in the mood to keep looking. Josh thought we should go a bit further to the next site down the road. But god only knows how far that would be.

A few people were driving and we flagged one down and asked if he saw any campsites further up the road. He was a bit of a blunt and rough man. He was more or less like "Hey, what the hell is wrong with you two. Get off the road, it's 1AM. All this land is national forest and since you're a tax paying citizen you're allowed to use any national forest as you so pleased. Go walk in the woods and pitch your tent." So we walked into the woods and looked for a place to pitch our tent.

We found a suitable tree and hung our food bag from it, hoping to evade bears as best we could. We moved about 50 feet over (knowing we should camp much further away from the food) and started pitching camp. We were just too tired and it was just too late.

I heard a sudden snap! I spun around and flashed the light into the woods. Josh got a bit disgruntled, he needed the light to assemble the tent. I told him to shut up and look.. about 150 feet off in the woods there were two eyes, glowing from being spotted by my flashlight. We froze. The animal froze. What the fuck was it? It started walking.. slowly.. circling around, coming no closer, going no further. It's eyes moving up and down as it's head bobbed. I kept my eyes on the animal while Josh finished the last preparations on the tent. No rain fly tonight. We just wanted to be in the tent and "safe"!

I laid in bed, gripped tight to a mag light in case I needed to bludgeon a bear or puma off us in the middle of the night. Today was the longest day of our trip, and our most productive. We had biked a century, which is a cyclist term for 100 miles or more. We had seen a ton of sights and face numerous obstacles. Only 2 or 3 life or death situations arose. All in all our time in Yellowstone was exciting, unique and really interesting! But I'm very happy to be moving on down the road.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 100.29
Total mileage- 1001.87

Yellowstone Part II- Mechanical Prowess

2010-03-04T19:42:00.000-08:00

Friday, June 27th. I woke up in the morning to find Josh assembling his newest toy- a hammock. Josh had gotten the idea that sleeping in a hammock might be easier to set up and more comfortable to sleep in. So, we all had gone out and he purchased a cheap one and a tarp for overhead water protection. Frankly, I thought the idea was retarded. But, I have to give it to the boy it worked shockingly well.

Today was Katie's last full day with us (therefore our last day of rest) so wanted to make the most of it. We stopped at a local diner and got back to exploring Yellowstone! The day prior we had explored the southern portion of the park, so today we decided to head North toward Mammoth Hot Springs. Overall Yellowstone is just gorgeous. No matter where you look. Everything is just pristine. And I think a large part of the appeal is the variety in scenery. For example, heading north you head down these winding roads spotted with waterfalls. Or you'll turn a bend in the road and find beautiful snow capped mountains..

... Or these. We were just driving down the road when we came across huge slabs of rock jutting out of the ground. So we pulled over to take a look/check em out/take some photos. Josh started climbing all over them like a baby chimpanzee. We scampered up after him. I bet Josh he couldn't climb to the highest stones. And honestly to God I didn't think he'd be able to. Damn that boy is nimble. And cancerously tan.

But lets continue. We made it down to Mammoth Hot Springs shortly after our detour. I figured they'd be much like the name implied- large hot springs. But I honestly can't tell you. The springs were at or around a spa/hotel and the three of us weren't about pay to be allowed access to hot springs during the heat of the day mid Summer. Fuck that. So we left fairly disappointed.

The way back we saw Bear #3 for the trip... seriously. Enough with the bears!

The day was getting late and out tummies were rumbling and we decided to head back to town. While driving, Katie's brakes started making a horrendous squealing. We pulled over and inspected and nothing was blatantly wrong. We were on the other hand driving over a gravel road. We thought perhaps a stone had gotten lodged up in the wheel and was stuck. We drove in reverse a couple feet and the theoretical stone popped lose and the noise ceased. Talk about mechanical skillz, yo.

But, another five minutes down the road and the concerningly loud squealing came back. We decided to stop by the tire center from the day prior to see if they could assist. When we got there the place was sadly closed. We had drove a few miles, and it seemed the noise was not going to fix itself (not even in reverse!) I didn't feel comfortable letting Katie drive the car in this condition, and she obviously wasn't fond of the idea. Josh thought we should take the tire off and inspect. I was highly against the idea since none of us actually had any mechanical skills. But, he talked us into it. We poked around and inspected. Nothing blatantly visible. Josh was hoping to go further and take the breaks off but we vetoed that idea. It was getting late fast, the sun was setting and we needed a solid solution. A tow truck was called.

When the tow truck arrived we had him take a look- he also had no solution for poor Katie. We got the car up on the bed and realized we had a problem... there were two passenger seats and three of us. It was dark already and it was about a 8 mile walk back to camp. The towman wasn't thrilled with the idea of all of us piling in but a Jackson changed his mind. He had to go back to the campsite anyway to let Katie pick up her tent and clothes. She packed up everything she needed and left for better lands with better auto care. We were both sad to see her go.

I can't thank you enough Katie.. Yellowstone would had never been as amazing without you. You're kindness and friendship won't be forgotten. Thank you Katie!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 0.0 (Day off, 4th day of rest)
Total mileage- 901.58

Yellowstone

2008-08-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 26th. I awoke in a carbohydrate daze from the gluttonous pasta experience the day before. The three of us got up and decided it'd be best to bathe even though no showers were present at the campgrounds. There was on the other hand a lake right next to us and seemed like a reasonable alternative. It was mid summer yet the lake was frigid. I would estimate 55 degrees. I loved every moment of it! You all should know by now how much I love the cold and I must have spent at least 15 minutes just floating and swimming... feeling my appendages go numb and my nervous system shut down from hypothermic shock. Glorious. Katie managed to man up and wash herself (being brief, yet thorough). Josh, eh... not so much. He dipped into the lake. barely getting a thin film of water on himself. He rushed out of the cool water to soap up and barely rinsed it off. I can't blame him terribly though. We were at about 7500 feet in elevation and the air was a crisp 70-75. I think his thin, hairless body might not had been made for these arctic temperatures.

On the walk back to the campsite I noticed this lovely sign. What a confidence booster, eh? Lets be serious though, someone at the campsite had to be more foolish then ourselves when it came to food storage, right? I figured the bears will get them first and their screams will be like a warning system to the rest of us.

We got everything in order and piled into Katie's car. I must admit, it was heavenly to be wearing casual clothes. We went into town and grabbed a late breakfast and were ready to get moving. Sadly though, when we stepped out of a local diner we discovered my bad luck was spreading! When we returned to Katie's car we found it's rear tire flattened limp. Her poor little Honda Civic was out for the count. Luckily, there was a tire center right across the street (literally across the street. What are the chances?). Turns out we had been impaled on a nail in such a way that the tire was unpatchable. So, we were forced to get a whole new tire. It really kinda sucks because it was a new car and everything is covered under warranty save the tires really. El shitty.

Katie's car getting gutted.

By the early afternoon we were mobile again and were Yellowstone bound. We got to the gates and start discussing our pricing options with one of the park rangers. Apparently it's 25 bucks a day to drive through the park. 7 dollars per cyclist to go through. Considering we knew we'd be driving through the park 2 days and 1 day of cycling, (totaling 64 dollars) we decided to get an Annual National Park Pass. Admittance to every National Park for one year for 80 bucks. Theoretically we'd practically break even on Yellowstone alone.

I was quite excited! I just didn't know what to expect.. I mean I knew it'd be cool and all that. I just had an odd sensation coming toward the park, very... other-worldly. I don't know, It's hard to explain.

Let me put it this way- Remember watching Jurassic Park for the first time? And when they go through those big gates and you kinda wonder "Hmm, I wonder what EXACTLY it'll be like in there?" That's how I felt entering Yellowstone. I mean stop and think for a moment. Imagine you're about to enter Yellowstone. What would you expect?

The initial experience of the park was definitely not what I expected. Everything seemed somewhat smaller. The trees just weren't as big. They seemed somewhat more... natural. Almost sacred. Not to sound terribly gay, it was just a bit moving. It also did not take us long to notice that there were dead trees everywhere. Not what I would had expected, but apparently back in 1988 there was a wildfire in respect of the normal cycle of nature forest rangers allowed the fire to burn and it wiped out most of Yellowstone. But, that fire also reseeded the entire forest and all the trees we were seeing were the adolescent saplings from that event.

A bit further down the road the valley widened and that's when we got our first true Yellowstone experience. You look off into the field and just see Bison. Small little groups of Bison.. grazing. Almost completely oblivious to us. It was amazing! You wouldn't believe how huge these things are. I'd dare say a large one stood 6 feet tall? Maybe even more. Just absolutely huge animals. As you follow the river meandering through the valley you'd look and see people just out in the valley wading through the river fly fishing. It was a bit confusing at first. I wouldn't had thought you'd be allowed to fish in an animal sanctuary like that. I wasn't even sure you were allowed off the beaten path like that. No one else seemed to be wandering off into the habitat. We cautiously stayed far away.

We went a bit further down the road and stopped to look at some more buffalo, this time closer up. It was a bit more challenging this time in that a small group of people, 10-15 had gathered to get up close, photograph, and gawk at the beasts. Right before we left though I turned around and was stunned. About 20 feet away were three buffalo off in the woods on the other side of the road! Somehow everyone had missed the 6000 lbs of giant cow to our left. Josh decided we weren't close enough and whipped out his camera phone for a close up.

Josh biding his time before he's impaled by a bison.

After a bit of a animal-induced high we jumped back into the car and started heading toward some of the main attractions. Well, before I go into the attractions maybe I should explain a bit about Yellowstone. Yellowstone is a park composed of two main loops. There's the larger southern loop and a smaller northern loops. There's probably a good 250ish (Maybe more?) miles of road to traverse in the park and the average speed limit I'd say is about 30mph (max 45). In other words- it's a pretty damn big park and you gotta go pretty damn slow through it. Kinda a big pain in the ass. To get a better idea here's a link to the official map.

So we started heading down the western side of the big loop toward the Lower Geyser Basin. You park and follow this wooden path raised over a sandy-muddy foundation. You walk along and can smell a faint sulfur scent and it's surprisingly warm. As you walk along there are these pools, gorgeous pristine blue pools, that have clouds of steam billowing off them. You'd never guess it by looking at them, but the pools are steaming hot. Like 190 degrees hot. Like people fall in/jump in and are scalded to death hot. It turns out the coloration of the water is due to certain bacteria growing in all these odd sulfery pools. Kinda interesting. Kinda smelly.

There was just all sorts of cool stuff! And this was just our first stop. Look at all this cool stuff...

Next stop was the "Grand Prismatic Spring." I think I like this one solely based upon it's kickass name. I wonder who's the guy who went so over the top with the naming? Anyway I really liked this spot. It just had some really cool scenery. Check it out.

This one might be my favorite. It's a photo of the warning signs they had all over... "Don't fall into the scalding water little Jimmy!"

Continuing we headed south to Old Faithful. As pretty much the largest attraction at Yellowstone old faithful has it's own lodge nearby and a large parking area etc. Issue is our faithful companion isn't quite as regular as you'd think. Right as we got there he was about go to off and frankly I wasn't about to go running to see some water shoot into the sky. Josh on the other hand went running like a school boy to the playground. He caught the last couple moments of the eruption. There would be no old faithful for me. And no pictures for you.

Directly south of Yellowstone National Park are the Grand Teton Mountains. Josh was interested in seeing them (I was a bit more partial to Yellowstone) but we all agreed to have a look. Josh tried to inform me that Grand Teton was french for "large breast." I couldn't believe that any pioneer could had been so horny that these jagged peaks reminded him of some tatas. But lone behold, Josh wasn't lying. Unbelievable.

The Grand Tetons were nice. Josh seemed to enjoy them more than Yellowstone. They were similar in many ways, but they just had a different feel to them. Probably the most noteworthy part was a large gathering of people. We pulled over to see what it was for ourselves when we saw it. Off in the distance, a Grizzly Bear. About 100 people all gawking at a Grizzly. What protection did they have? None. There was a ranger there with a large can of bear mace but honestly, I don't think it would have stopped them. We all took some photos and decided not to stick around and tempt fate. I think we've seen enough bears for one cross country trip.

Tad tough to see, but that's a grizzly.

Afterwards we decided to head back, we were all pretty exhausted. Sightseeing is shockingly taxing physically. And frankly it was going to take quite some time to make it to camp going 25 mph. On the way out we did catch a beautiful sunset though!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 0.0 (Day off, 3rd day of rest)
Total mileage- 901.58

Katie's Arrival

2008-08-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 25th. Josh woke up significantly earlier than me. I dare say an hour or so earlier and I found him working on his journal (if i haven't mentioned, he writes a hand journal). We chomped some food and took another quick dip in the river to wake my ass up, and started back on the road. It was a good day- the wind was no longer at our heads and if so long as everything went smoothly we were scheduled to arrive at the western entrance of Yellowstone! Sadly though, before we get there we had to cross a couple decent sized hills. Give and take, that's how it goes.

So we're coming up on the first hill and Josh is in the lead. I see some man walking out into the road, across the street from his parked SUV. He walks right up to Josh, talk a minute, and then Josh moves over to his car. I figured the guy was having car issues or something, but as I approached he held out a bag of treats. Before I even got off my bike I had the bag of trail mix in my hands. The guys name was Bud, and apparently he was a support vehicle for his friend who I believe was named Roger. See, Roger was an old time Iron Man athlete and was riding cross country, coming from East to West. Now, Roger wasn't exactly young, but still doing his best to complete his trip. I mean, give him a break, he was a freaking Iron Man for God's sake! Roger had been breaking up the trip into a couple hundred mile segments and completing it year by year. Good for him. We waited a while for Roger to meet us at Bud's location and we all discussed the road ahead and his experiences. Very cool guys. I personally enjoyed Bud's departing words to us... "Someday you'll be a rich old man too and you can help people too!"

Stocked up on granola bars and trail mix we trekked on. It was very odd biking for a while. It only happens once in a while but sometimes you'll bike up the oddest roads. You'll be cycling.. pedal pedal pedal and all the sudden you'll be thinking "Why is it so hard to keep going?" The road looks flat. There's no wind. But it's just hard. Sometimes the road even looks downhill. I'm not really sure how the perspective gets skewed but it happened to both Josh and myself so it definitely wasn't me. It turns out you're actually biking up a hill and would never know it less you turn around. Steep hills at that. I'd often find myself checking my tires to see if they were flat because it just seems too difficult for something to not be wrong with my bike. I suppose I should had been happy though, it was one of the rare occasions something wasn't wrong with it.

We made it over the hills and kept pushing closer and closer to Yellowstone. The area there was simply beautiful...

... and Josh makes me look so fat.. but still not a bad picture.

And later I spotted two mountain goats going up a cliff. You ever seen a mountain goat climb? It's friggin' crazy! Now I'm no geologist, but it had to of been at least a 60% grade or more. Or I could be completely wrong. But regardless, it was steep. And they were walking up it like it was nothing. I can hardly look up a 8% grade, let alone what they were doing.

About ten miles outside of West Yellowstone (the town on the West entrance of Yellowstone- our destination) we had a pleasant meeting. A friend of mine, Katie, had decided to drive out to Yellowstone to meet us. I mean, who wouldn't want to see Yellowstone? And us of course. It was going to rock. Yellowstone's a big place and I wasn't particularly looking forward to having to bike through the whole damn thing. With Katie here now we'd have the pleasantry of having two full days to rest and get chauffeured around the national park. Katie- you're the freaking best. We sent her ahead to see if she could find a campsite for us to stay at for the following days. She did, and it seems like a decent place. The only problem was that it was six miles off the beaten path. I wasn't thrilled about the detour, but I was thrilled to be done biking for a while.

But hey! On the way up to the campsite we hit our 900th mile!

Milestone 9 of 35ish.

We set up camp and got organized, discussed and chatted and decided to head into town for some grub. I can not begin to tell you how excited I was. We found an all you can eat pasta place! Josh you sure ate a lot of food on this trip.. but I definitely manned up and took you down on this one. Three? Four plates? I forget. But a damn lot of pasta. I was in heaven.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 47.26
Total mileage- 901.58

Prince of Garbage

2008-08-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, June 24th. Really, not a horrible night for sleep considering we were in a garbage dump. Alright, so it wasn't like "a garbage dump" more like the local area where to 300 people who lived in a 50 mile radius brought there garbage to dump it. The only bothersome part about the place was the wind was the wind. It was so strong it was pushing the tent over on me during the night, and that was a bit annoying. Certainly more annoying was what we had to look forward to that morning.

Typically I like the idea of waking up to a moderately easy morning. A bit of a warm up period before we get the real sweat on, ya know? No such luck. We woke up facing a pretty damn big hill. I don't have exact measurements, but it was a good couple mile hike with a slight head wind and let me tell you- it kinda blew. I freaking hate hills.

So after being awake an hour or so I'm already drenched in sweat and moderately winded. We get to the top where Josh demanded I take a video of him but wouldn't explain why...

I suppose Josh enjoys some of the simpler things in life... I suppose you can't blame the man. Who wouldn't want to run over a bunch of potato chips? It's a memory we'll cherish for life. Thank god I taped it.

So we fly down the hill. Always fun. We stopped at the post office and shipped some more stuff home.. nothing too exciting. The views were nice. One thing Montana is always good for- seeing beautiful valleys surrounded by snow capped mountains. Very nice.

We pushed on through the day, eventually coming to a long stretch of nothing. Just a long vast road with a moderate head wind. It's just so draining. Not so much physically, more mentally. See, typically with direction of wind save head you get gains for your work. You're going 12mph and start to work harder and go 14mph. Then you can cruise comfortable there. But with the head wind you're going 12 and push harder just to maintain speed. But mostly you lose and soon you're going 11... then 10... then 8... and before you know it you're just thinking "How am I still pedaling and going so slow? This blows." Then the math kicks in. I start calculating how long it'll take me to big certain mileages at certain speeds and before you know it I'm depressed knowing I have four hours of biking left with a headwind just to make 30ish miles. This is the point where I'm ready to give up for the day. Luckily, this was also the point Josh was ready to give up as well.

We found a nice little campsite next to a river and a sheer rock wall. We pitched our tent and I went for a little dip in the river. Honestly the water was moving really fast and I was a little concerned. But, in the interest of cleanliness and stupidity I took my time wading waist deep in the freezing stream and felt quite refreshed afterwards. I was amazed, even Josh got in. For all of about 35 seconds... but he still got in. Good work Joshyboy.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 41.46
Total mileage- 854.32

Good News

2008-08-08T17:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's been forever. Sue me. No, I haven't given up on this, I've just been making good time home. The whole story will make it's way here in time. For now I'm in Rochester and giving everyone an eta of 6PM Monday the 11th. If you're interested in celebrating let me know. Nothing crazy, just seeing friends and family. So bear with me, I guess I'm not the best blogger on Earth, eh?

Notice!

2008-07-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm trying to update when I can. I'm a busy man writing 100 postcards (literally). I added a new poll, and linked my good bud Ian's blog. When you guys run out of stuff on mine, go check out some other peoples! That's all for now. Ross out.

It's not Pronouced Butt

2008-07-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 23rd. It was almost amazing how much better my legs felt after a full days rest. They still were a little bit sore, but the heaviness associated with constant motion seemed to have subsided. We started getting ready, taking what must had been our 4th or 5th shower in the last two days, savoring the rare treat. Josh also decided it was worthwhile to take a picture of his awesome ass tan line. I have an awesome one too, but I've yet to take a picture of it. I suppose you'll have to wait see mine. We're some tan mofos.

So we hit the road. It was actually a much shorter distance into Butte than I expected considering we had been staying about 7 miles outside the city. I also feel it's important to mention it's pronounced "beaute" like in beautiful not "butt" like in "Josh has a butt tan line." It was cool. The city was built in a big valley and the surrounding hills and cliffs were pretty striking. Look for yourself.

On the way out of the city we had a rather large hill to ascend. It was moderately steep- not too steep for me to efficiently utilize my lowest gear, but steep enough that I was working. I suppose it's when I first realized just how much the days rest had really helped me. The hill was tough, a couple mile hike up, but I was managing it quite well, hell I was even keeping up with Josh. We only took one or two rests going up the whole thing, mainly to cool off from the heat more than catch our breath and give our legs a rest. It did afford us some cool views as we went up too.

Not to mention this ultra-hot picture of me. Chicks dig the glasses mirror so much. Fightin' em off with a stick, let me tell you.

So, we make it all the way up the hill/mountain with surpsingly little trouble and freaking FLY down the other side. It's somewhat terrifying the amount of speed you can get on a racing bike with a 215 lb male and 35 lbs of gear. 35 mph? Piece of cake. 40? Little difficulty? 45? Highly probable. Maybe I should start wearing my helmet? (Sorry Mom!)

The bottom on the hill turned into a nice long stretch of moderately flat land. It's real cool how in Montana there's snow-capped mountains off in the distance everywhere. It has a unique feeling. It felt vast and empty yet confining all at once.

But continuing with my obsession over numbers, here was a cool one. Lucky sevens!

Oh, and toward the end of the night we hit 800!

Milestone 8 of 35ish.

So not too much happening for the rest of the day. We biked on well into the night, eventually reaching a little town called McAllister. It was already about 9 o'clock and getting dark fast. After asking around we learned of no campsites too be found, which was worrisome. A local did tell us there was a state-owned garbage area about a mile and a half up the road. So, in the middle of the night we set up camp in what was to be our second garbage dump sleep over. What can I say, we are Lords of garbage dumps. We were lucky to find a little steakhouse and enjoyed a delicious meal. There was a nifty wood bear Josh wanted to pose with.. I just find the picture eerie. Hey Carl- is it just me, or does Josh look a lot like Nick in this picture?

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 66.72
Total mileage- 812.86

Pacifying the Masses

2008-07-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

Sunday, June 22nd. I awoke in the morning happily non-hungover. Actually, I don't ever seem to get a hangover. Then again, I don't think I've ever consumed more than the equivalent of 8 beers in one night so maybe it doesn't count. So, I'm awake. I'm not gunna lie, that might be the highlight of the day for you all. See, Josh and myself had decided we would give ourselves the day off. And when I say day off I mean like "my ass won't touch the seat of my bike" day off. We were going to sit around, eat food, catch up on phone calls/blogs/journals and whatnot and take it easy. After all, since the beginning of this trip, we hadn't take a full 24 hour period. Josh was uneasy about having a motel two night in a row considering it would be pricey (about 55 a night)... which not expensive by hotel terms, but for two poor boys on the road it adds up quick. So we settle that one amicably and enjoyed the day taking it easy.

On another note, perhaps my sister and her friends were right! When I went to the truck stop to get some food I saw this sign. Perhaps Meth is a big deal out here? I'd have to keep a watch out for meth-heads trying to kidnap me after all...

Honestly, that was it for the day. I apologize for the lack of excitement. Gimme a break, it was my day off. I'll try to keep the updates coming faster, but will this be enough to pacify my loyal masses until I have some freaking free time?!?

Oh, and PS. Josh turned 27.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 0.0 (Full day off! 2nd day of rest)
Total mileage- 746.14

Happy Birthday to Josh~

2008-07-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 21st. We awoke again in a baking tent. Joy of joys. We packed up and headed to the local restaurant to grab some grub. I ordered the grits. I still don't really know what grits are, and apparently I was the first person to ever order them from that waitress. I'm pretty sure she didn't know what it was other and they just made me cream of wheat and pretended it was grits. Regardless, I put about 45 gallons of brown sugar in it. Pretty super yummy. Then we hit the road!

Not a whole lot of excitement on the road really. We had about 70 miles to our final destination of Butte that day and it was gunna be a long one. So lets see.. pretty scenes... a bunch of signs about a railroad. I didn't really read them- just took pictures. Look if you care.

But hey! Mile 700 also! Woo hoo!

Milestone 7 of 35ish

We stopped and got some food at a gas station about 30 miles down the road. I found these! This one goes out to good ol' Midge-face.

About another 20 miles down the road the sun was scorching. We got to an exit off 90 and came to the only building around. Turns out it was a bar and like usual, I was feeling bad walking in and just asking for water. So this time we asked for water, sat down, and ordered us a nice Dr. Pepper on the rocks. I don't even like Dr. Pepper. But it was delicious. So we just sat there, waiting for the heat to pass. We ended up talking to some really cool and nice people. For example- we met these two. Their names are Cal and Paula. Did they do anything special? No. They just sat and talked to us. That's how it works, you're cool people you go on my blog. You two rock.

Cal and Paula

About 45 minutes later we left. It was still hot as hell but we pushed on. Another 15 miles down the road I was feeling really light headed and odd. I knew I wasn't dehydrated I had been drinking plenty. For some reason I just kept thinking I might had been sweating too much and depleting my electrolyte levels. Now, in all reality I probably was just fine but I kept having day dreams about really salty foods. I stopped, ate a raw pack of ramen noodles... then choked down the flavoring packet for it's salt content. I actually felt better afterwards although it was probably all mental.

About 8 miles outside of Butte the wind became horrendous. The winds must had been blowing at least 30 mph. At our sides and to our face. Very very discouraging after a long day in the wind.

The wind at the end of the day.

On top of that, as we reached the outskirts of town the sky darkened. Made for some cool pictures, but the impending storm was pretty ominous. We decided to call it a day when we came across a Motel 6. I mean after all, it was Josh's birthday! He deserved a bed and a shower for such an occasion, no?

We got into the room and the guy even cut us a nice 10% break. I'm not sure why, but he did. Score only 50 bucks. I let Josh shower first- a seemingly nice gesture but I had ulterior motives. While he bathed his disgusting body I snuck across the street to a truck stop. I grabbed a 12 pack of Budweiser and a foot long sub for each of us.

When I got to the room Josh seemed a bit down, talking to his girlfriend. Hit face lit up when he saw the booze. He said, and I quote "Ross, I thought this was going to be the second worst birthday of my life.. but then I saw you come in with the beer and everything just seemed better." We proceeded to be extreme light weights and get drunk off three beers each. Hey! We hadn't eaten in hours and biked! We then proceeded to finish off the WHOLE 12 pack. Whoa. Here comes awesome drunken videos!

In respect of Josh's wishes, this video has been removed. We gotta keep the kid looking professional. Sorry! You may however enjoy my drunkenness below..

After we finished the beer and ate our food we wanted some more crap. Real crap. Candy. So we decided to wander over to the truck stop. I figured I'd practice my "sobriety" before I got there so no one would know I'm drunk. I think it worked flawlessly, didn't it?

So we gorged ourselves on candy and cake. Josh felt like shit, but held it all down. I drunk dialed Zak and his friends that night. For those of you who don't know it, a mosquito consists of three parts. A body, a thorax and a face. And I fucking punch mosquitoes right in the face! All in all a great night. Happy Birthday Joshyboy!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 67.82
Total mileage- 746.14

Laundry Nazi Ruins My Day

2008-07-05T20:45:00.001-07:00

Friday, June 20th. The campsite was rather pleasant. Not too much noise or anything going on. Just the sound of the steam off in the distance. We decided to attempt to be efficient with our time and wanted to start our laundry first thing so we didn't have to wait too long to get a move on. When we got to the laundry room 3 of 4 washers were in use. Fuck. We put Josh's clothes in and waited.

Showers, shaves, and gorging of food commenced. It was so nice to have been showered. I felt bad, Josh and myself used all the hot water and the two neighboring campers, a father son combo, were shocked at the "lack of hot water at these facilities." Oopsies~ We broke camp and I got fed up with waiting for the ass who used all 3 washers to take their stuff out of the machines. I mean, the clothes were cleaned but no one had taken them out for 30 minutes. I pulled the typical college move, taking their clothes out putting it on the table, putting mine in. Right as I was placing my stuff in the washer, the owner of the abandoned clothes came in, apologizing for her tardiness. On top of that she took ALL the driers, so I couldn't get Josh's stuff dry. Wow. I even asked her "Are you in a rush? You staying around today? Mind if I use ONE of the driers?" Oh but apparently she was in a rush and couldn't spare one. Super bitch.

So we ate more and I took pictures of turkeys that patrolled the lots. I tried to get some wifi to update and charged my electronics. All in all though it was a waste of time all because Uber-Bitch wanted to waste my time. She sat around all day after she was done too. Enjoying her victory in ruining my day. I hope she reads this. Just so she knows she sucks. Hey lady- you suck.

Eventually we hit the road, albeit late. We biked down 90 and got to some weird signs. Apparently this area is known for it's "Testicle Festival" which I could only had presumed had to do with Rocky Mountain Oysters. For those of you who are unfamiliar with them, I believe they're deep fried bull testicles. Or some variety of bull nuts. How... uhh... delectable.

We biked until a small town called Drummond. We stopped to grab some food and water and they had a nice little restaraunt. We chatted and I asked about the testicle festival. "What is it?" to which the local replied "What isn't it?" Ok. "Well what happens at it?" Reply- "What doesn't happen at it?" Only a little annoying. But eventually I got the truth out. Apparently it's just a giant orgy. A bunch of random people. Going at it. Probably on the table I ate breakfast on today. Ew. Thank God Josh didn't know that or he'd probably never feel clean again.

By the time dinner ended it was surprisingly already 6:30. Josh wasn't feeling much like biking and when he wants to quit- it usually means we quit. A pathetic 30ish mile day, but hey.. we ate lots of candy bars. And that always makes it a quality day. Check this out too. How much do babysitters get in your local area? 8/hour? 10/hour? 15/hour? How humble of this little girl...

3/hour! Unbelievable!

So we set up camp at a local park. A local told us it was 10/night and we didn't really have to pay if we didn't have the cash. Granted, we don't really have the cash, and Josh felt bad. So we paid. I tried to jump in the river to cool off/cleanse myself, but the bottom was all mud and I kept sinking, pulling my ankle bandaids off (from my 360 spill back in Seattle). I gave up once I was waste deep and went back to have my soul sucked by mosquitoes. Little bastards. Tons of em. Theme of the day though- we're lazy bastards. We eat tons of food. Mosquitoes love me.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 31.53
Total mileage- 678.32

The 90

2008-07-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 19th. We awoke to some pounding as the man's property we were staying on woke us up bright and early at 6:30. I was tired, but we did ask him to give us a wake up call. I crawl out of the trailer first and head over to the house where the man greets me, asking if I was interested in some coffee. I don't even drink coffee but fuck yes I want some coffee! I step into his GORGEOUS house and we talk and drink a bit. He asked me if Josh was Jewish, which I found a bit humorous. I suppose I could see it. He just didn't want to give him non-kosher ham. After all, he had decided he was making us a huge breakfast!

The man, who's name is Gary, and his wife, who I can't recall the name of (sorry Mrs. Hill!) joined us. She had recently had some surgery so was a bit less mobile. They made us ham, toast, eggs and tons of coffee. We stuffed our faces. Afterwards Gary insisted we go for a ride. There's a bison preserve right across the street from his house, and we spent about 30 minutes driving through it seeing mainly deer and the first few buffalo of our trip. Pretty cool!

Afterwards we packed up our gear and showed them our bikes and hit the road! Frankly, I was so full I was having trouble cycling. But after about an hour of 8-10 mph I was feeling awesome and was making great time! That was until the headwind started... we were heading up a slight incline and the wind was just enough to be really annoying. I was pissed. But we hit mile 600. Very annoying mile 600.

Milestone 6 of 35ish

We eventually made it through the wind and hell and made it to our destination- Missoula. The city had a nice feel to it, I was kinda liking the idea of spending an early night there. There were a couple things to see (Adventure Cycling Headquarters! http://www.adventurecycling.org/) But it was only 5:30 and Josh was feeling like moving on. See, there's one thing Josh does a lot that kinda peeves me. I ask him his opinion to which he replies "Well, whatever you want." Then I tell him what I want, and he say "well, I think..." or "Well I want..." Maddening. So I was like "Josh, you make the decision. I'm done for the day. We ate McDonald's and headed out. After looking over my maps briefly I had discovered I-90 was a much quicker route to get to Butte than my previous route. Honestly though, I was a bit concerned about taking I-90. Oh also, huge pet peeve. Why do people call it "The 90"? I hate it. You could say "The Interstate" I suppose... but who says the followed by a proper noun? At least I think it's a proper noun? One could say, "I'm walking the dog" but not "I'm walking The Sparky." Josh does it all the time. Maddening. As does EVERYONE out here. Stab me please.

Anyway, we ended up taking I-90. I really had a bad feeling about it, and thought it was a bad idea, but I had let Josh decide and he decided to do it. Honestly- it wasn't so bad. Really wide shoulders, wide enough for the two of us side by side, although we went single file. Not too much traffic, and not much faster than any other road we were on. Frankly, I-90 might had been safer. We pushed on another 25 miles to a nice campsite. I saw my first bald eagle soaring over head while we pulled in too!

It was a nice site. Like 25 bucks and we got showers, the campsite and access to the laundromat. Sweet. Clean bodies, clean clothes. Happy campers. All in all I suppose a bit of a uneventful day. Suppose one can't complain with that too often.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 61.88
Total mileage- 646.79

Drunk in The Big Sky

2008-07-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 18th. As I said before, we woke up happily knowing the crazy man in the lot next to us never returned. I was feeling pretty grimy and all I wanted to do was bathe myself and there was a river right next to us, actually quite close. Take a look-

As you might be able to see the river was running a bit too fast to get into. It was about a 3' drop off into the water and even I might had been swept away. Or I would had swam upstream to spawn like a salmon just to prove to Josh I could handle the current.

We ate some food and took forever like usual to get ready. I was really not looking forward to our four mile hike back up this hill to get on the proper road. Maybe I was just feeling good, or maybe the hill wasn't so bad, but we flew up that thing! We were back on the road, making our way through the Big Sky State.

We kept coming across all this "historic" sites as we traveled that day. Here's some of them for you history buffs out there.

All in all though a rather event less day. Pretty smooth and pretty easy. I must say, Montana is quite the lovely state.

See that last picture? Those snow covered mountains? Now I'm not sure but I believe those are part of the rockies. First time we had seen them. It was a pretty cool feeling! We had bike all the way to the rockies...

So what else happened? We biked through a little town called Paradise. How cute~ Although I must admit, right outside their town it was paradise. See, about a mile past town there's an artesian well (whatever the hell those are) and I was hot and thirsty. We chugged and filled our bottles with the cold clean water. I actually just got on the ground and let the spring flow over me. God it was awesome. This too is one of my "golden rules" for the trip. Anytime I can get cold I take advantage of it. I love the cold. I need the cold. It was soo cold. I laid there until my body went numb from the coldness. Josh hid from it like a dog from the vacuum.

We made it down the road to the store of a kindly old man. We stayed, chatted for probably an hour, bought some food, and asked him about the road ahead. Josh really liked this guy I could tell. He told us there was nothing up the road save a bar about 10 miles up. After that another 15 miles or so to town. He warned us though- the guy who ran the bar was a real prick! But maybe he'd make us a burger or two.

The night wore on, and as it approached seven we were hungry and wanting a place to stay. We were definitely on a reservation, you could tell by the intensely impoverished appearance of the community. We stopped at the bar, the only commercial establishment in town, asking to fill our water and see if the man would make us food. We walk into the darkly lit room, two men and a lady at the bar. All eyes on the two tan white boys wearing bike shorts, t-shirts, and bike gloves. Immediately we knew things were a bit off.

Me- "Hi, how you doing. We're looking for a place to get some food..."

Barkeep- "Well then you're in the wrong town."

Me- "Oh yea? Nothing huh. Damn."

Josh- "Oh, well we heard from a man down the road that a nice old guy at a bar up here might make us some burgers."

Barkeep- "What man? What shop?" (Sounds obviously annoyed at the reference to someone he dislikes)

Josh then proceeded to go into detail of the man, and how much Josh enjoyed him and the shop. Josh somehow hadn't picked up from the conversation with either man that the two greatly disliked each other. This obviously didn't win us any favor.

Me- "Well, could we fill up our water bottles?"

Barkeep- "I dunno, can you?"

Me- "Hah, yea umm... so... can we?"

Barkeep- "Bathroom's right there."

Josh, smiling still like always "Oh, thank you!" Looking at the bathroom doors confused. They were labeled Pitchers and Catchers. Took Josh a minute, but he figured it out. Everyone at the bar laughed.

Barkeep- "So where you from son?"

The question I was hoping to avoid. The last thing I want to be is from New York when someone backwoods redneck asks.

Me- "Back East. Vermont." (What's less threatening than Vermont?!?)

The barkeep pointed to a sign behind him reading "I have an East infection" saying "Yea, that's a real problem out here." Again, the three at the bar chuckled. We filled our bottles, and chatted a few minutes, very awkwardly, very uneasy with the whole situation. Right as we leave the barkeep goes..

"Well next town up there's a big Indian. Can't miss him. He'll cook for you..."

We thanked him and left. We really had no other choices. We were hungry. I guess we had to look for the Big Indian. I was a bit concerned though. We were on less than friendly territory I would say and I was thinking maybe the prick barkeep had called ahead to warn the "Big Indian" of our impending arrival.

It was about 8:30 and it was getting late. We really didn't want to bike the other 10 miles to the next town just to risk starting some trouble with some more locals. We were riding past a couple small houses and one stood out. A real nice house on a pretty poor reservation. We were starting to get good at this. See, most everyone who's helped us out on this trip has been either A- retired, or B- moderately wealthy or C- both. Not a perfect science, but it seems these factors increase our odds.

So we rode up to the house, and as we approached three dogs come running out! I didn't know weather to be prepared to be mauled or licked. I kinda just... played it cool. Oh yea. Cool cat Ross. An older man came out after them and I asked him if he minded if we pitched a tent on his yard. He quickly said yes and didn't even ask us a question about anything. He went back to his house, we went over to the yard to get the tent ready. About five minutes later we knocked on his door again, questioning if we should hang our food in case of bears. He said no, and if we wanted we could leave our food in a horse trailer he had. We thanked him and went about our business. Another five minutes later we knock on his door asking if we could just sleep in the horse trailer. He felt silly for not even offering! He came out, showed us the trailer and started chatting. That's the key. Gotta get 'em chatting. He talked to us about everything for a half hour. Then he offered us beer! Mmmm, free beer. Handing us both two we sit there on his porch drinking and talking for another hour. Since our stomaches were empty we were both pretty drunk. About a half dozen hummingbirds were buzzing around us and it was just real nice. We were in a gooooood place. The man retired for the night and we sat on his lawn in chairs, watching the sun set, drinking a third beer each, stuffing our faces and enjoying.

Honestly, sometimes this trip really blows. Biking sucks, and it's hot and you're dirty and yea. I just sucks. And sometimes you're sitting on a man's lawn, drinking his beer, eating treats, looking up at the big sky seeing a billion stars and there's nothing you'd rather be doing. Those moments make the horror worth while.

At about midnight we started packing up in the trailer. It was no Luxury Suites, but it did the trick. We were off the ground, it was easy. We slept like babies.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 63.87
Total mileage- 584.91

To Arrest Or Not To Arrest, This Was The Question

2008-07-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, June 17th. More steaming tents. God it's pretty unbearable in the morning. At least no bears came in the night. We woke up and got a surprisingly quick start, breaking down camp quick-like. As we were finishing up, some people started to come to the campgrounds. I went over and started talking to them and using my limitless charisma talked them into giving us some bottled water. Much better than our purified stream crap. I also discovered an ingenious way of cleaning my tent. Look-

We hit the road and about three miles down the road we came across a nice little country store. We stopped off and actually found two fellow cyclist right outside. An elderly couple who I can't recall the names of, but they had started out on the west coast as well, Oregon I believe, and were heading to Maine. Good luck to them. Too much for me.

So we shopped at the store, feeling silly for purifying water when we could had just came here last night. We decided to get a home made loaf of bread, a pound of turkey, and a half pound of swiss cheese. Divine!~ We both ate four sandwiches and were so stuffed we couldn't move. So we didn't. We just sat there. For hours. Literally like 3 or 4 hours. And did nothing but talk to kindly old people who wandered past. Pretty though eh? I felt like an old man. Nothing to do but sit on the porch and just watch. Somehow the time really does fly by.

We did meet a very nice couple though. I can't recall the gentleman's name but the wife's was Mona, who apparently was a author I do believe. We sat on the porch and discussed how they had lived in Motana for 60 or 70 years, until they recently had to move to Washington. She was quite the lady, apparently had been known to spot deer outside their window and just gun 'em down herself to feed the kids. It was interesting to hear how people used to live off the land in many ways back in the day. Thanks for the chat you two. Eventually though, we did digest and headed off down the road.

We biked a whole bunch. Nothing too exciting. They have these signs all over Montana though. Kinda interesting. I've never seen one above "low" though....

We stopped and had a mid-afternoon snack on this gorgeous lake. The wind was blowing hard, cooling us, and we just sat there watching a family boat and tube all over the place. So peaceful and gorgeous...

It's odd in Montana. Things are kinda huge. We were heading down this pretty flat pass, but about a half mile off to each side were some decent sized mountains. I had never really seen anything like it in my life. I think probably one of my favorite places on this whole trip was this large valley just surrounded by mountains. The picture does it no justice. It was just so... pure. Simply. Old rustic buildings in some middle of no where field. I wish I could had stayed and just absorbed it for a bit longer...

Toward the end of the night we stopped at a little shop where a father was working while his daughter accompanied him patiently. Again- odd. Things are different out there. If I was that kid I'd of been annoyed, wanting to go do something or have some fun. She just seemed so happy, so innocent. She sat there and talked and talked to us like it was the most fun thing in the world. She was absolutely adorable. We bought a few things from her father, and contemplated buying some beef jerky. Mmm the idea just made us salivate, but we decided against it in honor of our remarkable cheapness. As I stepped outside to take a picture of their horse with a majorly messed up back, the little girl came running out with a bag of beef jerk in hand... "Here, my Pa said you could have this!" It's amazing how much joy some dehydrated flesh can bring to men. We were beyond elated.

Not too long after we hit our 500th mile! Woo hoo!

Milestone 5 of 35ish.

We made it to the next town, which I believe was on an Indian Reservation, due to the absurd amount of Casinos on the property and had a bite to eat. We were saving our store food for later that night. Hardly an amazing meal, but one of the workers told us of another National Forest Campsite about 5 miles down the road, and 2 miles north. Granted- two miles in the wrong direction didn't sound fun, but a free stay sounded great. We packed up and headed for camp.

Let me tell you, he was wrong. Two miles off the road? Try four. Now, to most of you, four miles doesn't sound bad. But on a bike it's a bit more. And this was downhill. Very nice for the end of the night, but it just meant we'd have to wake up an bike uphill four miles for a half an hour. I was PISSED. We did get a free place though.

When we got to the site I was surprised to find other people there. We were somewhat excited because I was pretty sure I could charm my way into some free food off the fellow campers. We went and started setting up camp when one of our two neighbors stumbled over. The guy was nice and very talkative, but it quickly became apparent he was drunk, and in less than perfect spirits. He kept talking about how he was the "fuck up of his family" and frankly.. it concerned myself a fair bit. I didn't know if he was going to get belligerent an try something or what. Josh too got the vibe. All we wanted was for him to leave, but he simply wouldn't. Eventually, probably after an hour, he went back to his truck to drink more alone. The two of us enjoyed our jerky in peace, but the thoughts of a wasted man wandering over to our campsite during the night kept creeping through my head. What if he had a knife? What if he had a gun? I quickly pocketed my mace and put my rape whistle/knife on.

We went to lay in bed when we heard a car engine start. Then saw headlights coming in our direction. The drunk bastard was in his car! And driving! Our tent was a mere 3 feet from the road, and visions of being pinned under his tired raced. "Fuck, what do I do!?" We didn't have many options, by the time we got ready to jump out of the tent he had skillfully DUI'd his way past our tent. We eventually got out and moved out tent behind a tree so we at least had some protection in case he returned. I was conflicted. Do I call the police or do I not? I mean he was wasted beyond belief. Eventually Josh talked me into not doing it. I still don't know. I hope he didn't hurt someone, or I don't know what I'd think. Poor guy. Get some help.

But that was that, we slept safely behind our tree and drunko-johnson never returned.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 55.32
Total mileage- 521.04

Insert Witty Title Here

2008-07-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 16th. Josh woke up before me and actually let me sleep. How kind. He got some stuff ready, pulled the food from the tree and sat peacefully updating his notebook (a lesser version of my amazing blog). I woke up about a half hour later, refreshed. Doesn't Josh look so peaceful writing away? How cute.

We got a moderately early start and headed north toward the next town on our path- Sandpoint. On the way we ran into this cool old man who rides his bike around town getting groceries and whatnot. I'm jealous of his helmet mirror. The road into Sandpoint also had a really cool bridge. Like a mile long or more over this pretty scenic view. I took a buncha pics and a video, but I won't bore you with it all. Hell, half of you won't even know it existed because you only look at the pictures and don't read this!

Sandpoint was a nice little town. About 8000 people, and very biker conscious. There were bike paths everywhere, and nice wide shoulders. Definitely a very affluent and rich town- probably the richest one we've been to yet. Josh had finally decided it was time to ship some gear home so we went to the post office and Josh took about 47 hours to go through all his gear and mail home ~15 pounds of gear. A smart move on his part. I also mailed home ~4 pounds of gear. Nothing major.

We wandered over to a nice little pizza place and bought a delicious pizza. The employee thought we couldn't handle a 16'' pizza ourselves. She was greatly mistaken. Do not underestimate my stomach woman! Afterward Josh spent 47 more hours in the hardware store. I layed under a tree, digested, and made phone calls. It was really nice.

I met a pretty nice man while running a few errands. A real pleasant man named Lou. Classy man, let me tell you. Definitely retired. Definitely rich out of his mind. He offered us a place to stay for the night, and for the first time ever we had to turn him down- only because we had only biked 15ish miles for the day I believe. So anyway, we left Sandpoint heading southeast on highway 200 toward Missoula.

The ride was pretty uneventful. We biked, the scenery was pretty cool. A nice winding river and some shear cliffs. Take a look...

We met a really weird man as we turned the finally bends of the lake. I don't recall his name but he was a reverend from Germany. Now, before everyone goes off on me for going off on a reverend, hear me out! So I meet this guy, and he just had a weird vibe. Very... in your face, tell you how it should be before he even knew what was going on. Giving me directions, telling me how to bike what to see. Alright, granted he seemed like a more seasoned biker than I, but I knew what I was after on this trip. Turns out this guy had been biking for FIFTEEN years. Yes, biking since like 1990. Absurdity. He had nearly 200,000 miles on his bike and was heading the same direction as us. I dunno though, I just had a weird vibe. You'd think a man who'd biked so much would be a bit more in shape and capable. I mean we literally blasted past the poor man on the road, and I was in no grand shape myself. I dunno. He had the helmet strap tanline to prove his proficiency... I just had a bad feeling about it all.

So anyway, we biked about another 40 miles and came across a beautiful sight, one that came unexpectedly soon...

A whole freaking time zone! Go us! We're so damn good. Little did we know, this was also the Montana border. Apparently the Big Sky State just doesn't like to announce it's existence. Save time zone signs.

About another 3 miles down the road we came to a National Forest campgrounds. Josh was eager to push on for the day- wanting a place to find water. I figured there'd be water at the site and since it was nearly 7 I talked him into camping there for the night. Total. Worth. It. First off, some important information to anyone in the West... National Forest are FREE campsites. No charges. Period. Now, there was no water, but we purified a creek and that worked. Let me tell you though, it was the perfect campsite beyond that. This gorgeous lake, and Josh and myself make Spaghetti O's sandwiches. Mmmm.

We set up camp and slept uncomfortably close to each other. Like usual. Welcome to Montana. Good night.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 59.72
Total mileage- 465.72

Notice!

2008-06-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple extra posts for you all. Just to letcha know, two new polls up. Also, I'm considering redoing my ipod so I don't have to listen to Josh as much. If you have any songs for me email 'em my way. GordTheGreat@gmail.com

Thanks!

Interstaters

2008-06-30T18:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday, June 15th. Despite Josh threatening to wake me up numerous times on this trip (and pissing me off every time) I awoke at 8 am, a good half hour before him. I checked my maps and made sure everything was planned properly today, after all... we were about to cross our first state line ever!

We showered... oh how I miss showers... and packed our bags, hitting the road. We stopped by a grocery store and picked up some food. Then nothing really exciting happened as we biked out of town. We asked a couple locals for directions to make sure we were going the right way, which only proved my theory more and more. See, one of my many Golden Rules is "Never take directions from locals." Example- we're biking out of Spokane, wanting to be on highway 290. I ask a man "Sir, is this highway 290?" He reply "Oh no no, this isn't it. You must be going the wrong way." Lacking confidence in the man, I biked 25 feet down the road past a sign reading 290. This is why I never take directions from locals. I know better.

After about 15-20 miles we came across it... the border. It was pretty exciting, the thought I had transversed an entire state. A decent sized one at that! It was bitter sweet though, considering there was nothing to look forward to in Idaho.

How silly of me! I forgot to mention! My plans had changed drastically. See, my initial plan was to drop south out of Spokane and take this odd convoluted route to Missoula Montana. Sadly, that route took us through a ton of mountains and a huge 120 mile long path with no places to stop for food or water. I had decided long ago to change that plan. After talking to many cyclist I was informed you're allowed to bike on the Interstate highways out here. While the idea of biking on I-90, the main East/West Interstate, made me nervous it was significantly straighter. Probably a three day ride. Sadly, it also went directly through the mountains. After much map searching I had found a route north, through the thin tip of Idaho, that was only a three or four day ride to Missoula and was practically flat. As always, I'll take the longer route around the mountains. Just so much easier.

Anyway, back to Idaho. Idaho was a bit surprising. It was surprisingly flat. I saw no rockiness like I expected. I kinda thought Idaho was nothing but hills, rocks, and potatoes. Nope. It was probably the most New York like state yet.

Yep, that's Idaho. See those dark regions on the mountains? What do you think they are? Most might say "A cloud's shadow." Nope. Not Josh. He questioned whether they might be darker colored trees growing in random patterns. Oh Josh.... oh Josh...

Even more random- biking through Idaho along a moderate desolate road we came across a amusement park. How random?! Then again, most people would think The Great Escape in Lake George NY is pretty random. I dunno. Weird if you ask me. But hey! We also hit mile 400! Woo hoo! We're getting somewhere!

Milestone 4 of 35ish

But for the most part Idaho was uneventful. No meth-heads. Nothing really too much. It was surprisingly populated though. I expected Idaho to be desolate compared to most places. Really though, Central Washington was much more uninhabited comparatively. Not that Idaho's bustling by any means.

So as the night grew close to the end we needed a place to stay and there was no places to just pitch tent on the road, it was all ranches and farms. We stopped by one old mans farm hinting at the fact we needed a place to stay. He ate up nearly all the daylight we had left chatting then left us to the road.

We stopped by another house, being much more blunt and just asking and the family kindly obliged and let us pitch our tent. They had a lot of property and recommended going up this hill into a field. They didn't mention the field was forever away and up what must had been a 15% grade (literally). It's the only hill I've had to walk this trip, and it was only 50 feet long. Once we hit the top of the hill I look down and see literally 6 mosquitoes on my left arm alone. We were quite literally swarmed! I kinda freaked out, threw my bike to the ground, put on my hoodie and sweatpants to protect myself from the viscous blood-suckers and got our 20% DDT bug wipes. God those bastards were viscous. We set up camp quick like, threw our food in a tree and went to bed. The gentle sounds of trains passing and coyotes howling were our sweet lullaby.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 57.91
Total mileage- 406.22

Even God Needed To Rest

2008-06-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 14th. We awoke to in our garbage paradise to a baking tent. I don't think I've mentioned yet, but the amount of body heat and exhaled vapor from the two of us causes a sauna-like effect by 9 am. I'm usually so drenched in sweat I think I had pissed myself. Happily, self-urination is rarely the cause of the feeling though. Anyway, we awoke and broke camp. The wind had died down so getting everything ready moved rather smoothly. We had only one plan for the whole day and that was making it to Spokane, a mere 15 miles away. A piece of cake for amazing cyclist like ourselves.

So, pedal pedal pedal. Yada yada. You know how it goes. Does anyone actually read this to hear about the cycling?

We arrived at Spokane pretty quick and effectively. It was even closer than we thought. I forget the exact amount but like 5-10 miles. While coming into town we noticed a couple cheap places to get a room at. We had decided a few days earlier to take a days rest once we got to Spokane. After 300+ miles without a break and a week on the road, we decided we deserved it. I mean seriously... God spend 6 days on the job and took the 7th off... we spent 7 days on the job and took one off. Then again God created the world and we only managed to traverse 1.2% of the globe, so I suppose he had better reason for the rest. Anyway, I think we earned it.

So here were our errands-
1. Cheap ass motel
2. Laundry
3. Bike Shop
4. Blog updating

We biked around town, asking about these things and checking out the town. Honestly, Spokane wasn't too exciting. Kinda smaller than I expected. No big buildings, just a long main stretch. Kinda run down a little bit, certainly not as luxurious as Seattle but certainly more so than Airway Heights.

First things first, we found a nice bike shop with some really helpful employees. I was looking for some add ons to my bike- specifically a handlebar bag (for easy access and more storage) and a rear view mirror of some nature. The employees hooked me up with a real nice handlebar bag for like 40 bucks. It works great, holding my two wallets (yes I have two), camera, notepad, chapstick, GPS tracker, multitool, rape whistle/knife, ipod, Josh's hand sanitizer, and my mace. Lotta stuff, no? Here's a picture of it while I sit here at McDonald's updating.

I was also shown a nifty little glasses mirror. It simply clips on the side of your glasses and has a mirror you can adjust. Nothing fancy and only 10 bucks. An easy buy. Let me tell you though, it takes a fair bit of getting used to. It's at a weird angle and kinda hurts your eyes until you get a bit adjusted to it. Still though, it's much easier than turning around a whole bunch to see if Josh was hit by a car, or how close the semi's coming to the shoulder.

I was busy playing with my toys/assembling my handlebar rack while Josh toured the store. I forgot to mention before but the dar prior I was having HORRENDOUS chaffing of the inner thigh. God it killed biking 2 hours at 18ish mph. Our old solution was this....

Baby powder. It worked ok but it was no long term solution.

So I had him ask around for some anti-chaffing solution. He got a couple things but also picked up the holy grail of this trip "Chamois Butter" (pronounced Shammy Butter, or at least we call it that). It's just a cream you rub all over your man-thighs to stop them from chaffing. Or ass. Or whatever. Regardless for the remainder of this trip, and for the remainder of my blogging, it will be referred to as "Ball Butter." So I buttered my balls and hit the road. Sorry, no videos of that.

Greasy like a baby seal, we made our way over to Subway for some food. Jen, Josh's girlfriend, had given us some buy-one-get-one free coupons for subs before we left and we had just realized that some of our coupons were expiring today! My oh my! How could we let that happen? So we both went and bought two 12'' subs for like 7 dollars. We'll see who loses weight on the Subway diet Mr. Jared!

It was probably about 3 o'clock and we wanted to find a real cheap motel. Josh had claimed he saw a few cheap ones, $40, a few miles back. So we back tracked and asked every establishment we could heading that way their prices. Most were 50-70 so we decided against it. We finally came to Josh's $40 locale (which in reality was 45 what a liar) and I asked the neighboring motels their prices. I wish I had taken a picture but its fair to say this was not the nicest neighborhood. I was less than comfortable. The first place I checked close by was housing for recovering alcoholics and the second place was freaky. The lady had to of been on some sort of drug considering she was glazed over and took 15 seconds to respond to anything. She offered me a room for $27.50 but refused to let me have it until she saw Josh. I don't know if she didn't believe someone else was with me or if she thought I was doing something shady (aka prostitutes/drugs) but I figured I had gone deep enough into the slums and we got a room at Josh's 45 dollar motel.

And that was that. I spent hours upon hours updating my blog (yes, it takes me forever to do this for those of you who don't know) and that was the last time I mass updated. We slept like babies and washed the taste of salt from our skin.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 17.14 (day of rest)
Total mileage- 348.31

Ready Your Breakfast and Eat Hearty

2008-06-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 13th. The two of us awoke pretty early, about 8:30, pleased again by the idea of a hot shower. Man, you can't imagine how much the simplicity of a shower improves my quality of life. It's absolute bliss. Anyway, we woke up and took our usual 1-2 hours to prepare all of our gear/shower/shave/lather our man-bodies in sunscreen. We decided breakfast was in order and trekked the 1/3rd mile back into the happening town. Sadly Couleehan's was closed so Josh and myself checked our the little ma and pops store next door, which I can't seem to recall the name of. Grandpa Joe's or something? Whatever. It's unimportant.

We were both pleased seeing as it was still moderately early and we were already up and ready for breakfast. We figured we had a chance of making some pretty good mileage today. So we roll into this place and check out the menu- the thought of pancakes overwhelmed me. I ordered a short stack (2 pancakes for 2.25), toast and hash browns. Josh did the same, only exchanging the hash browns for eggs. And oh my friggin' lord did we hit the mother load! The waitress brings over these HUGE pancakes. Literally, gigantic. Really the only size comparison I had was my hand, so take a look for yourself. Thick as hell too! Now... I can eat a lot, don't get me wrong, but I was pushing my limits. The pancakes alone nearly did me in. I was in pain. I was stuffed. I was in gluttonous heaven.

As you can see here Josh couldn’t finish his. It’s ok, he’ll still a journeyman glutton.

So, it was probably close to 10:45 at this point. We’re so painfully stuffed we literally can’t move. We had no choice but to simply sit there and digest for nearly an hour. At about 11:30 we finally hit the road leaving our Coulee City paradise behind us.

At first progress was slow. I was only managing about a 10 mph pace on fairly level ground. I was simply still too full. After about an hour, and my body was getting somewhere with it’s digestion the pace picked up. It was actually rather remarkable. We were once again just going through rolling hills in fields of wheat and the wind was at our backs. A very strong tail wind at that! Our paced climbed and we were holding a pretty steady 17-20 mph speed. Even on the uphills. Simply put we were making awesome time.

Sadly though, there was nothing really to report about the whole road trip. It was the same thing over and over. Field field field... fallow field. Then more fields. Then fallow. Exciting eh?

We did however hit our 300th mile! Milestone 3 of 35ish!

So after about 60 miles we came to a town called Davenport. We stopped at a gas station to get a little food and find out about the upcoming towns and ran into these two ladies from Seattle. Apparently they too were biking cross country! Very interesting. Not only that they were going generally the same direction as us. We exchanged some info, and went on our way. See, after talking to everyone we had decided to try and push ourselves to our limits and bike to the outskirts of Spokane- about 20ish miles away. We jumped on our bikes and booted off through the rolling hills.

Josh definitely was trying hard. The wind was still strong to our backs and we were keeping a pretty constant 18mph, even low teens on the uphills. Most surprisingly I was keeping up. By the time we pulled into Airway Heights, a small suburb of Spokane, it was getting a bit dark. The town was far from welcoming, and a bit on the poor side if you asked me. Josh and myself tried a few houses to see if they'd let us pitch a tent with no success. We tried a few mobile homes with again no success until one man told us about an RV park. We called the owner who said it was fine if we camped there. He was fine with us dropping off 5 or 10 bucks at his office door if we wanted, but if we didn't it was "no skin off his teeth." Good thing, because we definitely didn't pay him.

See, when we went to find a parking spot well... all we found was pretty much garbage. Huge mounds of debris and discarded appliances. And the wind! God, tons of wind. I was afraid the tent was going to blow away honestly. Here's Josh setting up the tent in our five star lot. So by the time camp was pitched it was dark. We had just biked 90 miles- the farthest we had done- we were hungry and tired. We grabbed our our dinner of champions (beans and a loaf of bread) and we ate the whole thing. It's amazing how much you can eat for 3 dollars. God we're cheap asses.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 89.72
Total mileage- 331.17

Notice!

2008-06-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

Alright, so it's been a while. No, I'm not dead for those of you who ask. I don't think the buzzards would carry my tracking beacon hundreds of miles along I-90 for me postmortem. But, a few notes before I attempt to update my blog again, despite being a week behind.

First off, my good friend Alex has been recording my nightly location so we can always go back and remember my trip. Here's the link. It'll also go on my "links" list.

Secondly, considering the polls are closed, the answer was 7.7 pounds under water. Weird eh?

Thirdly, I'll probably post some type of new poll soon. I was thinking "Ways Ross will die on this trip." Got any good ideas email em to me. That's all until the wave of updates occurs.

Chillin in Coulee City

2008-06-14T22:49:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 12th. Josh woke me up at about 8 am. God damn was I pissed at him for that. I was a grumpy bastard, but it was for the best, it got our day started and us up and moving. We broke camp and headed over to the local convenience store for some economy breakfast foods (nutrigrain bars- Oh yea, I feel great!) and 50 cent cookies. Ya know, the breakfast mom makes.

We biked about a mile down the road and I thought i might had forgotten my bike lock at the camp site. We turned around to check, but nope. Nothing there. Turned out later I had it. Better safe than sorry though, no? So we trekked on, pulling into a small town called Orondo. We filled up a bunch of water bottles and prepared for Steven's Pass Jr. (not the actual name) which was another 2ooo foot elevation jump in 8 miles. Not nearly as bad as Steven's but much hotter, so we still took a good couple breaks. The road was long and convoluted but made for some good photos afterwards-

I also took this one, somehow I think Carl will appreciate it...

Dead snake.

After we finally made it to the top of the hill, we found ourselves on level fields. It's wild how quickly we went from arid to farm land. This is literally a mile above the pass. And this really started the easy point of the trip. We had high flat lands with gentle rolling hills. The wind remained at our backs the whole day. We stopped a little town right above the pass called Waterville and filled up on, gasp, water! We also gorged ourselves like fiends.

We also hit our 200th mile right in the middle of "town"! Milestone 2 of 35ish!

Toward the end of the day, we decided to push our limits and try to head to a town called Coulee City, which was a 40 mile ride from anything. That means 40 miles in the sun and nearly 80 degree heat with no chances to fill up our canteens. Seemed like a fun challenge although slightly nerve wracking.

About half way through the trip we hit a massive downhill. Five miles straight bringing us into this huge canyon. The pictures didn't come out all too well, but the canyon was vast, and had odd lime green moss growing on the yellowish walls. It was really stunning. Perhaps my favorite sight of Eastern Washington.

After climbing out of the canyon (surprisingly not bad, I must be getting better at this) we had another flat 10 mile stretch followed by another 5 miles downhill leading right into Coulee City. It was a pretty cool view coming into town also.

Coulee City was full of surprises for us. We started by checking out the local camp grounds, but decided not to get a camping spot before getting some food... figured hey- maybe some locals would like two really dirty boys to help out?

So after inquiring where "the place" to eat was, we were went in the direction of Couleehan's, the local bar/grill in town. I always feel so gay walking into an establishment in my tight-ass bike shorts, but the shame is lessening. I fear it's not a good thing. Anyway after about 5 minutes in the place the owner, Dan, walks up to us and strikes up a conversation. Turns out he's a very pro-biker guy and offered us a small plot of land to pitch a tent on! Score! No cost of sleeping tonight. Not to mention the place had a bathroom and shower. Double score! I bought that man a beer (or so I hope the waitress brought him one) and we stuffed our face with steak, fries, and salad. I really liked Coulee City, I highly advise anyone going through Washington to swing by and definitely go to Couleegans. It's conveniently located on Main Street in Downtown Coulee City, you can't miss it! Just tell him the crazy boys on the bike sent you. I can't imagine they get all too many.

Speaking of which, while we were there, a Scottish man walked up to us and started talking. Turns out him and his wife are also biking cross country. They had started down in Texas and pretty much came the opposite way we were going. He was a real fountain of information. Glad we ran into him.

From there we simply pitched our tent and called it a night. Good people. Fun place. Go to Couleegan's!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 62.45
Total mileage- 241.45

Thou Shalt Not Steal

2008-06-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 11th. We awoke early-ish. About 8 o'clock. We both showered and got cleaned up. We had a hearty breakfast with Jerry and Kathy. Jerry had an eye appointment in Levenworth, a small Bavarian (German of some sorts I do believe) community that's really cute and fun. Since Jerry was already heading into town, he offered us a ride- which would had also cut 15 miles off our daily commute. While I felt skeptical... I mean, we should bike it... our poor mileage the days prior made me feel inclined to accept. So we accepted.

Jerry gave us the scenic tour and I must say the area around there is simply gorgeous. I think I've seen few places more beautiful than the Washington Cascades.

The view going into Levinworth.

We decided to make this trip a bit of a detour. Josh and myself had decided due to my high frequency of flats (for those not counting 4 in the first 2 days) I needed new tires. So we scoured the local bike shops of Levinworth to get some satisfactory assistance. The first was a joke and not worth our time, but the second was extraordinary. It was a little store called "Der Sportsman" which I can only assume means "The Magical Bike Store That Can Fix Anything" in German. This was without a doubt the best bike store experience I had. They helped me pick out the right tires, a pair of biking gloves (bye bye duct tape gloves!) and even helped me pick out a new seat. This is a big deal- every other store just gave me their "opinion" on the best seat. Der Sportsman showed me what makes a seat good, bad, and fitting a specific seat to me. And let me tell you- my ass has never felt so good on a bike.

So anyway, I got new puncture resistant tires (100$), new gloves (30$) and a new bike seat (100$). I feel like I bought other stuff, but I blew a cool 275 in about an hour. Ya know, money I don't have.

So with a fresh pair of tires and a high amount of confidence we left town, with the wind to our backs! And two miles down the road..... flat tire. Wow. What are the odd with brand new tires? So we put a new tube in and another two miles down the road... flat tire. Are you f'ing kidding me?!?

So I tell Josh to wait where he was and I bike back into town to discuss this with my local bike friends. Well, they were baffled. The puncture holes were from inside the tire, near the rim, not out where the tire is. Odd. Anyway we had no explanation and changed the tire and I'm off. Again! Two miles down the road, flat tire. Something must be wrong. So the people from the bike shop pick me up and upon further investigation, they discover the tape that keeps the sharp spoke holes from rubbing on the tubes was lose, and causing my tubes to pop upon inflation. Finally, problem solved, and many thanks to those at Der Sportsman, especially Eric.

Eric fixing my tires. Eric, you're the freaking man. Give him a raise.

So we get back on the road, and another two miles down the road what do I realize? Well hot damn- I forgot my wallet at the bike shop. One more trip back and forth! I have the best of luck on this trip. So what did we learn from all this? Do NOT cheat on cycling mileage. I might had gotten a free 15 miles from the ride into town, but I made up for it all by biking back and forth so many times. Lesson learned, I'll never do it again.

The rest of the day was great though- we had a strong tail wind pushing us forward and we made our way out of the mountains. The terrain really got more and more arid as we hit the central region of the state. It's fascinating how a few miles seems to make a drastic change for Washington State. I won't bore you with the simple details. It was a lot of down hill, good miles traveled. I even saw some tumble weeds!

So we continued to follow Route 2 North from Wenatchee for about 10 miles until we hit a state park. It was about 8 pm and we were both tired and happy to pitch our tent. It seemed a bit wild- our fifth day on the road and we were camping out for the first time. It also gave us much needed practice for our camping skills. The tent went up easy, and did I mention we shipped Josh's tent home? That's right, we're packed in tight like sardines. Not pleasant, but a necessary evil for the purpose of total weight. We were hungry, and there was a convenience store around the corner, so we picked up a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread and started frying. I had a total of 5 egg sandwiches (exactly what it sounds like) and Josh had 3. We were pounding eggs like a maniac. Over all it was a good night, we were right on a lake, and the view was pretty. I got to talk to my family. Even the mileage was adding up. Another one for the books boys and girls.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 48.80
Total mileage- 179.00

A Cold Day in Hell

2008-06-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, June 10th. You know the phrase "It'll be a cold day in hell when..." Ever wondered what a cold day in hell looks like? I imagine a lot like this...

Truly total hell.

But first things first, lets start back at the beginning. The morning shower in Skykomish started the day off nicely. We packed all our bags and went to grab some over priced breakfast sandwiches at the only place in town. I got to talk to Mr. Matt for about 10 minutes before we left for our ride. Getting better! We were on the road by about 11:30 after being up at probably 8:30.

We were all geared up. "Waterproof" clothes and my special water proof shoes, but after about 30 minutes we realized it wasn't raining and we took most of it off. I was actually biking with no shirt in the 50 degree sunless weather. Here's a pic of me looking kinda fat. Lets hope that's gone in another 3000 miles.

We were doing pretty decent though, trekking along, although not too fast. It was a moderate uphill. We eventually came to what is called Steven's Pass. The pass is about a 3000 foot elevation increase over 5 miles. In other words DAMN STEEP. Let me give you a general idea. Here are two pictures. See there in the first one? See the line where the trees don't exist? That's the mountain pass. And that's only 1/2 way up the hill! The second picture was when I was at that point, looking back at the bridge I took picture 1 from.

I tried my hardest but still, I'd only last 1/4th a mile to 2/3rds a mile max without needing a break. Surprisingly Josh wasn't blowing past me, he was having as hard of a time as I was. Finally, after what seemed like hours (and actually was hours) we reached the summit. 4061 feet high. 31 degrees. A good amount of snow. Especially for June! All I can say is Stephen's Pass is hell on Earth.

F you Steven's Pass

So I figured "hey, this'll be a breeze now, it's all downhill." Wrong. Mega wrong. Remember Claudia, the lady who took us in two nights ago? She told me a story about a biker who rode up Steven's Pass. On his way down he threw his bike out in front of traffic to stop them, because he needed a ride back down. It perplexed me. Why would he need a ride down? Soon it all made sense.

See, when I was at the summit, I was soaked. I was semi-warm because I had worked so hard.. but soaked. And when a wet body goes flying down a mountain pass at 30 mph's it cools. Quickly. Hypothermically. Frost-bitedly. It was unbearable. I love the cold and I couldn't bear it. I couldn't move my toes. I was quite alarmed as to my general ability to function. I thought I was going to have to pitch camp for an hour just to warm myself. Here's me trying to warm my feet. Three pairs of socks and plastic bags over them did the trick.

Beyond that it was a nice downhill. I literally did not pedal once for 8 miles. 8 miles of 30 mph. A bit freaky on a bike with tires as thick as nickels. It was amazing the change though. West of the Cascade Mountains the sky is always cloudy and rainy and cool. About 10 miles down the mountain pass the sky just cleared up and it was at least 10 degrees warmer. Much much nicer. I mean, look for yourself.

So we're whipping down the mountain when Josh and myself take a little break. After about two minutes Josh goes "What is that? A bear?" Presuming he's playing with me I look down the road, and what the hell do I see but a freaking bear cub crossing the street! Needless to say, we were alarmed. For those of you who don't know, where there's a bear cub, there's a momma bear. And she doesn't take kindly to people messing with, or even coming near her cubs. And there was only one golden rule we had regarding bears... NEVER get between a bear and her cub. So we waiting patiently. Waiting for the mother to cross and join her cub.

Seriously, I wasn't joking. A damn bear! Or for you skeptics out there, it's a bigfoot sighting.

So after about 10 minutes with no sight of the mother we decide hey, lets just go for it. So we start pedaling and right when we get down to the spot (keep in mind the cub is well off into the woods) what do we see to our right? A nice 5 foot tall momma bear staring us down. Holy crap I've never pedaled so fast in my life...

High on adrenaline we made it down the hill fast and at about 6 pm we made it to a nice little 50's style diner called "The 59er Diner." Mmmm yummy food and a good price. God I love eating on this trip. We also struck up some general conversation with two nice people in the booth next to us (who seemed to enjoy my dry sense of humor). After about an hour of talking they walk out of the diner only to return in another minute, asking if we wanted to stay they night. Like angels from Heaven I tell you, like angels.

There names were Jerry and Kathy (that familar to anyone?) and they pretty freaking awesome. After retirement they'd built a real nice place right outside of a cute town called Levinworth and it was a gorgeous place. They hosted us and conversed, even gave Josh a Blue Moon, which I'm sure was luscious. We had a great nights sleep, thanks you two.

Jerry and Kathy- I seemed to have lost your contact info. If you do happen to check this out, please do email it to me again (GordTheGreat@gmail.com) Thanks again!

And that sums up a very long post on a very interesting day. More to come soon!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 40.04
Total mileage- 130.20

Oh! I almost forgot! I have a tradition of photographing every 100 miles I ride on my bicycle... so here's the first milestone of approximately 35.

Rain to Skykomish

2008-06-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

Monday June 9th. We had spent the night with Claudia and Rolland and slept like logs. Claudia made us a huge breakfast and we ate like pigs and again- delicious. She even bakes her own granola and holy crap- she needs to slap a label on that stuff and sell it! Fantastic. She stuffed a huge ziplock full of the stuff for us on the road.

It's amazing how nice people can be out of the big towns. See, Josh and myself had wanted to head into town to run a few errands. See, we had already biked 6 miles past town, and a total of twelve miles on a bike is about an hours worth of riding so we didn't really care to negate what little time we had put in. So what do Rolland and Claudia do? They hand us the freaking keys to their truck! Seriously. Two completely strangers. A very nice and pretty new Ford F150. Yep. That's me driving the manly vehicle.

So we strolled into town onto to find the bike shop we needed closed. I should mention I was suffering EXTREME saddle soreness (aka, my butt was in severe pain) so we were going to try and find me a new seat. No such luck. So we just went to the post office and shipped out our extra materials.

We came back to our gracious host place and fixed up a few things. It was raining slightly so we put on our rain gear. My personal favorite was my "rain shoes" which consisted of grocery bags duct taped over my shoes. I also changed my seat to Josh's secondary seat. See, this seat is made for men with prostate problems and reduces pressure up on your groin. It was definitely a needed change, but was also about 1/2 as efficient when trying to pedal. The price I paid for comfort I suppose.

Finally at about 2 pm we were finally prepped and left east on Route 2. Now Route 2 is very interesting. It's more or less a long valley with huge mountains on either side of you. It was a really cool view heading up. Take note- that's snow on top of the mountains. The pass starts off nice and flat, and slowly the grade increased. Also, as the grade increased, the amount of rain increased. By the time we had made it about half way up the pass we were soaked, cold and completely exhausted. My hands were also killing me. The water was removing the adhesive of my band aids, so I was forced to make my own "McGuiver gloves" using duct tape and... more duct tape. Not bad, eh?

Around 8 o'clock we cycled past a small little town called Skykomish. I wish I had taken a picture of it, it looked kinda cool. We found a small little motel for 50 bucks and honestly- nothing has ever been so worth it.

Chilled to the bone and filthy, god that shower felt so good. We made a clothesline in our room and tried to dry out clothes, but sadly it didn't do too well. Overall a pretty crappy day, but a wonderful night's sleep! And hey, no flats!

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 27.78
Total mileage- 90.16

Friendly Foot of the Mountains

2008-06-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday June 8th. We awoke a bit late and spend about as long as we could in the hotel room- you know, get our bang for our buck. We went over to a pancake house to have our complementary breakfast, albeit a small complementary breakfast. We needed a few things around town so we hit up a bike shop to look at water bottles, tire tubes for my flats, and a few other knick knacks. Shortly afterwards, I hit a curb wrong and not only fell off my bike, I did a full 360 into the bushes. Josh found it hilarious, and frankly it was funny. I did end up with some scrapes on my ankle, knee and inconveniently cut up my palms.

Not an award winning wound, but kept me from putting pressure on my handle bars, which was annoying.

So we popped over to target where I got antiseptics and band aids and whatnot. Josh got all sorts of stuff as well, sunscreen and pampers or whatever the hell it was he wanted. I don't know. I'm not his babysitter.

So we managed to get a earlier start- 3:00 today. Getting earlier! Although still far too late. We rode on out of Redmond and through little towns here and there. It was quite pretty really, here are some photos

Josh even made a friend!

So our total goal for the day was to make it to highway 522 which leads out of the Seattle suburbs to a town called Monroe. As you approached Monroe you could see some awesome views of the Cascade Mountains ahead. Honestly, these pictures do them ZERO justice. It was honestly breath taking.

As we entered Monroe we changed roads onto route 2. Now, let me explain my route plotting strategy.

1. My most important feature is simplicity. One road for 200 miles is easier than 10 roads for 100 miles. Simple is better.

2. Lack of mountains. I really really hate hills.

3. Water routes. I like to make sure I have somewhere to get water at LEAST every 60 miles.

So, based upon that I had planned to take route 2 straight from Monroe all the way to the Eastern border of Washington State.

Monroe was a cute little town. Not a whole lot there, but we did notice a UPS store coming through (Josh wanted to ship some more stuff back) although it was Sunday and we couldn't until the next day. We kept watching for easy places to camp off in the woods but the vegetation was simply too thick. We eventually turned off onto a little road and came to the first house of the road. We were feeling bold and asked the kind lady if she minded if we pitch a tent on her yard. She talked it over with her husband and they even offered us a place to stay for the night! We know my rule on hospitality. Always accept! The kind people were Claudia, a soon-to-be retired nurse, and Rolland, a retired man from the logging profession. We spent the night chatting it up and Claudia made us what must had been a half dozen vegetarian sandwiches which were like sweet ambrosia! Holy crap. So good. I wish I had some right now.

Claudia and Rolland.. you were far too kind to us. We appreciate it more than you know!

So that was that really. We showered and felt great and were stuffed to the gills. Great times at the foot of the hills.

Oh! One last thing. How could I forget. Coming into Monroe I ran over a piece of copper and got another flat tire. I didn't realize the copper in the tire though and inflated a new tube and 30 seconds later had another flat. Tack on two more flats to my tally.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 34.08
Total mileage- 62.38

Escape from Seattle

2008-06-09T22:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 7th. 5th day stuck in Seattle. We awoke at Al's early and got ready for our Men's breakfast at the church. Again, so lovely to be clean. Surprisingly though, I don't miss it as badly as I'd of ever expected. The Men's breakfast was great though- good food and plenty of it. They had a pretty interesting speaker during the breakfast. Granted- not my typical topic for a talk, doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good orator. Anyway, we filled our bellies for what would surely be an adventurous day.

See, I had gotten word early that day, a text message from my father.. "Your bike is in Seattle!" After popping out occasionally during the breakfast I managed to learn UPS had flown my bike into Redmond Washington which is about 20 miles north of Seattle. For some reason their original plan was to fly the box from Redmond to Seattle (yes all 20 miles) but after talking to my man Leroy he sent an actual person to go and physically pick up and drive my package. Almost seems cheaper for them, no?

So we said our goodbyes to Al and Justin and they dropped us off at the bike shop we were working with, Bicycles West. We had to mill around a while and wait, but at about 2 o'clock, a UPS truck arrived carrying one piece of precious cargo. Frankly, it was a bit odd to sign for my bicycle on both the East and West coasts. It only took an extra five days, but it had arrived. Although frankly- the box was a little beat to crap...

I really was having a hard time standing still. I was excited to finally have the chance to get moving! I was hovering over the poor kid as he put my bike together carefully, cleaning and tweaking each little piece. The guy really did do an amazing job and I definitely made it worth his time (feel free to use maturity at this point everyone).

Only after my bike was fully prepared, and I had fully geared up did one of the other employees speak up. See, we had met a fellow cyclist named Travis (have I mentioned him before? I can't recall anymore) who also is planning on biking across America. At the mere sight of Josh's behemoth of a bicycle he couldn't take it anymore and told Josh he HAD to get rid of some gear. He simply had too much. Of course I had been saying this for weeks now, but I don't think it really rang true until Travis told it to him. So Josh got rid of like... 3 things, making little to no difference, and we prepared for departure!

Travis- a good guy. Definitely knows his stuff better than either of us.

And it was time, we boldly mounted our bikes and prepared! At a brisk 4:30 pm we set sail off into the murky, cloud ladened sunset..

Let me tell you though, it was definitely different at first. I had never ridden my bike before with all my weight on it. It was definitely a different experience. Not that it was significantly hard, which it wasn't surprisingly, it was the balance. Every time I pedaled I'd feel the weight shift back and forth and when I stood up it felt like the bike would tip over for sure. But, determined we set on.

It was difficult at first, the suburbs are not an easy place. We had to take lots of roads to get any real forward motion, but frankly I was impressed with my ability to not get us lost. Not to be full of myself, but I think I'm pretty damn good with directions! Once we got a bit away from the city the landscape was amazing. It's so lush and thick here it's nearly claustrophobic. Look, this is one of the roads we were going down, it looks like something from Jurassic Park! In general though, Western Washington is simply beautiful..

Shortly after I took that picture we got our first flat tire of the trip. Sadly I wish I could say it was my last, but that's a story for later in the blog. Not a huge deal though, we just patched it and pumped it full with our hand pumps and on our way we went.

Life on the road isn't exactly massively eventful. Wish I could say otherwise, but no. I did pass I-90 though! That was kinda cool! Just think, only another 3500 miles down that road and I'd be home.

The night grew on us quickly though, and by 9 o'clock we had only made it to Redmond (you remember, that town my bike was shipped to?) and decided to call it a night. Josh got us a hotel for a bit too much, but we decided it was wise considering it was late and we needed to still work out some details. All in all not a bad first day. Slow- yes. Late start- yes. Pricey- yes. Lots of food- hell yes. Probably the oddest thing of the day though- we're sitting in the hotel room and about 2 hours after getting off our bikes we hear what sounded like a gunshot. We both are started and I check my bike... my front tire just exploded. No reason. No rationale. Just boom. Done. There goes tire 2 for the trip.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 28.30 miles
Total mileage- 28.30 miles

Do unto others...

2008-06-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

Day four stranded in Seattle. After working with UPS for a while they had finally tracked down my bike over the night. Stephen and Leroy has a valiant attempt to get my bike shipped over night, but a mix-up in Chicago cause my bike to not be shipped until Friday morning. Crapasaurus rex. That meant that instead of my bike coming in Friday late, it wouldn't be able to be delivered until Monday morning. Huge pain in the ass. Revitalized from our pleasant day though we tried to make the best of it.

Josh and I set out a weekend plan after we knew we'd be in town until Monday. We decided We'd take all of our current day (Friday) to plan our route out of Seattle, get stuff settled, buy supplies, and more or less do chores. Also, Al, the man who let us stay at the church, had invited us over for dinner at his place. Saturday we decided go to a men's breakfast the church was hosting and then we'd go back into town and see the other 1/2 of Seattle we'd yet to visit. Sunday we'd wrap up by attending church service in the morning and prepping for departure the next day.

So Josh and myself figured the least we could do was offer our services around the church Friday morning. We spent a good 1.5 - 2 hours vacuuming a large portion of the church with the awesome backpack. You know the whole "Ghostbusters busting-backpack"? It was kinda like that. I loved it. Here's me being the man.

Josh tried being the man too, but as you can see... he was an utter failure.

So, after helping out around the church as much as we could, and Al bringing us a free lunch (spaghetti my favorite~), Al let us into the basement of the church with housed the "Lord's Gym" which was actually a pretty nice weight room. We considered working out, ya know, trying to keep our strength for the trip, but I decided against it and enjoyed the feeling of a nice, long, hot shower. Nothing makes you feel more human than a long shower after a few days.

Pleasantly showered and shaved, and wearing my Sunday's best, we were picked up and swept off to Al's house to meet his family. Honestly they're amazingly kind and interesting people. Let me introduce them. First there's Al, head and father of the house hold. Al's wife is Caroline, who is an amazing cook! Then there's the son, Justin, who's a elementary school music teacher. Kim, the daughter is... well, I don't actually know what Kim does. But she's pregnant and due next month! Yay Kim! Kim's husband is Mica, a strapping young fellow from North Dakota I believe? Or was from ND, this is why I need to post more often, see?! And finally Mica's father Rob, who was up visiting for a wedding on Saturday

From left to right- Mica, Kim, Rob, Josh, Myself (in my Sunday's best), Al, Caroline, Justin

(Note- taken at Al and Caroline's new house they're building.. just a gorgeous place. Mom, you'd love it)

So Josh and I had dinner with the family, and it was spectacular! Mmmmmm GREAT food (lamb I do believe) and Josh had about 4 courses of dessert (and no, I'm not joking, he's holding his own on this trip). It was great being out of the tent and socializing with some people over a tabletop. I must say though, Al's place was really cool. They're back yard had a really nice pond in it which Justin built himself, and also a lot of wild and exotic plants. Check this out. They have a freaking banana tree!

We spent the rest of the night discussing my route, and seeing pictures from their family trips. Al, Justin and Josh played a few games of chess together. It was really unique to see a family that interacted like that. Not in a bad way, don't get me wrong! When as the last time you finished dinner and sat down for a game of chess with your father. It was frankly refreshing. Now that I think back, I don't even recall seeing a TV back at their place.

After hearing about our plight from Al, Caroline was apparently feeling bad for us and asked if we'd be interested in staying the night. I just can't imagine we'll be passing up the generosity of people too often on this trip. We need it. We happily accepted. Another priceless night of good food, great company, and warm sheets. Heavenly.

Notice!

2008-06-08T01:10:00.000-07:00

I'm obviously a few days behind on my blogging. Not that any of YOU probably care.. but I think I've decided to make this more a diary for myself to keep track of things on the trip. Perhaps even the small and mundane details. So, sorry? Deal with it? Enjoy? I'll keep it coming as often as I can!

PS- new poll going up. I've been informed I should grow a beard for the whole trip. What do you think?

Best From Worst

2008-06-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

Day three stranded in Seattle. I gotta admit, sleeping on Mother Earth without all the proper camping provisions is a pretty painful experience. She put quite the pain in my hip by grinding some root or rock against it all night as i tossed and turned. I was definitely looking forward to my sleeping pad. Not to mention a pair of shoes, considering I was left with only my sandals and it rained EVERY day I was in Seattle. By the time I got my bike I figured I'd have a small collection of foot fungi. Dr. Baroni might be interested in them, who knows.

Anyway, enough discussion about my foot disease, less Tinactin wants to pay me for wearing their shirts across the USA. So Josh and I had decided we'd go into Seattle asap on Thursday to start an take in the city. There were rumors floating around that my bike would come in the following day and I wanted to at least step foot within city limits. This would mean I'd need to figure out the bus system, which at first glance seemed to have a fair bit of complexity. We took a practice bus trip to my buds over at the local UPS store which worked fine and picked up some more camping gear. The Church Director, Al, seemed to be building trust in us and decided to offer us a storage shed outside by our backlawn campsite. This was a big deal in that it allowed us to store, and lock, all of our items whenever we left the area. It also meant we weren't required to back at the church by 7 to get our tent to camp. So we could stay out as long as we wanted.

So we loaded up our crap into the shed and took the 174 into downtown Seattle. We saw a couple cool sites along the path- the Boeing plant as well as the football and baseball fields. But I gotta say, I was VERY impressed with Seattle. The city is gorgeous! I've never seen such a clean and colorful city. For that matter all of the Seattle area seems lush and green but it was unique to see so much vegetation in a city. So we started off by making our way down to the waterfront, which was really nice despite the ever-present misty rain. The view of the city is just phenomenal from the pier. We eventually wandered across the Seattle Aquarium and while admittedly small it had some pretty cool stuff! Probably the coolest of all exhibits was the octopus they had. A big sucker he was... probably looking at ~2.5 foot long tentacles to give an idea. I took a video of him crawling around his tube. A bit tough to see but it'll make my blog's video debut.

Once we finished up at the aquarium we were both pretty hungry and made our way to Pike Place Market, a unique shopping district, to get some food. It was a pretty cool place. It was almost like a large apartment complex with a bunch of small shops with numerous floors to the building. Apparently some of the local fish merchants will toss fish around for people to have for free? I dunno. Sadly, most places were closing up shop when we got there but one did pique our interest- the Seattle Brewing Company. We were both really hungry and the thought of a beer seemed pretty enticing. In honor of Matt Hoffman I demanded we get a sampler to taste the local flavors. Just because I know you'll appreciate it Matt, here's the list. Number 6 was my preference.

So we both have the equivalent of 1.5 beers on an empty stomach, so I'm borderline drunk of course. We head out after eating some, feeling great now, learning the sky's completely cleared up and we want a view of the city from a roof top. We were told that Columbia Tower was the highest point in the city and wanted to make our way there but didn't know where to go. So we wander into a candy/pastry type of shop to ask someone. Well, we strike up conversation with the two employees, Danny and Alan, and not only do they give us directions, but they gave us what must had been 20-30 dollars worth of brownies and caramel apples. And yes Alan, I did want the apple. It was freaking delicious.

A center stage shot for Danny and Alan, you guys totally made our day. I hope you see this.

Josh looking innocent as always. And seriously, that's like only 1/3rd of a brownie. They gave us two!

So moderately buzzed and now high on sugar we wander toward Columbia Tower only to learn it was closed when we got there. Damn. So we went to an office building next door, trying to bribe a security guard to bring us upstairs for the remnants of our brownie. Sadly, this failed, but he did recommend the library. And dude, whoa. The library is CRAZY! I mean, I'm obviously not one for reading many books but the design and layout of the place was wild. I can't even begin to explain it. Here's a picture of the main entrance, but it does no justice to this 10 story wonderland. If you're in Seattle- go to the library.

So we tried getting a nice view from the library but really it wasn't easy. So we decided to give the waterfront a second go at. And man was it worth it. The view was just spectacular. Honestly, when the day first begun, I was feeling really pissed about the whole bike situation and kinda depressed, but after spending the day in Seattle and getting to see so much, I had a whole new outlook. I was almost glad I was delayed. I would had hated to have missed that opportunity.

I dunno, not to sound horribly cheesey, but look at this. Tell me this isn't going to be the beginning of a amazing journey?

Vagrancy

2008-06-04T17:02:00.000-07:00

Day two in Seattle. So, as a quick refresher- we spent the night in a hotel and got screwed on breakfast and now we were trying to find a way to get to a local church. See, Josh and myself had spent a large amount of time trying to find a place to stay while stranded in Seattle. We had some really unique ideas...

1. Camping (church or campgrounds)
2. Renting a car/seeing sights/sleeping in it
3. Renting a U-Store-It box and living out of it
4. Police stations (in a jail cell)
5. Making friends fast and loafing
6. Hitting up hotels and suing UPS for the cost.

So, we decided to focus on option 1 presuming Churches would be the most cost effective option. Let me tell you though, you'd be surprised with the number of churches unwilling to help out two young men stranded 3500 miles away from home. We had to call 7 churches to finally find one willing to help us in any way. Truly a sad day we live in that even churches need to be cautious about who they help, no?

Issue arose though, as it did the day before during our first attempt, as to how we'd get across the interstate to reach the church four miles away. Luckily, the people at the hotel offered us a free ride in their van so I suppose we'll call it even after their outrageous prices and non-free breakfast? Sure.

When we arrived at the church, which is actually named "The Church by the Side of the Road", we met a kind man named Al, who is the director of some sorts over the church. We exchanged a few words and he gave us a log of meat. Pretty cool eh? I spent a large portion of the day afterwards talking to various UPS employees, most of which weren't interesting in helping me at all. How very sad. But let me tell you, I did meet three very helpful employees, so much so they deserve eternal internet praise. Lets begin with the two guys I actually met in person.

When I first arrived at the UPS store the first day I met the man behind the counter, a guy named Stephen. He seemed real level headed and seemed like your typical hard worker. I first came to him with nothing- no tracking number, not a single thing but my story, a boy lost in Seattle with no bike. Honestly, I kinda got the "alright, I've heard every story in the book before" vibe and the "I'm just the guy behind the counter" line and figured I wasn't going to get much help until I brought him some form of tracking number to work with. Well, I stole some wifi and got him the tracking number his demeanor changed completely. He was genuinely concerned, and perhaps he hadn't heard every story in the book, eh? He started digging deeper, working to discover what fatal flaw and damned my package to be sent in circles never to arrive at Seattle. Stephen was really one of the first UPS employees that I dealt with and I could tell he really placed himself in my shoes. He honestly seemed quite worried for my general safety and security. Frankly, it was quite touching. Thank you Stephen.

Anyway, Stephen seemed baffled. You see, my package was being sent in this loop. The bike was shipped from Syracuse and would go to Chicago. From Chicago the box would depart, and just appear without any form of explanation in New Jersey I believe and before you know it, guess what? Yep, my package was back in Syracuse. Then Chicago. Then NJ... and you get the idea. So Stephen called down one of the supervisor, Leroy, to help decipher the problem. Now see Leroy, he's a straight shooter. He's gunna give it to you how it is, and I loved it. And honestly- he had no damn idea what was going on. No one did! Now, that doesn't mean no one was trying, I kept in contact with Leroy and Stephen usually numerous times a day. Even if no news had come up, they'd call just to let me know they were still in the dark. Top notch guys really, I fear little to nothing would had gotten done without them

Photo of Leroy and Stephen coming asap!

With my downtime, I'd usually call the UPS customer service number and complain and try to get free hotel rooms out of the ordeal. Of course I failed, but my consistant attempts did bring me across another very helpful person, a lady by the name of Lisa. Now, let me explain UPS customer service to you. They make NO files. They don't retain any information on your case, complaint, trackings etc. Every time I called I had to re-explain every little detail which would get tedious, obviously. I can't begin to explain how many customer service and corporate reps blew me off completely. But not Lisa. Much like the two other guys, she treated me like a human. Indeed rare for a company who apparently sees little more than a tracking number and a bill stamped to your head. At first I was questionable- see Lisa listened to my story and seemed genuine, but that's not what raised my suspicion. She said she'd call me back.. a strategy every hotline rep utilized but none backed up. And she did call me back. Quickly too. On numerous occasions no less.

Same deal Lisa- you send me a picture and I'll put it up here.

Anyway, I had my 3 out of 50 employees who were actually doing something. Sadly though I was pretty much where we left with no answers or options for the second day. By the time I finished with everyone it was already 4 o'clock. The church let us store our baggage inside their doors, so in order to camp out at night we'd have to be there by 7. So, we decided to call it an early night and set up camp on a small patch of grass off to the side of the parking lot. Luckily, we had neighbors! Two other men had permanently parked their vans there and we had ourselves are own little vagrant camp!

West Side Story

2008-06-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

Ahh, so much to tell, so very much. So Josh and I have departed, yes we're in Seattle. A fair bit of complexity has occurred though. But lets start back at the beginning.

Early evening Monday Josh and myself departed Cortland after a brief stop at the best place on Earth- The Souvlaki House for what are certainly the best calzones ever.

We spent the next for hours listening to Josh make odd noises in the car, and traveling to the small town of Gowanda about an hour south of Buffalo. I met Josh's family and still question how he's related. Har dee har I'm hilarious. Seriously though- really nice people. Too bad Josh's Dad and brother couldn't come for the trip.

So like the wise youngin's we are we opted not to sleep at all Monday night, seeing as we were going to have to wake up at 2:30 to be ready to leave at 3. Did I mention our flight out was at 6am? Ouch. Lets just say I regret that slumberless decision. After dodging what must had been a dozen deer, we arrived at Buffalo for our flight. The baggage check went smoothly- save Josh voluntarily reminding the man to measure our bags. Ya know, just in case they were too big and the employee didn't notice it. I have so much to teach this boy. Here's what might be the last picture of Josh with his family. Considering I might kill him along the way.

Our first flight was from Buffalo to Chicago with an hour long lay over until we departed to Seattle. Josh, excited like a 10 year old in a room filled puppies and candy, decided not to sleep. Rather he made buddies with the businessman "socialite" next to him. I slept the best I could. Same for our following flight really. But man, was I tired.

We landed to gray skies and a fair bit of rain. Seattle was really all anyone has told me to expect. It was pretty nice for me though, only about 60 degrees which might had been the only good thing for a while. We took a taxi over to the bike shop Josh and myself had shipped our bikes to, discovering the surrounding area is pretty much an commercial center with warehouses and strip malls and whatnot. So we go get Josh's bike and most everything went smoothly there. We had also learned while attempting to track my bike that UPS has lost my bike somewhere between Syracuse, Chicago, and the Bermuda Triangle.

See, UPS apparently works like this- some transfer stations are manual, a real human being physically transporting packages from one cargo area to another. Others are automated with robots doing the work. Apparently the robots in Chicago looooooove to send my bike to Syracuse. And apparently the humans in Syracuse loooooove to send my bike to Chicago. So they're in quite the dead heat, let me tell you! As of posting this my bicycle has just left Syracuse for the third time in the last week. That's right. I'm in Seattle. My bike just left Syracuse. Again.

I met some really nice guys at UPS though. They're really busting there asses for me to try to get my bike. They realize I'm stranded without it, and they're also under the impression I'm without camping gear until I get that box (not so very true, sorry Leroy and Stephen if you read this eventually~). I suppose I need a little manipulating favor on my side until things get done. So Leroy (a manager) is more or less attempting to A- locate my bike, B- get it here. Leroy said he'd absolutely get the bike on a plane and shipped next day if possible. Apparently the government wont let him though, because my bike could be a bomb. Fair enough. Fair enough. Anyway, as of right now my bike is due here on Friday the 6th. Four days after we've arrived. If Leroy can pull his magic, it could be as early as tomorrow? Although I'm not holding my breath.

We did get awesome UPS hats out of the ordeal!

Next we at least needed shelter for the night. We had discovered a church that'd let us camp on their property for the night, and also a hotel that was cheap as hell. So we started walking the four miles toward the two places, which were right near each other, only to realize we were going to have difficulty accessing a route on foot that was safe. Keep in mind I've slept 4 hours in the last 40 and Josh maybe 10 minutes. We look like vagrants Josh walking his comically huge bike down the street, and I'm wearing sandals, and after walking/standing for 8 hours I'm tired. We decide to just give up and stay at the hotel closest to us (where I've been stealing wifi) and I send Josh ahead to get pricing info.

I get there to find Josh discussing convoluted directions BACK the four miles for the church. I laid down the law and tossed my credit card down. Expensive? Yes. Free breakfast? No. Aburd? Yes. But we needed simplicity for the night.

So that's the deal. It's going on 10 here soon and I have another 2 hours in this room, which I plan on taking advantage of. We'll find out the bike deal and the bus system today. Hopefully we'll get the time to go see the city and the sites. Can anyone say "throw a fish at me!"?

Anthropometrics

2008-06-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

This has certainly been one of the more anticipated days. Josh and myself just completed our final body measurements. I'll repost all this material again after we finish the trip so we can compare our pre and post trip body measurements. Lets get right to the good stuff...

Ross

Height- 5'11'' (180.3cm)
Weight- 217 lbs (98.4 kg)
Body Fat Percentage- 23%
Body Mass Index (BMI)- 30.3

Circumferences
Neck-40cm
Arm- 36.3cm
Forearm- 31cm
Waist- 102.4cm
Hip- 108cm
Leg-59.6cm
Calve- 41.5cm
Waist to hip ratio- .95

Josh

Height- 5'9'' (175.3cm)
Weight- 148.5 (67.4)
Body Fat Percentage- 6%
Body Mass Index (BMI)- 21.9

Circumferences
Neck- 36.1cm
Arm- 29.1cm
Forearm- 25.5cm
Waist- 76cm
Hip- 92.8cm
Leg-48.1cm
Calve- 33.8cm
Waste to hip ratio- .82

So there's the hard data. Now, as an exercise scientist, all these measurements make total sense to me, but for you people with useful degrees and knowledge of other subjects, let me explain some of these.

Body Fat Percentage: This is a measurement of what percent of your body weight is composed of fat as compared to muscle, bone, organs, etc. There are many ways to measure this, such as bioelectrical impedance or skinfold measurements. Josh and myself used what's called hydrostatic weighing which is typically considered the most accurate form of measurement. I summary, you fill a box with water and completely submerge yourself in it after expelling all air from your lungs. Fat is buoyant and will float and muscle is dense and will sink. So, the fatter you are, less you weigh underwater (the more you float). Typical males have about 18% body fat I believe, while obesity is typically considered over 25%. Elite athletes tend to fall at about 2% body fat. Any lower and body function would likely start being impared. For a male that is. No going anorexic on me ladies, a healthy body fat percentage for a woman is 15%. So pack on those pounds, toots! So as you can see, I've fallen quite out of shape while Josh is ripped out of his mind. Lets see if you people can guess how much I weigh underwater on my new poll.

Body Mass Index (BMI): This is a rather unreliable unit of measuring general health. To determine one's BMI you need to take their weight in kilograms and divide it by their height in meters squared. So in general it compares height and weight. This makes sense in that fat people will have more weight per height that skinnier people. But on the same hand muscular people will have more weight per height that skinnier people. Thus, this measurement is moderately flawed. Anyway I put it up there just to compare in case anyone cares. A BMI of 18-25 is considered normal healthy BMI, while 25-29 is considered overweight, and 30+ is considered obese. So as you can see again, I'm quite unhealthy while josh is the spitting image of male perfection. What a bastard.

Waist to Hip Ratio: This is simply the circumference of the waist (as measured around the navel) divided by the circumference of the hips (typically measured around the butt. Technically the largest measurement you get below the navel). Based upon the number a general state of health can be predicted. A ratio of .95 or lower in a male (.8 or lower in a female) is considered low risk for health issues. .95 - 1.0 is considered moderate risk (.8 - .85 for women) and greater than 1.0 for males (greater than .85 for females) is considered high risk.

As for the circumferences... those are just general information. I think it might be interesting to see how much our thighs beef up or waists thin down at the end of the trip, but I'm not going to go into the statistics on the healthiness of these values. Just simply enjoy their mathematical perfection.

Now, I did take some pre-trip picture of myself and Josh, but I fear they'll be serving no great purpose until the end. No reason to feed you all ammo to make fun of me with. Be good and you'll get them at the end. If there's anything else you think we should measure, just let me know, but I think we have it all covered.

So what's next? Well, tomorrow Josh and myself leave for Gowanda, a small town about an hour south of Buffalo where Josh is from. We'll spend the day there, and about 3 in the morning on Tuesday we'll wake up and head to Buffalo to catch our 6AM flight. I'll have no internet until I get to the airport, so maybe I'll take some early morning departure pictures and give you all the update as officially depart for the west coast.

Back to Cortland

2008-05-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

So, I've unofficially begun my trip. At about 4 this afternoon I arrived in Cortland and Josh and myself have begun our final packing. Lets compare- Ross' total packing (save the clothes on my back)....

Now, lets compare that to what Josh is bringing....

OkI guess that doesn't look like a ton. But keep in mind that box behind him is coming too. Anyway it's like twice as much as me. Especially considering we're carrying all this shit on our bike.

Anyway, so here's the breakdown on my gear-

Casual Clothes-
3 t-shirts
3 pairs boxers
one pair khaki shorts
one pair sandals

Biking Gear-
2 pairs biking shorts
3 biking t-shirts
5 pairs socks
one pair biking kleets
2.5 liter water bladder
1L nalgene

Comfort clothes-
one hoodie
one pair sweatpants
one pair gym shorts

Camping gear-
Tent (big agnes seedhouse 2)
Tent footprint
Sleeping bag (20 deg, down bag)
Small Pillow
Sleeping pad
Stove (The Pocketrocket!)
Mess Kit

Miscellaneous-
SPOT Satellite Tracker
flashlights
toiletries
Rape whistle/knife~
Laptop
Small first aid kit

So that's what I can remember off hand. Josh has a fair bit more, but I don't have the time or patience to list it all out. Maybe if I figure out how to add file attachments on the blog I'll post his four page itemized list.

By the end of Monday I should have all of our body composition data compiled and pictures of pre-biking fat Ross up here. Enjoy.

See Spot. See Spot Run. See Spot Fall. Track Spot!

2008-05-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

Excitement galore! I can tell you've all been waiting days and days for this one...

Ok, so lets do a quick wrap of last post- I got my panniers to fit on my bike thanks to the great work of a local bike shop employee. Jeff, you're the freaking man, I'm buying you a house or a boat or something. So, that solves the "transporting gear" issue.

On to bigger and better things. Have you ever been sitting there thinking "Man, I wish I could follow Ross' EVERY move on his bike trip!" Well I know you have! And for that, I have a super special device. It's called the Spot Satellite Tracker. It's a wee little orange walkie-talkie looking thingie which can track/send messages for me anywhere on this fancy globe of ours. It works by satellites, which for those of you who don't know are magical houses in the sky which shoot lasers all around. And that's how we get TV and movies. Here's a picture in case you don't know... Ooooo fancy.

On a more serious note- here's the link. Forewarning though, I'm still working on the details of the system (how it tracks etc) but you get the general idea.

So lets see, what else has happened. Well, I shipped my bike out to Seattle, and it's due to arrive on Monday, the day before I do. Huge pain in the ass though, UPS quoted my shipping price at ~$70 when in actuality it was ~$170. Wee bit off the mark, but at least the job is done. I'm so going out of budget on this trip.

But enough of that boring crap. Why don't we take a step back here. Back to a time that was simpler, easier. Where people did things with a purpose and meaning. Like me for example. Who can't recall my time honored tradition of posting pictures of stupid injuries online?

Well, today we have a new addition to what will hopefully be a long list of injuries. Today I was using a ladder to take some stuff out of the ceiling of my father's garage. As compared to using the ladder nearly perpendicular to the floor, I was using the ladder at approximately a 50 degree angle. Like an idiot. Now I knew this was retarded, but somehow the first 5 times I did it, I didn't fall. The last time, the ladder collapses under me, and I take a nice 10 foot crash on top of it, providing me with this beauty!

So that's about it for today. I have a few items left to accumulate for my trip. Maybe next time I'll give the full layout of what I'm bringing? God, who wouldn't be excited!?!

And PS- Here's a shout out to my good friend Zak's blog! (Now we're even for not inviting you to my party~)