Today I got up at 6:20. I went to the bathroom and changed into my riding clothes. The weather called for rain. I think if I was by myself I would have taken another day off. The hostel was a really nice place to recuperate and rest up. It felt amazing to sleep in a real bed for two days. Today we had to do a big push to make up for taking yesterday off. We planned for 86 miles and if we felt good another 20 to get to Summerville. Then I remembered that Marks wife was going to meet us at the end of the day. She offered to carry our panniers in the camper. For the last couple of days I toyed with the idea that this was cheating and I should carry my bags the whole way. However one glance at the elevation profile and I immediately changed my mind. The Ozarks were in full swing and it really did look like a roller coaster ride. I reluctantly put my panniers with everyone else’s: in the camper. We rode about 3 miles and the stopped at yet another McDonald’s. I had cracked and order a breakfast sandwich. I downloaded the McDonald’s app and since I ordered a sandwich I got a free McCafe. I’ve never had one before so I got a caramel mocha. I couldn’t taste any coffee in it but I thought it was pretty good. Good enough that I would probably order it again. After 5 minutes of finishing it my heart started beating faster than normal. Boy was I wired! It probably didn’t help that before we left I also ate an awake granola bar which has enough caffeine equivalent to 1/2 cup of coffee. I couldn’t sit down and began to pace around McDonald’s. Continue reading Day 21: Cheater →

Marks wife and kids drove out to meet up with him for a few days and they arrived last night. We decided to take an impromptu rest day. I was secretly glad as there were a bunch of things I wanted to catch up on. The post office was closed when we got here yesterday so I have to go and mail somethings home. Mark and Jolee spent the night with their family and weren’t around when we got up. We laid around until someone suggested we go find coffee. There was a shop down the street. I don’t really drink coffee so I ordered a hot chocolate. Brent got a blueberry scone and it looked so good everyone else ordered one too. While eating we looked up things to do in Farmington. A local caught some of our conversation and made a few suggestions. One of them was to visit the Bonne Terre mine. We asked how far away it was as and he said only 15 miles like it wasn’t that far. Continue reading Day 20: rest day →

Day 16:

Continue reading Day 16-19 →

Today we woke up at 6:00. No one slept well due to the heat. The fact that it’s not even seven o’clock and its sweltering hot is not a good thing. I’ll have to monitor how much water I’m drinking closely. We hope to go 75 miles plus today. The terrain is suppose to look like yesterday so I don’t think it’ll be that bad. Thank goodness we are finally out of the Appalachian Mountains!
It’s now 9:10. I’m sitting in my tent. There’s a small chance of rain so I put my rain fly on. I don’t want to take a chance with the rain but I don’t know how I’m going to sleep when the inside of my tent feels like it’s slowly cooking me. Anyway let’s recap the day. Continue reading Day 14: two weeks down →

Day 13: 
Woke up about 6:15 to voices. I popped my head out of my tent to discover I was the last one up! I had to hurry so everyone wouldn’t be waiting on me to leave. I was feeling kinda sluggish so I went to the bathroom to splash water on my face. I hoped it would wake me up some but to no avail. The plan yesterday was to go 80 miles today. I wasn’t looking forward to it as the last couple of days we were only doing 50 to 60 miles. After studying the maps we noticed that we could cut out 20 miles by taking route 150 through Dansville and end in Springfield. Dansville also had a reputable bike shop where we figured we could get our bikes checked up. I haven’t noticed problems with my bike but it will nice to have peace of mind that my bike will be at 100%. Continue reading Day 13: Crusin’ →

Day 10: The 96%
I remember yesterday being long. I only went 67 miles so it wasn’t the longest day by far. However we climbed several big hills and got rained on quite a lot. It had been several days since any of us showered. We also hasn’t done laundry in a while. We tired to sink wash our clothes but it’s been so humid or rainy that nothing will dry or stay clean. To say the least we were gross. Clothes are heavy so I’m only carrying two shirts. One to ride in and one to sleep in. I can’t describe the sticky-ness of everything. Even over my geology field camp I think I was more clean. So it was a given that we stayed at a motel for the night. The closest one was in Hazard, KY. It’s called the Daniel Boone Motor Inn. To anyone else it would have been smelly but to us it was paradise. It was cheap, had showers, laundry and a steak house attached to it. So for the first night of the trip I paid 22 dollars for housing. It was an hour shower for sure. After everyone showered we walked down to the restaurant. Continue reading Day 10-12  →

The question: do I need to stop for the day? Before I call it quits for the day I ask myself the following questions.

1. How long have you been biking? If it’s been less than 5 hours stop complaining and keep going. If it’s been more than 5 hours continue to ask the following questions….
2. Are you dehydrated? If you are, drink water. If you’re not, doesn’t matter drink water anyway. Hydrate or die.
3. Are you angry? If you are it means your are hungry: Will something sugary work? Or salty Or candy? Or a piece of snickers or a handful of skittles? If not eat a Clif bar.
   If you’re not: eat something anyway. Eat anything you can find.
4. Are you climbing a hill?
   If yes how long have you been climbing? If more than 3 hours take a two minute break and get back at it! The hill will end eventually.
   If no: why are you complaining?
5. Is it sunny? If yes, are your sun reflectors on? Drink some water and be glad it’s not raining.
6. When was the last time you showered? If more than 3 days change your socks. If not, stop complaining, you’ve gone longer
7. Are you bored? If yes, turn on some music. Or talk to your companions. Or look at the beautiful scenery.
8. Are you sore? If yes, adjust your position. Drink more water.
9. Are you sore because you’re in the wrong gear? If climbing, gear down and be patient. You’ll get there eventually. If going down, why are you complaining? Enjoy the downhill.
10. Do you just need to review rule number 5 from The Rules? Yes. The answer is always yes.

Day 5 continued:

I ended my entry a little earlier than I wanted to yesterday. It takes at least an hour to write out a post and another if I want to add pictures and another half hour if I want the pictures to have captions.

Yesterday we woke up at 6:45 however we didn’t leave the shelter until 9:30. We then rode into town to meet up with Evan at a coffee shop. Mark wanted to grab some snacks at a store so we stopped at a (I think it was a Kroger’s) store. As we were checking out the sky opened up and a downpour began. We decided to get to know one another in the store entryway and wait out the rain. I learned that Evan is from Hawaii but is about to enter his Junior year at Harvard. He also plays the violin!

Continue reading Day 5 continued, Day 7, Day 8  →

I don’t know how much I can keep up my blog. I don’t get much downtime at the end of the day. And if I do I’m so tired or hungry I just eat or go to sleep. There were a couple times in the last couple days that were really tough. The terrain has turned mean and sometimes for hours it’s hill after hill. The worse ones are the ones with bends you can’t see around. When I get to the turn after climbing straight up I hope that it goes down or flat. But nope it goes up and up. My parents keep asking how I feel. It’s hard to explain. Physically I feel better than I thought I would. My shoulders were sore for the second and third day but yesterday and today they’re great. My butt doesn’t hurt as long as I can stand on my bike every 25 minutes or so. What hurts is my brain. Everyone who told me that biking across the country is 10% physical and 90% mental (Mentally insane haha). But yeah they are 100% right. I’m developed an attitude that there is nothing else to do but climb this hill so I might as well keep going. It has to end eventually. Going down can be just as worse. Sometimes it gets really steep and since my 2 companies are riding tandem (2 seater bike) they can go way faster than me. Who are my companions you ask? Well it’s a father and daughter pair: Mark and Jolee. I feel so out of shape compared to them since Mark is 46 and Jolee is only 13! I can’t believe that. I don’t remember what I was interested in at 13 but I can’t bet you I would have never thought about biking across the country. We picked up another rider today: Evan. He’s from Hawaii and is entering his junior year at Harvard. A couple places we have stopped at have guest books for us to sign so the shop keepers and see how many people go through the town. It seems like there is a couple of people just ahead of us. It’s really neat to meet people.

Continue reading Day 2 to Day 5 →