drewish.com

more bike trip photos

i've finally gotten around to scanning and uploading all (well, almost all) my photos from the cross country bike trip brad and i took in 2001. if you've got a minute check out the gallery. you might also want to read the journal entries.

me and brad in the paper

got our article in the reno gazette scanned in finally, check it out here and here.

(Day 79) Flying Home

First thing in the morning I started working on recreating the emails that had been lost on the Palm. It was a cool process going through and trying to remember what happened on each day but I.d rather not have had to do it.

We grabbed some breakfast at restaurant around the corner and then got the bikes out. I.d asked my dad to bring his camera so we could get a couple of good pictures of us with the bikes in front of some monuments.

Zipping around D.C. on an empty bike was a real blast

(Day 78) In DC

Up early, pushed our bikes back out of the rocks and found the detour signs we'd missed the night before.

Rode out the trail and into DC where we rode around some of the monuments and got a couple of pictures.

Found my dad's hotel and met up with him during a break in one of his conferences.

Got stuff to box up the bikes and take them apart

Went to dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant then walked around Georgetown.

(Day 77) Tow Path and Lost Palm VIIx

Up early trying to get into DC that night.

Lost my Palm some place between mile 83 and 77 on the trail, we spent 3 hours looking for it.

Met the webmaster of the bike patrol

(Day 76) C&O Tow Path

Fog in the morning, looking at the sun it looked almost like the moon rising

Brad's tire going out, switching it out in front of the Paw Paw Tunnel.

Paw Paw Tunnel was cool ??? feet long and dark. It felt like my flashlight batteries were going out towards the middle. The light at the end of the tunnel was ruining my night vision so I couldn't see by my flashlight. At least there was a handrail, the cyclist we'd met in Yellowstone made it sound like there wasn't one.

Met two BikeE riders on the bike path coming out of Hancock, MD

(Day 75) West Virginia and finding the Tow Path

We stopped for food at the groceries store and as we were leaving got to talking to a guy. He told us about riding with his daughter, who was sitting in the car, on the C&O Path. Ding, it literally rang a bell, I'd heard about the Tow Path from a cyclist the day before we got into Yellowstone and from another cyclist in Yellowstone. Both had said it was the best way into DC. It'd add 80 miles to our mileage but what better way to finish the trip. We decided to go ahead and do it but first we need to get the mail taken care of. Brad had told a couple of people to send him stuff in Middleburg, VA but we'd put a different Zip code on there. After talking with the people at the post office he got a change of address form sent out that hopefully would get the mail sent to DC where we could meet it.

Rode north to Cumberland, MD

Got on trail, talked to people a BikeE owner, and a guy who was into ultra lights convinced that Charles is going to have to go in on one with me.

(Day 74) West Virginia to Maryland and back to West Virginia

Left Motel

Entered Maryland

Saw Saddle Pass

Camped in field near tree farm

(Day 73) Down day in Grafton, WV

Woke up in field with rain coming through the mosquito netting in the top of the tent.

Waiting out the rain in the gas station with Peggy Sue

Got a motel room at the ????? Motor Lodge in Grafton, WV.

Cooked up eggs, pancakes and ate a bunch of junk food.

Talked to everyone on the phone (martin, my mom and dad, Dan) Watched part of the Big Chill, The Godfather, and The Joy Luck Club then the Simpson's and Malcolm In The Middle.

(Day 72) West Virginia

The park groundskeeper woke me up New Martinsville, WV, he seemed like he wanted to talk about where we were from but it was really awkward trying to have a conversation with him. All our stuff was soaked from the night before; we tried to dry some stuff out but didn't really want to spend the time.

We rode out of town on SR 20; it was infested with coal trucks. The roads were a good surface but didn't have much in the way of a shoulder. If you had to find a nice thing about the coal trucks it'd be that they hold up just about all the traffic going up the hill behind them. Then you got to enjoy the When you hear one of them coming you get off and five other cars would pass you but you wouldn't see another car

Stopping to talk to the guy at the propane shipping plant.

Breakfast bought for us by a nice old man who wouldn.t let me take his picture, and kept saying "I gotta hand it to you" and "I take my hat off too you" "Breakfast is paid for" Super cute waitress

As we were sitting on the side of the road having a sandwich in celebration of mile 45 for the day a pickup truck slows past us and then goes into reverse. It stopped and out stepped a skinny little cowboy guy with a bunch of gray stubble, blue jeans, mesh backed ball cap, and a short sleeved button up shirt. Out of his mouth came a string of profanities that ended in "bikes" Brad and I looked up at each other from our peanut butter sandwiches not sure what to make of this. I'd love to relate some of the dialog but most of it involved enough profanity to make me uncomfortable. He talked about himself a bunch and in between asked us the standards questions. My initial suspicions about him being a bit drunk were confirmed when he motioned for me to hold on in the middle of telling us how nice everyone was in West Virginia. He returned from his truck with a beer. I though he might be planning to give us, nope he opened it and started drinking it. Our hopes of getting rid of him quickly were diminishing. He grabbed a handful of our pretzels that looked like they.d go nicely with his beer and settled in for the long haul. Our only hope was to pack up from underneath him. The only problem with that plan was then we'd have a drunken West Virginian swerving past us a little bit farther down the road. He asked us what we did for showers, and I made the mistake of mentioning that the last one I'd had was in Indiana. He immediately told us that we should stop by his brand new 5 bedroom house that he'd just got done telling us about in extreme detail. He gave us directions on how to get there all we had to do was come up with a reason we couldn't stop there.

He told us there wasn't anything "funny" about him causing a bunch of nervous laughter and foot staring

We rode off hoping that.d when he passed us it'd be the last we ever saw of him. Unfortunately he was waiting for us at the turn. I rode up and told him that we didn't have time to go by his house. He got a bit upset, insisting that this was the fastest road to Clarksburg, WV. I told him that I'd go talk to Brad and see what he though just trying to get rid of him.

In Clarksburg, WV I went into a gas station to get directions to a campground. They didn't know where one was but they had a box of 12 ice cream sandwiches on sale for $2.20. We sat out front giving as many away as we could while asking for directions to a campsite. Again no luck

Got out of town and were too chicken ask people if we could camp on their land so we just pushed into the grass in a field

(Day 71) Ohio

Rode 15 miles into the "big" town and found a Laundromat, Sat there doing laundry while we waited for the storm to stop.

Rode out and into West Virginia in the rain

Ate dinner at pizza place. Met a guy who was born in Fallon, NV (60 miles from Reno, NV?)

Camped under awning in the city park thinking it.d be the driest place in the park. It wasn't, we got soaked. But the kids kept coming over to play basketball and tennis and turning on the lights so they could see and waking us up.

(Day 70) Ohio

Bad storm that night, camped on the side of the road. Listened to it poor rain and watched the lightning

(Day 69) Ohio

(Day 68) Indiana & Ohio

Departed the Floor's residence

Into Ohio

Got an email from my dad saying that he had a free ticket that we could use to fly home on.

Talked to stoner kids while waiting for brad

Camped behind furniture store Delphos

(Day 67) Indiana

Shower and swim then stayed in the Floor's back yard after they made us dinner

(Day 66) Indiana

Getting "lost" on the farm roads

Seeing kids removing silk from cork like I'd read about in the newspaper the day before.

All the days seem to blend together SEE FOLDER 3 ON THE RECORDER.

(Day 65) Illinois & Indiana

Fell asleep along the side of the road, wasting three hours, it was the heat or something

McDonalds for milkshakes. Picked up newspaper

Camped in the state park

(Day 64) Leaving Chicago

South on Western Ave(?)

Stopped at drug store and Circuit City. While Brad was sitting on the sidewalk a guy in a truck stopped and asked if he wanted some money then flipped him a quarter.

Farther south finally getting out of the city

No Welcome To Indiana sign

Camped in the middle of a dirt farm road

(Day 57-63) Chicago

07/27/2001

Into city to get car

Delilia's Bar

07/28/2001

Meeting up with Chris

07/29/2001

Waking up at Chris' apartment

Out to Heather's house

07/30/2001

Great America

Dinner at the Vietnamese restaurant

Green Mill for drinks. Good beer, bad jazz singer. Didn't take credit cards except American Express.

07/31/2001

Haircut clean up bikes

Bars that night?

08/01/2001

Heather left, then Erin, then we packed up and rolled into town to stay with another set of friends, Tim and Maggie. They were just moving to town and they had some other Reno people, John and Carrie, that'd driven out with them staying there. It was cramped but we got all our stuff into their apartment.

Stopped in at the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio and looked into the gift shop. Everything was really cool but super expensive, a tie with some of his designs on it was $30.

Brad to See RadioHead, I went to see movies. I saw the entire Final Fantasy movie, most of Score, and enough of The Fast and the Furious to know that the rest was worth missing.

08/02/2001

At 06:00 I woke up to the sounds of rain falling and thunder crashing, went back to sleep. At 08:00 heard on the radio that parts of the city were flooded. Decided not to leave until the next day.

I went to the store with John and bought a bunch of food to make breakfast. When we got back he made up a bunch of German pancakes and I tried another round of hash browns and eggs. His pancakes were great but my skillet skillz are still not quite l33t.

We helped Tim and Maggie unpack the boxes they'd brought out. Brad, Tim, John and Carrie went to the hardware store to get blinds and other stuff. Maggie and I moved stuff around and talked. I.d gone to middle and high school with her but didn't really know her very well.

Maggie is an organized and hardworking person, she finished high school in two years and then went to France for school. She went to UNR and graduated with a dual major and was going to ??? for a masters program in Chicago mostly on scholarships.

That night we met their neighbors. I think they were the only other two white people living in the predominately Puerto Rican neighborhood.

(Day 56) Stage 4 Complete

In Sycamore, IL met a cyclist who told us about the Great Western Path that'd lead us into St. Charles, IL. From there we could get on to the Prairie Path that would take us into the suburbs.

Some where along the way we missed a turn, the cyclist said it was clearly marked but I guess we weren't paying enough attention. We probably put in an extra 10 miles. Once we got back to the correct path I stopped to ask directions lest we miss another turn and met a lock salesman. He said he was headed almost exactly where we were and would be happy to show us the way

Stopped at Taco Bell ate and talked to Heather for directions to her house.

100-mile day

No statistics

(Day 55) Q: What do you call someone from Illinois? A: An Ill-annoyance.

[Okay the emails are starting up again. I'm going to try not to drag out the conclusion too much. Only 15 more days worth of email to go.]

Woke up on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store at 06:00 as some construction workers showed up for work remodeling the store. We hit up the McAfee South End Restaurant in down town Maquoketa, IA and filled up on cheap tasty food. The owner came outside to look at our bikes and saw the"I Had A Malt At Yellowstone Drug" sticker on the side of my bike. She exclaimed that it was too bad that they didn't have anything like that to give me. She went inside and came back out and with a pen with their address on it and told me to send them a post card.

Around 11:00 we finally crossed the Mississippi into Illinois. The bigger bridges are always a little bit sketchy, they're most often two lanes, have no shoulder, and a metal deck that's awful squirrelly to ride on. It was a good thing we didn't have much traffic passing us, I had the phrase "East of the Mississippi" echoing in my head the whole way across. It was a real trip when I looked down thought the metal grate deck of the bridge at the water below. While the river isn't as wide as in Louisiana it's still a BIG river, definitely something to write songs about. Brad and I had a couple of stupid looking grins on our faces when we finally got across and took pictures in front of the welcome to Illinois sign.

Half a mile down the road from the bridge was Savannah, IL. Brad hit a payphone to call Erin and let here know that we would be arriving in Chicago on July 26th. When he was done I got on the phone and ordered two Model 490 Handy Horns from Wolo Manufacturing (www.wolo-mfg.com 1-800-645-5808). For $14.95 you get a 120-decibel (read LOUD) horn that fits in a water bottle cage. We looked around for someplace to eat lunch but nothing sounded good, and between the two of us we'd spent an hour on the phone. It was hard talking ourselves into getting moving into that headwind again but we still had 40+ miles to ride if we were going to make Chicago on time.

The afternoon was mind numbing, I spent most of the time trying to think of anything that could possibly distract me from how frustrating the hills and headwind were. When we finally did stop and buy lunch in Lanark, IL it really did feel like we'd earned it. A few frustrating hours later we camped in Oregon, IL, hidden in the middle of a clump of trees in a park that didn't allow camping.

andrew

(Day 54) Someday We'll Leave Iowa

Brad got up EARLY, those of you who know him understand what a notable occurance it was. He was packed and ready to get going by the time I'd put my sleeping bag up. I'd fallen sleep dreaming of breakfast and the only thing that got me moving was the thought of some pancakes, eggs and hash browns.

When we found that the cafe in town was closed I was really annoyed. I just wanted to start riding until we found a place to get some breakfast.

The Corner Bar in Walker, IA delivered. I gave it 4 stars--great food at super cheap prices. Brad's only complaint was that the coffee wasn't very good--but in its favor: it was free.

Down the road a piece we came across a 200 foot streatch of road that can only be described as a racoon killing ground. There were at least twenty pieces of road kill on both the sides of the highway. Brad and I spent two or three minutes staring at one corpse trying to decide if it was a cat or racoon. The long fingers and short tail convinced us that it was a racoon.

A few miles outside of Maquoketa, IA a tractor turned out onto the road. The driver's two sons were hanging on as they bumped down the gravel shoulder. I started to pass them but as I moved along side and waved the driver started asking me about the ride. I really wish I'd taken a picture of them before they said goodbye.

Just down the hill we stopped in Maquoketa, IA at around 19:00. Our intention was to just make a quick stop at the supermarket for some food. 15 minutes later we were ready to leave, but the clouds, which had been thickening all afternoon, looked like they were from The Wizard Of Oz's tornado scenes. As the wind picked up, announcing the front of the storm, we went across the street and hid under the awning of a hardware store and waited for the rain to end. After a half hour of torential downpour, we decided it wasn't worth going out in the rain to find another place to camp and rolled out the ground cloth. Half expecting a cop to show up at any minute, we settled down for an uncomfortable night's sleep.

andrew

(Day 53) Weeee Moving On Across

[Sorry about sending that last email twice. The batteries in the PocketMailer died and it decided to resend the email when I put fresh ones in.

We're plugging right along even if these emails aren't. Brad and I are presently working our way down US 50 in West Virginia. DC is only 200 miles away, and we should finish on Aug 16. and be back the 18th]

We started around 09:00 from Williams, IA after waiting on the rain. It'd probably stopped around 06:00 but we wouldn't have known it. The tent was under a tree and every time the wind would blow the water on the leaves would fall down onto the tent letting us think the rain had started again and that we could go back to sleep guilt free.

The overcast weather made for nice riding and the light headwind didn't slow us down much but kept everything nice and cool. We spent most of the day riding through fields of corn and soy beans.

About the only thing we had to slow down for was road construction. They were extending a freeway across quite a bit of our path and there were detours abound. We bardged through most of the closed roads with only a wave to the flagger. We were't able to ignore a couple of the closures and were sent down gravel roads with asphault trucks behind us.

The mid-west has high clouds that make the best sunset and that night there was a gorgeous one. Just as it was finishing up the fireflies came out. I could almost convince myself that the grass along the side of the road was a bed of bright green coals and the hundreds of fireflies were embers rising up from it. Almost made me forget the tortures of the previous two days.

Pulled in Brandon, IA in the dark and rode around looking for a place to eat and camp. I rode up on two kids making out in the middle of the street and shouted "Hey! Can I ask you a question?" They looked like two deer paralized by headlights. "Is there a gas station or anything like that open around here?".
"In Independence" the guy offered.
"How far is that?" I asked.
"About 15 minutes..."
"Not for them, stupid" the girl scolded.

While they couldn't tell us a place to eat they were able to direct us to the city park. We ended the day at 95 miles. Getting into Chicago by the 26th of August would still be a push, 80 mile days at the minimum. It would be workable but we'd need to stay focused.

andrew

(Day 52) Bill Spaceman Says: IOWA is an acronymn. It stands for Idiots Out Riding Bikes

Woke up in Manson, IA in the park under the water tower. We hurried to get out of there, the No Camping sign was much more vlsible in the liqht of day.

Leaving town I looked back in my mirror and saw Brad come racing up behind me. I thouqht something might be wrong. Turned out he'd just eaten his Luna Bar from Joe Lane's care package. The poor fool had fallen in love with them and wanted to trade mine away from me. Too bad for Luna Boy, I'd already eaten it. I tried to explain to him that even thouqh they were tasty they were chick power bars. He just waved it away, saying "Now that I know how the other half lives, I'm never going back".

In Ft. Dodge we were able to meet up with Brad's parents' friends, the Messmers. Sarah and Don really took care of us: we got breakfast, took showers, washed laundry and they even helped us plan a route into Chicago--all in three hours. It was the cycling equalivalent of an Indianapolis 500 pit stop.

The entire afternoon we were chased by thunderstorms. During a really bad streatch we stopped at a farm house to ask if we could stand under their tree and get out of the rain. They invited us in, loaned us towels, gave us a couple sodas and directions to a bike path in Webster City. Between their hospitality and the Messmers' it's made me think that people who live in Iowa are pretty alright even if they don't know how to build roads.

andrew

(Day 50) Welcome to Hell. Oh wait I read that wrong, it says

Going into Souix City, IA should have been no problem. Unless you didn't look at the map long enough to tell that US 20 turned into interstate. I picked the single worst way possible into town, instead of residential surface streets we got a few miles of divided highway followed by a few on busy shoulderless trucking routes. Brad's still pissed at me that we didn't get to take a picture next to a Welcome To Iowa sign because it was surrounded by four lanes of 80mph traffic.

The only upside was when we stopped at a supermarket for directions there was a music shop in the strip mall. We'd been wanting to buy harmonicas for a while so it seemed like the time. One of the employees was . . . you guessed it, a BikeE owner. He was able to give us directions to the only bike shop in town.

Now being the only bike shop in the town that 8-10,000 RAGBRAI riders would be departing from in two days, it was, understandably, completely crazy. Finding someone to show me pedals was tough, trying to get work done on the bikes was out of the question. Brad picked up a new derailer [which we still haven't gotten around to replacing as of 8/7/01 -am] and I left with a new set of Shimano SPD pedals (For the non-bike people they're clipless pedals. It's kind of like ski bindings, you wear special shoes with a very stiff sole. Each shoe has threads in it so you can screw a metal cleat in to the bottom. The cleat is what snaps into the pedal and connects you to the bike. And sorry I don't know why they call them clipless) We went to a park so I could replace the cleats from my old pedals with the new ones. While I was fiddiling with them Brad tried to call some of his parents' old friends who lived in Ft. Dodge, IA, a couple days away. He wasn't able to get a hold of them and I only suceeded in stripping the screws on the old cleats trying to get them off.

Back at the bike shop I gave them the poor touring cyclist sob story and convinced them that they should try to get the cleats off. Twenty minutes later they'd drilled the screws out and we were on our way.

RAGBRAI left the day after next but we had to pick up mail in Correctionville, IA which was to the south of the RAGBRAI route. We weren't totally sure we wanted to meet up with them. While it would be cool to ride with the qroup for a day or two Brad had promised Erin we'd be in Chicaqo, IL on the 26th. Joining the group meant we'd be wasting one of the five remaining days. Since we had to get the mail either way we started riding out towards Correctionville.

US 20 that had served us so faithfully since Bend, OR had changed. Iowa had corrupted our noble friend. The wide shoulders of Wyoming and Nebraska were gone, replaced by a two inch drop from the concrete onto a foot wide strip of gravel. "It's probably just this county", I told Brad trying to reassure myself while the sun sunk lower and lower, "It'll get better".

As we were stood on the side of the road debating whether to just pitch the tent or push on to the next town a police car pulled up behind us, lights flashing. I was actually glad, now I had someone to complain about the roads to. I was a suprised when the cop just leaned out the window to ask us if we'd seen any accidents.
"No..." Brad replied as a second cop pulled up behind the first.
"Well were going to keep going then" the cop said motioning on down the road.
"Okay, I think that's a siqn we should keep going" Brad said as we watched the liqhts disappear over the next hill.
"Uhh, I'm pretty sure it's an sign that we should camp here. I don't want to be the accident".

andrew

(Day 51) Iowa, My New Least Favorite State

7/21/01
From our bivouac on the side of US 20 it was only 10 miles to Correctionville, IA where our mail was waiting. We had to hurry because the smaller post offices have wierd Saturday hours and waiting until Monday to pick up the mail was out of the question.

With meer minutes to spare before the 10:00 closing time, we pulled up to the post office. Brad got stuff from his mom and girlfriend. My dad had mailed me my wallet, which I'd left in the pocket of a pair of pants he'd loaned me back in Lusk, WY. Joe Lane sent us both a care package, in it was a mess of candy, some little bottles of booze, a climbing magazine, some mix CDs from a party we'd had a while back, a letter, some photos of Joe bouldering and on top of some 14,000 ft peak, a letter and two Luna Bars. The candy and booze were nice, the climbing magazine was just frustrating, the CDs were all Brad, the letter and pictures were super funny, but the Luna Bars, they were just insulting. He'd gone out of his way to send us the only power bar that's made and marketed specifically for women. Ha ha Joe we're all laughing now.

In Iowa there are two kinds of weather: hot or hot and raining. In the morning we got hot and raininq but in the afternoon we got to enjoy just plain hot.

All morninq I was bitching about how bad the roads were, how hot it was, how humid it was, how lame it was that all the RAGBRAI people were honking at us as they DROVE by in their RVs to a BIKE ride. Durinq all that bitching I determined the thing that I hate most about Iowa is they don't pave the shoulders on the roads. If you're on any kind of busy road you're either a foot out in the lane with tons of traffic wizzing close by or you'll be forced onto the soft gravel shoulder. Watching the mirror for cars all the time keeps you totally stressed out and the time and miles just crawl by.

When we finally accepted that the roads weren't going to get any better and the traffic wasn't going to die down, we gave up on our old friend US 20, and got onto the county roads that parallel it. While that did a lot to improve my views on Iowa, I still think that it's one of the worst states to ride a bike in. That's why the RAGBRAI is so popular, it's the only time you can ride across and not worry the entire time about getting killed.

andrew

(Day 49) Getting Ready To Say Good Bye To Nebraska

[Yeah, so that last email wasn't really ready to go out but got sent accidentally, ignore the *s.

Up here in real time we're in Chesterville, OH less than 550 miles from D.C. ]

We woke up in the park in Inman, NE. Sand from the volleyball court we'd camped on had gotten into everything, with a double helping in the drive train of my bike. I cooked rice and beans for breakfast and then tried to defoul my bike while Brad went on a search for a faucet to fill up water. Leaving at 12:00, it was hardly the model departure.

A few miles down the road I saw a cyclist aproaching. I'd learned a neat trick from Jim, the rider we met back near Arco, ID. If you want to talk to an oncoming cyclist, just pull onto their side of the road and park in front of them. Unless they're a total jerk they'll stop and talk to you. This particular cyclist, named Ashley, wasn't a total jerk so she talked to us for a couple minutes. She was riding home from her waiteressing job at a milkshake place in Plainview, NE. Roger and Steve had stopped in while she was working. Ashley mentioned that she wanted to do a cross country ride but her sub-goal was to do the RAGBRAI-inspired ride across Nebraska.

Contrary to what I'd thought a few days before I'd really enjoyed Nebraska. They're paving a bike path called the Cowboy Trail on an old railroad bed paralleling US 20. When it's finished it will be one of the longest paths in the US. There are towns every 10 or 15 miles so finding services isn't a problem and almost all the towns have free campgrounds. Maybe I'll come back in a couple of years and ride it either way I've got no problem recomending a trip to or through Nebraska.

andrew

(Day 48) We're On The Radio

Brad and I were up early so we could get breakfast before the radio show. On our way out of the campground we bid Roger and Steve a good day. They told us if we made it to RAGBRAI to look for riders with cans of SPAM on their helmets, that'd be them and their friends.

After a quick breakfast and a short ride we found the studio. We were directed into Angie, the lady Brad met at the pool's, office where we spent a few minutes talking about our trip. She also asked if we'd remembered our recipe. Every morning on the show they give out a new recipe, we, being the "guest stars", were asked to bring one. In honor of our old roommate (the one we visited in Portland, OR) we presented Chris Larson's Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce. He'd made it often when we lived with him but neither of us knew the exact proportions. The night before we'd made some and came up with the following: 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter, 6 tablespoons soy sauce, and 1/2 tablespoon hot sauce all mixed together and spread over rice or noodles. They interviewed us between the classified ads and farm reports and let us present our recipe. Now if anyone asks if I've ever been on public radio in Ainsworth, NE I can say yes.

That afternoon we pulled into Atkinson, NE, home to one of the nicest swimming pools we've come across. They had fountains and one of the loopy water slides like at the big water parks. We got in for free because they were going to be closing for swimminq lessons in a half hour. As they closed I met the cutest life guard of the whole trip. After talking to her for a while she said she had to get back to work but that she'd let us in for free if we wanted to wait around until they reopened. Brad said he'd be okay with waiting around if I wanted to. It was a tough decision but I decided we ought to keep moving. Waiting around so I couId end up with another crush on a girl in a different state would have been a bad thing.

andrew

listen to the radio show (approx 30 minutes/19 mb)

(Day 47) What Race Across Nebraska?

I was woken up by rain and just as I was about so say something to Brad I realized he was already half done putting up his sleeping bag. Packing up seemed to take twice as long in the rain as it normally does. We decided to get some breakfast and let the weather move a little farther down the line.

The wind blew the rain out of town before changing direction into an evil head wind. It was slow moving and we had to deal with road work for most of the morning, jumping out of the way as waves of cars passed us on the one remaining lane.

In Johnstown, NB we stopped and got a pop and ice cream at this little antique/craft store. I got a couple things as gifts but as we were leaving the owner pulled a Dick Collins on us. It was a battle to get out the door before she could recount the life story of everyone who lived in the county.

That afternoon, a few grueling miles later in Ainsworth, NB we ran into Roqer and Steve riding off from the bar. While we were talking, the sheriff stopped to tell us that there was a tornado warninq in the next county. Brad and I decided to take a seat at the bar for a beer and call it a day.

In the city park on the side of town we found a free campground and right next to it, the city pool. The best place to spend your money on showers is at a public pool. You pay $2-3, get to shower, to swim, you can keep an eye on your bike through the chainlink fence and there are always cute lifeguards. At a campground it'd cost you $5 with no swimming or cute lifeguards.

The pool was great, it felt good to work some muscles other than my legs. Brad met a lady who did part of the morning show on the local radio station, she said she'd put us on the radio if we wanted to come by the station the next day.

Back at the campground we talked with Roger and Steve about Iowa. They were riding across as a part of a group ride called RAGBRAI (The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). The Iowa Register has put it on for the last twenty-something years, it's 10,000 people doing a week-long ride across the state with a lot of partying along the way. If you've seen the movie The Straight Story you may recall several scenes with RAGBRAI riders.

As they kept talking we got more and more interested, eventually deciding that we'd like to do the ride if it was possible. It left Souix City a little later than our current schedule but if we could squeeze it in and still make it to Chicago on time it'd be the best way to see Iowa.

andrew

(Day 46) On Across Nebraska

7/16/01
We'd pictured Nebraska as this flat state, it's not. It's thousands of small rolling hills, up and down one hill after another. The 90*F heat and humidity made it even more entertaining.

When our roommate, Joe Lane, finished his backpacking trip from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Crest Trail he had hundreds of stories. He'd rattle of tales of people he'd hiked with, things he'd seen, peaks he'd climbed. One of the coolest aspects of the trail to me was how social it was. A couple hundred hikers leave from both ends of the trail and you have a good chance of meeting most of them, either passing in opposite directions, by overtaking them or being overtaken. If you didn't meet someone you'd often see their name in trail registers or hear stories about them from people you did meet. On our trip we've met lots of cyclists but it's always hello, some bike talk and then good bye have a great trip. We'd never run into the same people twice so it was a surprise when we stopped in Cody, NB, The Town TooTough To Die (according to its motto) for a soda and found a traveler register sitting on the counter at the gas station. In it were Roger and Steve's signatures, they'd passed through earlier in the day.

About 16:00 we crossed into Central Time, another large milestone.

In Valentine, NE we drank Fat Tire Ale and camped in the park. Not putting up the tent so we could get an early start made it easy for all of Satan's little angels to sting the crap out of me as I tried to sleep.

andrew

(Day 45) Start of the Race Across Nebraska

[We got to Chicago late the night of the 26th. As you can hopefully see I've been trying to get these emails caught up.

It's been a lot of fun hanging out with our friend Heather and Brad's girlfriend Erin. Too much fun really, it's got us thinking of all the things we'd rather be doing back at home. As a result we're going to cut a couple hundred miles off the ride to the coact by riding into Washington D.C. instead of Boston, MA.

We're ready to leave Chicago as soon as the rain stops.]

Our camp for the night was five miles past the state line. It's 430 something miles across Nebraska on Hwy 20 and we'd decided to try to cross the state in 96 hours.

We got an early start and by 13:00 we'd picked up 55 miles, lunch sounded like a good reward so we hit up the Pizza Hut. Two problems with the all you-can-eat salad bar: it takes too long, we spent two hours trying to fill ourselves up, aud all salad and no carbs isn't the best riding lunch, it takes for ever to turn into fuel.

Every time we had mentioned Nebraska to someone in Wyoming they'd made the same face and said "Ewww, not much to see there 'sept corn fields and hog farms" then they'd pinch their nose. After passing our first hog farm I'd say the nose pinching was warranted. Because of the direction of the wind I saw it's siqn before I smelled it, but once we I did start smelling it the wind carried the scent to me for half a mile. I'm not looking forward to passing more of them.

We camped a few miles outside of Gordon, NE on the side of a corn field. There were storms out in the distance but because we didn't want to be visible from the road we didn't put up the tent. Around 23:30 the pre-storm winds kicked up and it was pretty clear it was going to rain. Brad and I struggled to put up the tent in the gusting wind for 20 minutes before we were able to get it up and get back to sleep.

andrew

(Day 44) Goodbye Dads, Hello Nebraska

I got up early to work on my bike. I'd ignored some pretty nasty sand in the drive train for too long and I wanted to put one of the tires we'd purchased the night before on. It felt good to just proj out; cleaning the chain and taking apart the derailer. By the time I was done it was humming, I was stoked.

We went to breakfast with the fathers and I had the best pancakes of the trip along side some of the worst home frles. Back at the hotel we packed up and then went for yet another free meal with our dads.

The dads followed us in the car a mile out of town with the video camera rolling. It made me very self-concious of my riding, Unfortunately they vldeotaped me turning the wrong way at the junction in town, the other three times that'd happened Brad was the only witness.

It was only 20 miles from Lusk, WY to the Nebraska border so made it a few miles across before we camped.

andrew

(Day 43) Isn't Father's Day in June?

I woke up half expectinq to see Roger and Steve ride by and shout
"Nice place to camp!" again. We did end up seeinq them twice later in the day. Once when we were stopped at a general store in Shawnee, WY and later as they were leaving the 3 Sisters Truckstop in Manville, WY.

This was the day our fathers were flying into Casper, WY. Via email we'd aranged to meet up in Lusk, WY at 15:00. Both parties had cell phones so the plan was to call when we were in town. Brad and I had pulled off mid-way through town and were dialing the cell phone number when they pulled in behind us. It was a real trip to see them.

At the motel we got a shower, breakinq our 9 day streak. My dad had brought a suprise from my grandmother, an auto bingo game. It's just like reqular bingo except instead of numbers it's got road side sights (cop, dog, stop sign, etc.) you mark off as you encounter. We've decided to use it instead of flipping a coin for future decisions. Brad's dad had brought some of his mom's cookies and a couple of CDs he'd decided he really needed to hear
I coveted the cookies.

After the whole Great Tire Debacle we still needed to find a bike shop. Our fathers had stopped by Dr. Spokes in Casper to try and pickup the tires I'd ordered but the bike shop didn't have a clue what had happened to them. A local guy told us that Two Wheeler Dealer in Rapid City, SD sold BikeEs. He gave us directions and a phone number and after calling to confirm that they'd be open, we decided that maybe Rapid City would be a nice place for dinner too.

The hour and a half drive into South Dakota went quickly, Brad and I weren't used to seeing the mile markers going by so fast. At the bike shop we found almost allthe gear we needed, they even recommended a place to eat.

I have no idea how to spell or pronounce the name of the Italian restauraunt we went to but they had good food, probably the best meal of the trip and we didn't have to pay for it. After dinner we did a little walking around downtown. We even got our pictures taken with their George Bush and Ronald Regan statues. All in all a pretty enjoyable evening.

andrew

(Day 42) The Secret to Life the Universe and Everything

As we were dryinq the morning's dew from our sleeping bags Brad noticed two cyclists riding by. "Nice place to camp!" shouted one of them. They were probably riqht, the oil refinery across the street from the field we'd camped in did smell pretty bad. But, it was much better than the bridge Brad and I had considered camping under, trying to find a spot near a city after dark is always a challenge.

The cyclits, Steve and Roger, stopped to talk for a few minutes., The two of them were also doing a TransAm but they'd left from Seattle, WA and were headed to New Jersey.

Since we were expecting mail we went into town in search of the post office. Downtown we found a post office but general delivery was done at the other one, a half-mile from where we'd camped. The wasted half-hour wouldn't have been that bad if when we'd gotten to the second post office we'd had mail waiting for us. In the future, we decided, we'd only do mail drops in towns to small to have a second post office.

Around 15:00 we took a leisurely lunch brake under an overpass. We had a sandwich, and some crackers, and some sweets, and when we were good and ready we put on sunblock and came out into... a whole lot of mean looking rain clouds, coming our way. They were dark black and fast moving, trailing tentacles of rain behind them. Now not being totaly stupid, contrary to what all that un-needed sunscreen might make you think, we got moving.

Though I've only surfed once, I'd say riding in front of a storm is a lot like it. The storm has a wave of wind in front of it. If you stay too far ahead of it you end up pedaling more than you have to. Fall behind the edge of the wave and you lose the leading winds and end up soaked. Some where there's a perfect point that will whip you along at 30+ mph while keeping you completely dry.

Unfortunately we didn't manage to stay ahead of them, they caught us as we neared Douglas, WY. We took shealter at a gas station until the weather cleared then got back on the interstate for the last ten miles of the night.

andrew

(Day 41) Exciting Conclusion To The Great Tire Debacle

[Yesterday I got a email from Clarence Whetten with a great tip for cyclists that I wanted to pass along. Clarence is a BikeE owner I met in Orem, UT on my ride across Nevada last year. He was at the bike shop, where my bike was being boxed up for the trip home. We got to talking and he offered to give me a ride to the train station in Salt Lake City. On the way he took me and my gear over to his house where he loaned me his other BikeE so we could take a ride up a nearby canyon. It'd been a great trip and he put the perfect finish on it. But back to the tip, he writes:

I know this is a little late but here is a tire tip. The best tire boot that I have found to carry is a piece of Tyvec. This is the material that most 5 1/4 inch floppy disk envelopes were made of. Stop by anyplace that does FedEx shipping and grab one of the FedEx overnight envelopes and you have the makings of a great tire boot. When you have a weak sidewall put a piece of Tyvec in the area and it will likely save your tube and help the tire last long enough to find a new one. I carry a 4 inch by 8 inch piece in my touring tool kit all the time.]

We did a bit of coin fliping to decide who'd go into town, I won or lost depending on how you look at it. Brad wouldn't have to do much but sit in a hot tent and eat peanut butter out of the jar while he read The Lord Of The Rings. On the other hand I'd get to get a restauraunt lunch if I ever made it into town. I put on a clean shirt, packed up some water, applied some sunscreen and got started walking with my thumb out.

After walking about 1/2 mile I got picked up by a trucker named Vic. He was in the business of moving houses and mobile homes. I told him about our trip and the string of bad luck we'd had with the tires and he said that he'd take me all the way into town to a bike shop.

At Dr. Spokes they ordered two new tires for me that should be in Friday (7/13/01). I got one cheap tire and four tubes to get us riding and still have some backups. Vic gave me a ride back out of town to the mobile home dealer he was working for.

I walked the mile or two up to the truck stop I'd seen in the morning. After enjoyinq lunch, I started asking around trying to find some one who'd give me a ride back out to the tent some 40 miles out of town. After giving up on asking and just making a sign, Josh and Lee, two climbers going to a climbing festival in Landers, WY, offered to give me a ride back out.

They were a blast, talking with them reminded me how much I've missed climbing durring this trip. I entertained fantasies of going to the festival with them and taking part in the week long climbing and drinking binge.

After they dropped me off at the tent Brad and I got our bikes fixed and gear packed up and were rolling by15:00. It was about 40 miles into Casper, WY and we really didn't want to spend another night to the west of it.

We rode into town in front of storms that never caught us. Everything was closed by the time we rolled through down town Casper. Dinner seemed like somethinq we'd earned so we worked across town with an eye open for a restaurant. When we came across the Chinese buffet we didn't even have to discuss it, we just stopped, went in and completely stuffed ourselves. It was definitely not the middle path of the Buddha. Riding out of town to camp was painful.

andrew

(Day 40) It All Falls Apart or Jesus Would Have Been Home By Now

[I should have made it clear that these are really back-logged, as the date below shows, these events happened almost two weeks ago. In real time we're in Maquoketa, IA. We'll be in Illinois tomorrow morning on our race to Chicago so Brad can see his girlfriend Erin.

We'll be at Heather, our friend from Reno,'s relatives house from some time in the next two days until the 1st of August:

c/o Heather Larican
16W651 Therese Ct.
Hinsdale, IL 60521 ]

As we were packing up to leave Brad noticed his tire had gone flat during the night. As you'll recall we had no more tubes of the correct size and no more patches. After standing around for a while we decided that for lack of any better ideas, a piece from the tire with the sidewall blown out might work as a patch. We covered it with the glue left over from the old patch kits, let it dry and prayed. It looked too stupid to work but, amazingly, it held.

Giving the tire no time to start leaking, we lept on the bikes and began pedaling furiously. On the bike it made for a funny ride; the tire bulged out on top of the patch so Brad bounced up a bit every time it'd touch the ground.

The miles wore on and without the constant wump wump wump I forgot all about the "patch". I sped up so I could get my camera out and take a picture of Brad as he rode by. The picture didn't take right so I started riding to pass him and try again. UHMP! It felt like I went over a speed bump, the back end of my bike starts fish tailing all around. I was not stoaked to have a flat, I flagged down a car and asked them to tell Brad to turn around so he can help me boot the tube with duct tape.

I sat there for quite a while waitinq for him. I had time to pull off the wheel, remove the two inch cotter pin from tire and clean the dirt off most of my drive train before I saw his head appear over the rise ahead. He didn't seem to be moving very fast so I got up and started walking toward him. 50 ft later I realized he was pushing his bike, "You aren't pushing that out of sympathy are you?" I asked him. He had been half way up the next hill before that truck caught him. After he turned around and started coming back up the hill the patch finally went out and he had to push the bike back.

Brad and I were so sick of it all we just moved our gear down from the highway, over the barbwire fence and into the sagebrush. We pitched tent, sat through that evening's rain and tried to figure out what to do tomorrow.

andrew

(Day 39) The Great Tire Debacle Begins

We woke up in a park at the mouth of the Wind River Canyon, just outside of Thermopolis, WY, in a light rain. After we packed up, we ate the left over pizza from the night before and got going.

The low clouds stayed with us through the gorge, sprinkling us occasionally. To our left was the Wind River, it was the most unbelievable shade of green I've ever seen, mountains and cliffs faced both sides. Going through the Canyon was like flipping through the pages of a geology book. Some of the rock was so pretty I wished I'd brought Joe Lane and a bunch of climbing gear.

At the other end of the canyon the Great Tire Debacle began. The tire with the weak sidewall blew out taking our last slimed tube with it. After determining the tire was trash, we put the mystery tube in the backup tire and began praying. We had no spare tubes for the back wheel, no patches and no backup tire.

Shoshoni, WY, is home to 500 people, more mobile homes than fixed structures, a whole hell of a lot of tacky lawn furniture, and Yellowstone Drug which clames the best malts and shakes in the state. Brad and I stopped in and had a shake and some food, they were good, possibly the best in Wyoming but there's not many towns in the state.

Emails back and forth had confirmed that our dads were going to be flying into Casper and meeting us at some point east of there depending on our progress. Not wanting to end up way beyond Casper we decided we could take it a easy for part of the day. We sat in the park for a couple hours doing emails and postcards. Once it started looking like it was ready to rain we got packed up and headed out.

We were riding hard trying to stay in front of the rain. Lightning was striking all around us and then CRACK, it hit about a half mile from the road. I was ready to camp for the night right about that point. We stopped and setup the tent in a hurry--I didn't want to be waving aluminum tent poles around for long--and then it proceded to dump on us. Brad and I just sat in the tent and listened to the rain hitting and the thunder rumbling for the next hour or so, only interupted by the tent blowing down once.

After it got past us it was even crazier, we just stood there and watched 180* of the sky flicker with distant lightning. Whole clouds, thousands of feet tall, would liqht up illuminating the clouds in front of them and then the lightning would seem to cartwheel from cloud to cloud. I tried to take a picture of it but like so many of the most memorable things in life, a picture can only be a pale shadow of the actual event. A more able writer could explain the awe it caused me but it'll always be one of the images that come to mind when someone asks me why I'm riding cross country.

andrew

(Day 38) Prelude To The Great Tire Debacle

The morning was georgous the clouds were low, keeping the sun off and temperatures cool. It would have been perfect riding weather if it hadn't been such perfect sleeping weather.

We stopped in Meeteetse, WY, made some lunch, had an ice cream cone, called home, and spent way too long examining the map in an attempt to avoid riding in the heat of the day. An hour outside of town the clouds moved in, cooling every thing down, and a tailwind came up.

Brad got out the head phones and started rocking out so I rode up ahead looking back occasionally to make sure he was still there. At the crest of a hill I looked back and saw him, then dropped down the other side a mile or so before I realized he hadn't crested it yet. I pulled over and sat a minute before a couple in a Volvo slowed down to tell me my "buddy's back there with a flat". I started pumping back up the 6% grade now going into a 10 mph headwind hoping he wasn't just changing CDs.

Brad most definitely had a flat, he'd pulled off the tire and had determined that the tube was shot. The side wall of the tire had started to come apart and put a half inch gash in the tube. We put the backup tire on with the "mystery tube" in it. It'd been in the parts bag for a while and we had no idea where it came from. We only by tubes with slime in them (Slime is a brand name of self-sealent) and this wasn't slimed but since we're good about patching holes as they happen it should have been fine.

25 ft later we realized that it wasn't fine and went through the whole procesess of takinq the wheel off and patching the mystery tube. "Where are those extra patches we got in Boise, I've only got one left?" Brad asked. After a few seconds I realized exactly where I'd left them, in Boise. "Don't worry about it I've got that other patch kit" I told him.

A few more miles down the road Brad picked up another flat. The backup tire had a bad looking spot on it that we were afraid would cause another flat so, when we swapped in the known good slimed tube, we put the first tire with the weak side wall back on. When I went to patch the mystery tube I found out that the extra patch kit only had one patch left in it. With only no patches left we started praying for a bike shop.

Entering Thermopolis we saw our 1st Wall Drug sign. If you've ever been near the state of South Dakota you've driven past a sign for Wall Drug. I'm sure that back forty or fifty years ago the drug store in Wall, SD was a standard small town shop but some time between now and then it turned into a self promoting tourist-trap. When I stopped in on a family road trip a few years back it was the size of a small mall. My brother and I'd been seeing the signs for a couple of hours and demand that my dad stop in Wall, SD so we could see this exciting place the signs kept talking about. We were very disapointed with what we found, they had every imagineable Wall Drug branded souvenir but every attraction was just a shadow of what the signs had promised. None the less the signs are such a part of the mid-west experience that I made the number of Wall Drug signs a new statistic.

We had dinner at Pizza Hut in Thermopolis, WY. The bro biker we met back in Bend, OR was halfway right, it'e all about salad bars but not at Wendy's go to Pizza Hut. Only the newer Wendy's have salad bars, all the Pizza Huts do and they're every where.

One thing that hit me while we were there eating was the thought "this place is run by kids". I guess that's when you can start to consider yourself old.

andrew

(Day 37) "He assumed that just because I own a bike shop I know how to ride." -Doug

Dead Indian Pass (8048 ft) was a whole lot of climbing but it was a light grade with plenty of switch backs. Brad's grip shifter had gotten messed up at some point *cough* West Yellowstone Bike & Video *cough* and wouldn't stay in a gear without him holding it to prevent it from slipping out. We tied a bike tire tube around it to provide some extra friction, that improved, but didn't fix it. At about 11:00 we topped out and got a picture taken and started dropping into Cody, WY.

In Cody, WY we hit the Albertson's for food then found the post office where I proceded to start cooking up a mean batch of hash browns and eggs and Brad went to check the mail. Turned out the post office had closed at 12:00 but being the resourceful fellow he is Brad found an unlocked door, entered the post office, hunted down an employee and convinced them to let us have our mail. In the mail I got a half pound package of AAA maps from my dad (I'll be mailing some of those ahead) and the pins for the trailer from Bob.

Olde Faithful Bike Shop was closed on Saturdays but had an after hours number. Brad was sick of the broken shifter so we decided to try to get a hold of them. While we were waiting Andy, the EZ Racer recumbent owner next door, came out and started talking to us. Doug, the shop owner, rode over soon after that and got started on Brad's bike. Doug is the coolest mechanic we've met on the trip. He played guitar in some band so he and Brad rock talked it up, he wanted to sell the shop and just play all the time. Brad's favorite quote: "A bike just doesn't sing out like a guitar... About the best you can do is make it quiet".

On our way out of town we got distracted by a Burger King. My cell phone plan has 1000 minutes of long distance on the weekends. The only hitch is my phone's battery lasts about half an hour so you've got to plug it in--but the Burger King had electricity. Brad sat on the phone for almost an hour talking to Erin and I talked to my grandma for almost five minutes. When we finally did leave it was 19:00 so we had to move quick to get out of town and find some Good Old Government Sagebrush(TM).

andrew

(Day 35) Recovering from the 4th

Jackie got us up around 11:00 so we could get to the cafe across the street before they stopped serving breakfast. Everyone felt pretty good, we'd kept up on the water drinking last night so no one had a hangover. Breakfast was good, especially the hash browns. It remided me how good they are when you put onions and peppers in and how easy they are to make.

The highlight of the day was taking the short hike up behind the cabins to Silver Falls. There wasn't much water cominq over but that meant we could get up real close and into the spray. It was so relaxing to just sit and watch the wind blow the water around as it fell onto the rocks below. In the fifty plus foot fall the column of water would visibly accelerate and turn into vapor, very cool.

Jackie had to work a half day so while she was gone Brad and I entertained ourselves by reading and sending postcards. I even got to help Carey (I'm not sure what his role there was but he was the acting computerguy) get some stuff fixed on their computers. They started watching Rob Roy, I was tryinq to get caught up with these emails but I got interested in the movie and spent two and a half hours watching it. I'd offered to help Brad make Jackie dinner but it ended up being Brad helping Jackie make dinner. What makes it worse was it was a stupid movie too.

If you'll recall my web server went down, the long and short was the hard drlve went out. My friend Chris Petrell had offered to bring the computer and a new hard drive up and meet me. I was a bit suprised by the offer but he seemed up for the drive so I wasn't going to argue. I wasn't sure where we'd be when we tried to meet him but it worked out pretty well. I got a room for him at the motel next to the YES cabins and he rolled in after midnight. We chitchated a bit and then I started trying to get the data copied off the old hard drive onto the new one. It didn't go well, by the time I started it was too far gone, the only thing left was my MP3 collection.

andrew

(Day 36) Ants on the Floor of God's Kitchen

[New mailing address till 7/19/01 or so:
(Andrew Morton
c/o) Brad Bynum
General Delivery
Correctionville, IA 51016 ]

7/6/01
I woke up with all of four hours of sleep and got back to work on my computer. My plan was just to get Windows 2000, Apache and the SQL server going so I could restore from an old backup. The whole thing was pretty silly; before I could even get Windows halfway installed, the floppy drive went out. I gave up on the computer, packed it up and started working on the backup plan. [Chris has come through yet again and setup a new website for me. I'm not sure what's up there now but you might want to check out http://www.armory.com/~drewish/ ]

Chris drove Brad and me into Cooke City and I bought him lunch for all his trouble. We stuck our heads into some tourist shops and I got some post cards that I won't get around to mailing for a while.

Back in Silver Gate I said good bye to Chris and started packing up my stuff. We'd been looking at the map and decided that we'd rather not go back out through the park. To the north was Beartooth Pass, at almost 11,000 ft it was a Big Hill. I asked myself "What Would Joe Lane Do?" but there was no obvious answer. Would he ride back through the park to see Old Faithful and Yellowstone Lake which while amaizing are covered with tourists? Or would he push up the evil 3000+ ft climb for a new highest point of the trip on a sketchy two lane winding road that would take us 40 or 50 miles out of the way? The more I thought about it the less I was sure.

We went down to ask Kevin, one of the researchers, what he thought. He told us about a road that wasn't on our map. The Chief Joeseph Highway was actually the fastest way to Cody and Dead Indian Pass was only 8048 ft. Now I didn't think Joe Lane would go for that but since the weather wasn't looking good I didn't think he'd want to be stuck half way up Beartooth Pass in a storm either. The extra day it would take to get through the park was soundinq worse and worse so Dead Indian Pass won by default.

We met up with Jackie in Cooke City and as we were saying goodbye it started to rain. It stayed with us for a few miles but as we dropped into Wyoming the weather and the roads got better.

The scenery was mind-blowing and best of all there were almost no cars. I don't think I can even begin to describe the sunset. We pulled off the road looking at a possible camping spot but ended up standing there staring at the sky until it after it was dark. Being in between those towering mountains really puts you in your place. You're just this tiny little ant on the floor of a kitchen. But as big as the mountains around you are, they're just little bumps on a big ball of rock floating out in a lot of nothing. Some how we got it into our heads that we'd like to look at a picture of that ball of rock and say to ourselves "I moved myself across that little piece of that".

andrew

(Day 34) Spending the 4th in a crazy lawless town

I woke up in a where-am-I-and-who-are-these-people-walking-around panic. While Brad slept I said hi and related the story of our late arrival to a couple of interested people that walked past, everyone else seemed pretty busy getting ready to go out in the field to work, they had to put in a half day in spite of the holiday. I finally saw Jackie walk in, she was a bit surprised to see us but gave me the micro-tour anyway. The group of cabins had been purchased by YES to house researchers year-round while they were working in the park, any unused cabins were rented to tourists. Jackie and the rest of the small mammal team left at 05:30 so they could get out there before the squirrels woke up, I went back to sleep.

While everyone was out working Brad and I got cleaned up. I was so hungry that nothing sounded good to me but we made some rice and that got me going, I was craving all kinds of food in no time. Jackie got back as we were starting the second pot of rice. She introduced us to a bunch of people, everyone working there was super cool.

Jackie borrowed a truck and took us into Cooke City. We walked around a bit, bought some beer for that night and a round of ice cream cones for immediate consumption. The Miner bar had pool and air hockey tables so we played a three way game of pool and then had a mini air hockey tourney before heading back.

Everyone was sitting around taking it easy some people had gotten into the beer. It was a nice way to relax after the previous day/nights 90-mile death ride.

Some poor sucker had been hard at work getting the volleyball court setup all durring the day and we recognized their efforts with two 7-on-7 games. Brad and Jackie were on the wrong team and got destroyed by my non-looser team in both games. I heard Brad mumbling some thing about being pool champ for the day afterwards, it seemed to make him feel better.

The towns of Silver Gate and Cooke City have a combined fireworks show put on by the Volunteer Fire Department, who by sunset are completely drunk. They were firing them off 100 feet away from the YES cabins and you could actually see the firemen staggering around. As the fireworks started someone turned on Bruce Springstein's Born In The USA, we all rocked out and sang along.

After grabbing another beer we all walked down to The Range Rider where some country cover band with a Texas flag hanging behind them was playing. Dawn Adams is the only other person I've been around who was as stoked to get drunk and go dancing as Jackie was. When I visited her in Spain all Dawn wanted to do was go dance all night at Etchacalte, Jackie had been telling us all day that tonight some dancing was going to happen. The two of them should get together in Reno and go rock out. It was fun taking turns dancing with everybody, contrary to what my partner may say I had nothing to do with the dropping of that beer. [Brad reminded me to mention that they played a Rolling Stones cover. Annoyingly they knew no Johnny Cash though, I asked.]

Once the band finished up we walked up stairs (this is the second largest freestanding log structure after all it's got two floors) and looked at the signs with the old prostitutes' names over the doors of their rooms. People were getting tired so we went back up to the cabins. At 02:30 we were the only two still up. Sitting in the kitchen listening to the Grateful Dead we decided that this was the last 4th of July we'd of expected to have but that we were pretty all right with it.

andrew

(Day 33) Stage 3 Complete or Across Yellowstone, All the Way

[A correction to the last email: Targhee Pass on the border between Idaho and Montana was only 7072ft not 8000+ft as I'd mentioned in the Day 32 email.

I'm a bit behind in these emails again. I'd hoped to catch up when we stopped over the 4th--obviously, it didn't happen. Currently (7/9/01) we're in Shoshoni, WY and headed to Casper, WY.]

Waking up only two miles from West Yellowstone we were able to get in and have breakfast before the bike shop, West Yellowstone Bicycle & Video, opened. It was a strange combination, as the name implies it was half video store, half bike shop. They rented all kinds of bikes: upright and recumbent and were even a BikeE dealer. While his rear derailer was being fixed, Brad perused the movie selection, eventually giving the store a thumbs up and calling it the second best video shop of the trip. We signed their touring rider log book and set out in search of cheap postcards. It was 12:00 by the time we hit the park gate to be charged $10 each to get in. I felt the fees were a bit unfair, a car or RV pays $20 and they're the ones taking up all the parking spots and putting all the wear on the roads.

Riding on into the park we were making a good 20 mph with the tail wind. We literally flew by a cycling couple that I'd met earlier in the day, they were doing the matching gear thing and a whole lot of it was bright orange. They looked like a rolling construction site, Brad's dad would have been proud.

There's a group called Adventure Cycling that leads tours and puts out maps of a route across the America. Their first and probably most popular route travels from Astoria, OR to some place just outside Washington DC and, importantly, it passes through Yellowstone. We'd seen more cyclists in the park than at any other time on the trip and most--including the construction-site couple were using Adventure Cycling maps.

In Canyon Village we met a cyclist from Buffalo, WY named John Egan. He WAS a tourinq cyclist, he rattled off 10 or 15 side roads to take and places to eat along the way. John said he liked to spend 60 to 90 days a year on the road and with a job teaching at a community college he was able to do it. We had an ice cream and talked for a while.

Heading north we crossed Dunraven Pass which at 8859 ft will probably be the highest point we'll hit on the trip. Coming down was unbelievable, the road dropped 2000+ ft in 12 miles and you could see for miles. The road was pretty chewed up so my mind would be wandering while my body's trying to find the one line that will go through the turns at 30 mph without hitting any of the hundred pot holes in the road.

Our friend from Reno, Jackie Fecteau, is interning for a research group called YES (the only part of the acronym I rember was Yellowstone Ecosystems ...) counting squirrels. She's living just outside the park in a town called Silver Gate, MT and was encouraging us to come spend the 4th there. Our plan was to get to one of the campgrounds near the edge of the park and get into Silver Gate the next morning.

The sun set just as we hit Tower Junction in the northern part of the park, we still had approx 10 mi to get to Slough Creek Campground and 30 mi to Silver Gate. Traffic was in our favor, most people were trying to get into the park not out, so most cars were going the opposite direction. We'd jump off the road and wait for the cars coming up behind us, the shoulder wasn't wide enough to hope they'd give us some room. As we neared Slough Creek a Park Ranger stopped and asked us how we were doing and where we were going. We told him we were headed for the campground. He told us it was full and the next place was Cooke City but that our style of guerilla camping along the road isn't appreciated here in the park so just keep on moving. Trying to ride all the way out of the park was something that we'd joked about back at the junction but now it seemed like we'd get to try it. I broke out the cell phone and called Jackie's number for directions and to let them know we were coming.

The full moon was two days away so seeing was no problem. Going along Soda Butte Creek I spooked a herd of buffalo along the side of the road. It was one of those things I'll remember for the rest of my life, they started running along a little in front of me, these gigantic black outlines against the dry grass on they valley floor. I started to wonder if they were getting closer to the road, I didn't want to be there if they came onto it. I stopped and by the time Brad pulled up next to me the buffalo had all slowed to a stop so we were able to ride past.

I'd started out strong, but by midnight I was ready to crash out. Brad was all fired up to do the remaining 15 miles so he started recountinq the plot of Empire Strikes Back to me to keep me awake. By the end I was seeing stuff in the road that wasn't there and had the crap scared out of me by the one car that came through but some how we made it out of the park. The last mile from the park gate to Silver Gate was the worst, I pretty much sprinted on in and parked in front of The Range Rider. It's the second largest free standing log structure in the US, currently it's a bar and motel but in the past among other things it served as a brothel. Since it was 02:00 a beer sounded like a great idea then we went and found the YES cabins and finally slept.

andrew

Statistics
Days: 33
Bags of Sunflower Seeds: 7
Loafs of Bread consumed: 20

Motel nights: 1
Paid camping nights: 5
Nights staying with friends: 7

Showers: 8
Flat tires: 8

Payphones used to check PocketMail: 57

(Day 32) Across the Continental Divide

We stopped at the post office in Ashton, ID and picked up some replacement parts, BikeE had mailed to us general delivery. I filled out a change of address form so anything sent to us that arrived late would get forwarded or returned. It then occured to me that if everything was sent to one person we'd only need to have one of us go in and only need one change of address form. Hence the
new Andrew Morton c/o Brad Bynum at General Delivery style addresses.

The matron of our campguound recommended that we take Hwy 47 out of Ashton, it'd meet up with 20 but there'd be a lot less traffic and a much more scenic ride. She was absolutely correct, we had the road to ourselves and saw some georgous waterfalls. One thing that suprised me was the smells, in a car about all you ever smell is a skunk or dairy farm.

We passed through a field of flowers and my first reaction was "Wow,THIS is what toilet bowl cleaner tries to smell like". After reflectinq on that though for a little while I was a bit disappointed with this modern world, instead of being able to describe the scent in terms of the flowers that compose it I can only describe it as the artifical scents used to mask the smell of harsh chemicals. My new job idea for next summer is to work in a national park and meet some cute botanist girl and convince her to teach me to identify the flowers.

When we were stopped at a gas station filling up water I broke out the cellphone and made some calls. Bob Trailers is now sending us new pins for the trailer and my dad may be meeting us in Casper, WY.

The Continental Divide forms the border between Idaho and Montana, we'd been a little worried about the pass crossing it. At 8000+ ft. it would be the highest point we'd been at to date.
We knew the approximate mileage to the top and kept getting a bit more apprehensive as we got closer and closer but didn't gain any elevation. I was envisioning this evil set of twenty-something switchbacks at an 8% grade. We finally started climbing just a mile from the border and I was relieved and then disappointment quickly followed. I felt a little cheated, we only gained about 500 ft and that was it, take the picture by the Montana sign and drop down. It was truely the most anti-climatic pass ever. In Brad's own words "No, I did not climax".

andrew

(Day 31) Not a riding day, not an event day, just an average day

Oh how I hate mosquitoes, I woke up on the baseball field in a state of misery. My sleeping bag was wet from condensation, I was covered in salty dried sweat and insect repelent. The mosquitoes stung my forehead, ears and lip, I was pissed and ready to get riding.

Along Hwy 33 we met a cyclist named Jim from North Carolina riding a sweet looking Cannondale with a Bob trailer. He was not happy with the wind, there was only one day he'd had tailwinds. We exchanged addresses and wishes of good luck and rode off our oposite directions.

In Rexburg everything closes on Sunday. We were able to find an Albertson's that was open and took a two hour lunch break in it's shade. There was no reason to hurry through the hot part of the day when we couldn't pickup our mail in Ashland, 20 miles to the north, until the next day (Monday).

Hwy 20 sucked going out of Rexburg, the Idaho DOT had marred the perfect six foot wide shoulder with a six inch long rumble strip every 15 feet that covered the entire width of shoulder. So when we saw the Jessen's RV Park and Bed & Breakfast as we started to come into Ashland it seemed like the perfect place to stop.

It was run by a couple that seemed like the archetypical grandparents, she'd dote on you and he spent his time fixing stuff. This was the best campground we've been at, they had marshmallows and let us make smores that night. I'd love to be able to stay there again.

andrew

(Day 30) Pizza: it's a much better lunch than puddinq

[Next mail stop:
Andrew Morton
c/o Brad Bynum (this is so only one of us has to go into the post office to pickup mail. )
General Delivery
Casper, WY 82609]

Our 70-year-old neiqhbor, Dick, woke us up at 08:00 by describing how well lip balm worked on his hemroids and then launched into another round his stories. It was like the pudding in a verbal medium: the stories were interesting but there's only so many you can hear before getting a bit sick. Somehow we managed to say GOOD BYE (you had to almost shout for him to slow the story down enough to be heard) and got going by 10:00.

We went down into the park a little ways and rode along one of the interpretative trails but decided we wanted to hurry up and get to Arco for lunch. At the visitor's center, where we'd stopped for water, Brad realized that one of the metal pins that holds the Bob trailer onto his bike was missing. I went in and asked if they had a coathanger or something I could use to secure the trailer. I narrowly avoided another conversation with Dick while I was waiting. They had some wire that we used to secure it so we were able to continue. [7/2/01 we called Bob and they're mailing us some replacement pins]

We pushed on to Arco and were ready for lunch. Brad had mentioned pizza and I was all for it as long as there was a salad bar. Amazingly there was a pizza place and they even had a one-shot salad bar. We stuffed ourselves and I perfected my saladbar-kung-fu, I fit about 5 lbs of vegetables on my plate.

We must have sat at that pizza place for two hours digesting. This time the long lunch worked in our favor, it had started to cool off by the time we left. With a full stomache it was pleasant riding. We knocked down 40 miles before the sun set on the way into Mud Lake.

I'd needed to page a friend so instead of stealth camping along the highway in the sagebrush before town, we went on into town in the dark. The bar we stopped in was exactly what you'd expect in a small hayseed town. There were four or five farmer types sitting around giving the western movie on the TV a thousand-yard-stare, an older crosseyed lady tending bar, and only Michelob on tap. I used the phone then we got a beer and sat down to watch the movie. We didn't ever learn the name of the movie, but Brad identified Burt Langcaster and I recognized Lee Marvin, it was really one of his signature films complete with chalkboard mission planninq, fretting about the necessary split second timinq but completing the mission only to find that the bad guys have cut off their escape. We left before they could finish off the bad guys.

The problem with being in town after dark is that it's impossible to find a place to camp. There could be a thousand places to camp but you can't see them because you really want a spot that isn't visible from the road. Eventually we found some people we could ask, they pointed us across the street to the baseball field that we would never have spotted.

Idaho has one big problem, the most common animal bred here is the misquito. By coming down into all the farms and canals in the valley, we'd entered primemisquito breeding grounds. That night was so hot and humid and with no shower since Boise I was so sticky that I slept with the sleeping bag on top of me. It was horrible, I woke up several times praying for dawn. My bag would start sticking to me so I'd shrug it off but then the mosquitoes would fly in and stinq me in spite of all the Off I'd applied, and the Off just made me stickier. Arrggh! This was the first time on this trip I've had dreams of a shower.

andrew

(Day 29) Pudding sounded good...

The pudding really did sound like a good idea. I'd just intended to stop at the store in Fairfield to check email. But then a V8 sounded good and then we decided to fill up our water. It was just bad luck that I walked by the Jell-O display.

The day before (Day 28) we'd stopped at the Tollgate Cafe on Hwy 20. We'd had a good pull up the grade and an iced tea sounded really nice. After getting to talking with the lady who owned the cafe, we ended up having a piece of chocolate pie, it was fucking excellent. We left with visions of pie dancing around in our heads. As the miles wore on the thought faded, when we woke up this morning (Day 29) it had been completely forgotten.

Staring at the Jell-O display, the pie idea came rushing back to me and I snatched up a box of pudding, some milk, cookies, and a tub of cool whip. Outside it only took a little persuading to convince Brad that we should go find some shade and make that pie.

The cook pot was still seasoned with corn pasta and alfredo sauce from the night before and beans and rice from the night before that but we didn't mind. The pudding set up quickly but we couldn't wait, we got at the Cool Whip with the cookies. I was already starting to feel a bit queasy before we started in on the pudding/pie mix, but out of some sense of duty or maybe honor we tried to finish the whole thing. It was tough, but we ate it all. Getting moving again was painful, while we'd been sitting in the shade the day had been heating up.

I'm sure there are a bunch of lessons to be learned here. You're not going to ride well with only the nutritional equililavent of sugar covered styrofoam in your stomache... Two hour breaks in the late morning when it's still relativly cool is a bad idea, same break at 14:00 when it's hot, no problem... Take small breaks and keep moving... And so on, I just remember how tough it was riding out of town only wanting to drink water and lie in a shady spot.

Coming up on the lava fields that make up Craters of the Moon National Monument made for a strange afternoon. The soil went from flat farm land to six foot piles of dark black rock with only lichen and the occasional sagebrush growing on it. It looked like there'd been a fire. I was glad I wasn't taking a bro (Mt.) bike or, even worse, a covered wagon across it. Impassible is the only word I can think of for it.

The campgrounds in the park were nice but the $10 fee was a bit much for us not having a car and them not having showers. Our neighbor, Dick Collins, was one of those talkative types that you can't walk away from. The seventy-year-old guy had a couple thousand stories, from his childhood in Michigan to his five years in the Air Force to the German tourists he'd met last week, and he could go from one to the next with no visible seam.

He kept us up after 24:00 describing his entire family and their relationships, telling us about running the boom on B-29 refuler, Texas cathouses, and his love of Jonathan Swift and calling CSPAN.

andrew

(Day 28) Touring America one supermarket at a time

All we did today was hangout in the parking lot of Albertson's in Mountain Home, ID. We did a little riding in the afternoon.

andrew

(Day 27) Leaving Boise

Up late, and slow to start packing. We really didn't expect to leave early but we weren't planning on 15:00. It was tough to leave, I'd thought about just calling off the trip and spending the summer in Boise but that seemed like something I'd regret later. We said good-bye and found our way onto the Green Belt.

One plus to leaving that late was we were there when the care package from Chris Petrell, my friend from the Bay Area, was delivered. He hooked me up with a ton of batteries, a couple of CDs with software for uploading the pictures from my digital camera, and a tiny digital voice recorder.

What at first just seemed like a novel thing to have soon proved to be indispensable (that phrase sounds like it came straight from the mouth of my father). I've been using it primarily to dictate emails that I later write into my Palm. It also works great for keeping track of mileages: record the names of the cities and their mileages and the milepost nearest the sign. I'm totally stoked.

Rain was forecast for Boise and the clouds looked like they were ready to dump on us at any minute. The winds in front of the storms pushed us down the interstate at 15-20 mph. Other than a couple of small showers we managed to avoid the storms. It made for some pretty riding. Clumps of black clouds all around, you could watch them drop down and sort of lower a mist to the ground where they'd be raining. I enjoyed the afternoon, the weather was cool and we didn't have to worry about sunscreen.

I've spent quite a bit of time on the road and there are certain things you expect to see on the side of the road. Beer bottles, pieces of bungee cord, remnants from tire blowouts, aluminum cans, old car parts and plastic bottles half full of urine. Other stuff surprises you, some because it's useful but no one else picked it up: construction hard hats, a Winnie the Poo chew toy that plays the song if you press a button, a 1 quart steel bowl with price tag still attached, fruit and vegetables. You come up with a story to explain how each thing arrived where it did. Some stuff is just plain discussing: dead animals, with or without maggots, syringes,
but the single most disturbing thing I've ever seen on the side of the road has to be the twelve inch transparent pink plastic dildo that was resting beside one of Interstate 84's off-ramps. It was foul, and I've got a picture to prove it.

andrew
P.S. We just got word from Joe Lane that we aren't drinking enough porter, we'll try to remedy this. Does Mississippi Mud count as porter?

(Day 25 & 26) Boise, it's just a bigger version of Reno

[Hey our next mailing address is:
Andrew Morton or Brad Bynum
General Delivery
Ashton, ID 83420
we'll be there on 7/1/01]

Got up late and got started doing laundry and other cleanup stuff. Eventually we got going and borrowed Airielle's suby and ran around doing some errands. I got a BikeE cyclometer and Brad dropped off his film. We also picked up a box to mail unneeded stuff home.

We spent the evening sitting around drinking 40s with Airielle and Sierra. It was pretty fun, we ended up going to a Chinese food restaurant called Twin Dragon. It was some good greasy late night food, a bit pricey though.

--

6/26/01
I'd fallen asleep trying to finish The Giver, it was definitely not worth the trouble. I woke up when Airielle's mom, Shannon, was making coffee. I talked to her for a while, she's an interesting lady. She told me about living in a bus for a year, working seasonal jobs and traveling around the west.

We went with Airielle to meet Sierra for lunch. The food was okay, but I enjoyed taking shots of hot sauce with the owner of the restaurant. Sierra's lunch hour was up so we dropped her off and looked around The Dragonfly, where she works (for the Reno people it seems like what Art Dogs aspires to be).

Brad wanted to go record store shopping so I got to read a couple of the Acme Comics they had at The Record Exchange while he looked. He found a couple he liked and one as a gift. Finally we were off to find a thrift store where I could buy a new pair of pants. After I'd purchased them I realized they were wool, I may end up tossing them but they were only $0.99.

That night we ended up watching True Grit with John Wane and Once Upon A Time In The West. I fell asleep 30 minutes into Once Upon a Time, it seemed like a cool movie though.

Boise's a nice town, sort of a big Reno. If I was living somewhere else and had to choose between the two Boise would win, there are way more cute bike girls.

andrew

(Day 24) Stage 2 Complete

[Hey sorry I sat on this a while we've been hanging out in Boise having too much fun to write emails.

On another note http://www.drewish.com is down temporarily, hopefully it'll be straight sometime next week.

We slept in since we were a full day early for Boise and hadn't gotten a hold of my friends to know we were coming. It was nice to get a shower, a clean change of clothes and a bit of time to read. I called my friends in Boise but no one was home so we decided to ride into town and find some place to hang out while we waited.

Bike riding in Idaho is a bit scary, we'd gotten used to wide shoulders and bike lanes on major streets in Oregon. Drivers don't seem to give you as much space, I compensate by going faster. It feels safer when you're moving at a speed closer to that of the traffic around you. We rode on the sidewalks when we needed to go slow or the wrong way on a one-way street and just tried to get into town.

We found a Mexican restaurant and had some overpriced food of reasonable quality. There were two guys playing live music, Spanish songs and English covers in Spanish. Brad got his tape recorder out and got most of Yesterdays and Under the Boardwalk, he probably got some other ones that I can't remember.

As we were trying to find a way downtown that didn't involve a freeway, an evil windstorm came up. It was like the beginning of The Wizard of Oz, with all the stuff blowing by. I swear I saw a refrigerator box go flying by. We started singing the "Why'd you ever wanna go to Idaho" song, it was so cool.

We found their Greenbelt, it's a bike path/park that runs along the river through town. The owner of a fruit stand we'd stopped at had told us about it and that they were having some kind of River Festival along it. Having nothing better to do Brad and I rode around in the crowds and watched a couple bands. The whole thing reminded us both of the kind of thing Reno would love to do (on a smaller scale of course). People were stoked on the bikes, we got the standard questions and gave the stock answers, I need to print out a handout.

Airielle called me back on my cell phone and we made plans to meet her and her friend Sierra. With a half-hour to kill I got to watch this badass country band do a 15 minute cover of Folsom Prison Blues, it was good. We were late meeting them, Brad stopped to watch this guy playing cello and I started staring at this gorgeous girl who was also watching the guy, Airielle actually ended up finding us.

We rode through Boise at high speed zigzagging toward Airielle's house. Once there we dropped off our gear and hopped into her trusty Subaru wagon and went over to Sierra's house for dinner. We talked about going to some hot
springs and the other person I knew in Boise, Little Bob, called me back.

I met Bob and Airielle when I visited my friend Dan in Spain. He was studying Spanish in San Sebastian and was friends with both of them. We all hung out a bunch during the two weeks I was in Spain.

Hot springs sounded good to Little Bob so he came over and we loaded into his Suburban and headed north. The hike in was pretty crazy but the springs were worth it. With no city lights near by you could look up and see millions of stars as you sat soaking. Hike out and back to Airielle's house to sleep.

andrew

Statistics
Days: 24
Bags of Sunflower Seeds: 5
Loafs of Bread consumed:16

Motel nights 1
Paid camping nights 3
Nights staying with friends 4

Showers: 6
Flat tires: 7

Payphones used to check PocketMail: 42

(Day 23) Out of the frying pan and into the fire

It was a great feeling waking up knowing that today we'd be finished with Oregon. It helped me forget about sleeping on the rockiest soil God saw fit to leave in the entire state.

There are a couple of things we'd gotten used to about Oregon. The first thing visible in any town being either a Les Schwab tire store or sign advertising a store. Only putting mile markers on one side of the road and the numbers count total mileage in the state (in Nevada and California they put mile markers on both sides and the mileage resets at each county line). Walking back into a store after drinking a beverage and swapping your bottle for your 5-cent deposit back. All the dirty hippies trying to get to the Rainbow Gathering in Idaho.

We hit a Dairy Queen in Vale after a long hot morning, got a Blizzard, filled up some water got the hell out of Oregon. Not that we expected Idaho to be much better, but we'd spent twenty something days there and were ready for a new state. Got a picture of us on the Idaho side of the Snake River and I swear you can see the flies, they swarmed as we soon as we were across. I felt like the nucleus of a uranium atom. We'd out run them on the downhill but they'd catch us on the uphill, the only good thing was they weren't stinging us.

Slowing down in Parma I ended up with a flat. Brad walked off to see if there was some place we could camp near by and I got started fixing it. As I was half way done two Mormon missionaries pulled up and asked if I needed any help. I told them I was pretty much done but told them about the trip. They were stoked on it, they asked if I knew who they were and if I'd ever read the Book of Mormon. I told them yes, I knew who they were but no, I'd only read Orson Scott Card's Homecoming books that are based on it. They said they had the real thing in the trunk and would I mind a copy. I'd already been given a copy that I'd left at home after deciding there wouldn't be any time to read it so this seemed like a good time to pick one up. We talked a bit more before the mosquitoes that were now swarming became too much. Brad got back shortly and we put my bike back together then headed for a campground in Caldwell.

It was one of the less safe things we've done. Pushing on the 20+ miles was easy with the 30 mile per hour tailwind that had just appeared in Parma but it was dark and the shoulder wasn't great. We'll definitely try to avoid doing that again but it put us 25 miles outside of Boise.

andrew

(Day 22) [In the Simpson's Comic Book Guy Voice] Best Day Ever.

We knocked out the 20 miles into Burns by 09:30 but it was already 80*F. For breakfast we found R.J's. That was some dang fine food. We highly recommend it, best hash browns I've had on the trip. The other patrons were the best part, mesh backed baseball cap with farming product logo, button up shirt, tight jeans and cowboy boots. They were talking about the recent death of their card-playing buddy when we walked in. They mentioned it had been 95*F the day before, we had no problem believing that.

It was at least that hot today, we got cooked all day. The tailwind moved us along but sure didn't cool us off. We hit two good passes and a bunch of construction along the way.

Riding across the time zone was cool. The weird part was that we're on God's time*, we rise with the sun and sleep when it sets. Setting the clock ahead just sort of makes it confusing, we'd gotten good at guessing the time by the sun, I'm sure we'll adjust.

* God's time comes from a story about a relative of mine. He refused to adjust his clock for day light savings time, he said he lived by God's time and wasn't going to change.

The Oasis Cafe in Junatua was the perfect place to top off some hard miles. While we had intended to just stop for a milkshake, the feel of the place was just too much. Vegetarian food was scarce, but it was the best meal of the trip. The owners, a couple, had just purchased it six months before. They said the restaurant had been there since 1951 and they were trying to keep up the reputation. We thought they were doing just fine, it was the perfect end to back-to-back 90-mile days.

We decided it had to be the road. Hwy 20 seemed like the perfect way to see a cross-section of the US. So we'll see how far across the country we can take Hwy 20. Diverging to see friends but trying to rejoin it as soon as we can.

This just goes to show you that you can never trust a bro biker for directions, they'll try to send you down Hwy 26.

andrew

(Day 21) Forget 80 try 90 instead

God, if I didn't know better I'd think I was riding out Hwy 50 again. This whole desert thing is so familiar, up early so you can ride while it's still cool. Lather sunscreen on any thing that your helmet, long shirt and pants don't cover. Sweat your way up one hill then cool off on the way down so you're ready for the next one. Find some shade to hide in while you eat lunch, regret leaving it as soon as you're moving. Thinking that you're really on today, moving that fast, then stopping and realizing it's just a tailwind. Speaking of tailwinds, praying to Winnie Cooper paid off, we got hooked up. Not being ones to let a good tailwinds go to waste we picked up 90 miles, and had an easy doing it.

Brad figured out how to wear his earmuff headphones while riding, I'm not a fan of the practice but he rides a ton faster so I'm not going to complain. Plus it's really funny, he either looks like a quarterback (picture the part that joins them in front of his mouth) or some six-year-old trying to dress up like a Stars Wars character. I figured out how to make a visor for my helmet from an old map and duct tape, I'm so proud.

Sam Philips is, to borrow a phrase someone I used to work with said too much, the MAN. Not only did he host my mailing list on his machine, he also got me setup with weather by email. I email a city name or zip code to weather@dasbistro.comand it emails me back a forecast (any one interested in using it email me for details). Oh and most importantly he found out where avocados originated, central America. Now if anyone can tell me when they started being used in sushi...

andrew

(Day 20) Ahead of schedule? How did it happen?

We got a good start and were in and out of the Safeway in good time. Then the tire problems started. Brad had a flat on his back tire and later I had a slow leak on my front. While we were stopped for Brad's flat the guy from the Porches place on Hwy 30 drove by waving, it took us a second to figure out where we'd seen him before.

The other thing that took us a minute to figure out was why all the truckers were honking and waving at us. Without realizing it we were back on Hwy 97, they'd seen us on the way out of Klamath Falls and we'd been waving at them earlier.

It'd been a while since we had a shower, so that became the reward for getting to Bend early. The KOA was right on the edge of town so we put down the five bucks each and took turns showering, we even washed some clothes. As we were sitting there this mt. biker bro walked up and started talking to us. He was recommending we take Hwy 26 because it was more scenic, had less traffic but was just a little longer. We also talked about food, the one idea he had that Brad and I both loved was eating at Wendy's, they usually have an all you can eat salad bar. We decided to take Hwy 20 instead of scenic, we wanted to get the hell out of Oregon. The day before we'd done the math and determined Chicago wasn't going to happen by July 25th. Brad got a hold of Erin and she's going to move her tickets back. But in honor of his good idea we decided to go find a Wendy's and raid their salad bar. Unfortunately the Wendy's we went to did not have a salad bar nor did the Carl's Jr. next door. We settled for Wendy's and enjoyed the Biggie Value Menu.

The plan with towns is get as far out of them as you can before you camp. There's less traffic, more places to camp and less people to cause problems. With this in mind we sped out of town, ridding past sundown we picked up 20 miles before we camped.

andrew

(Day 19) 80 Miles

Brad was up super early, he woke me when he was half packed and we were riding by 06:00. It felt good to be moving in the desert when it was early and cool. We dropped into Maupin and watched the rafters go by on the Deschutes river, which cuts through the middle of town. I'd love to take a road trip up to Oregon, visit Smith Rock go rafting. Anyone interested?

It was a nasty climb back out, maybe two thousand feet to the next ridge. We pulled half way up it and decided to take a siesta in the shade, we'd cleared 40 miles and it was just after 12:00.

While the area was not much for scenery, seen it in Nevada, it made for some good riding. We cleared several big passes, enough to make me wish I had a cyclometer with a built-in altimeter. Then when we finished we could have had an 80-mile day where we gained n-thousand feet.
We at dinner watching a beautiful sunset over the Three Sisters and Mt. Hood.

andrew

Charles' Rules of Camping
• Don't make two pieces of trash. If you open an oatmeal packet don't tear the top all the way off, your less likely to loose it. If it does tear in two put the small one inside the big one and fold them up and eat them o no one finds out you're not hardcore.
• Wear a nightshirt. Not only will you stay warmer, the clean "night only" shirt won't stick to your sleeping bag like the salty-sunscreen-crusted day shirt.

(Day 18)

We got going late, not a normal late but a riding-around-12:00-because-the-place-you-camped-was-in-a-valley-and-under-some-trees-and-no-one-saw-the-sun late. I'd slept badly, my back hurt, my allergies were going and had made a mess of my throat and I was still tired.

We got going on a bike trail that used the route of the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway. It was great riding and no cars, sadly it only went for a few miles.

We got back onto the interstate for a few miles until Hwy 30 started up again and we could get back on it. A mile or two down we saw a sign we just couldn't pass "ICE CREAM", ohh it was nice. The place, Route 30 Classics, was part ice cream parlor and part dealer/mechanic of older Porches. It was a run by a couple, he apparently was into the cars and she made an awesome espresso milkshake.

Back on Hwy 30 we snaked up high above the Columbia for no reason but scenery, you'll recall that that was the reason the road was built. Everything was much drier here, the mountains across the river in Washington were rolling but barren except for dried grass, it looked like the area around San Francisco in the summer. We didn't mind were two desert boys who were sick of rain forest. The allergies all but stopped, it was time to start up with the sunscreen again though.

Safeway in The Dalles was dinner, while Brad was inside bargain hunting I was outside trying to ignore the hobo guy who wanted to bitch about all the Mexicans in the area. He was trying to think up a trivia question to ask them, I believe he settled on "What was the name of the ship that was sunk starting the Spanish American War?". As we left town we got a great view of Mt. Hood

Question for the list: Where in the world did the avocado originate?

For bonus points prove or disprove the following: Tropical fruits generally have thicker skins than non-tropical ones

andrew